5 ms·
I felt the pain of losing a steady income stream before but for a different reason. I have no problem networking per-se but I did once rather blithely sign a re
by parksy 5y ago
I felt the pain of losing a steady income stream before but for a different reason. I have no problem networking per-se but I did once rather blithely sign a really onerous contract with a massive soul-less organisation that buried me unpaid for about 9 months essentially reworking their entire CRM. Renegotiation was impossible, they'd just point at their massive legal department and I'd squeak and get back to work.
When it was all done and dusted, every ounce of my energy had been poured into this one job for so long, the payment was like a middle finger and barely filled the hole of bad debt that had grown to cover basic living expenses, and it took a couple more months to reconnect with old clients and drum up some new work as I'd essentially fallen off the face of the planet in their eyes. It also took months to recover emotionally and start to feel some joy in life again.
It was a painful, very real education, whereas as an employee you're shielded to an extent from the direct effects of this type of thing since your employer is still legally bound to pay you whether they make good or bad decisions client-wise.
The risks in contracting and self employment are often subtle and not realised for many months until the trap is seen, and I doubt everyone making the transition is aware of all the tricks (net 30 EOM) etc that seem innocuous at first glance but in combination really screw contractors down to terms much less comfortable than sitting in a cubicle 8hrs/day dealing with latent passive aggression from middle management. In the current system at least we just have to weigh up which option suits us better. I was certainly unprepared, but I survived and am stronger / more experienced now with only slight residues of latent psychological damage (mostly self-inflicted).
tl;dr I agree. It's not all roses. Very simple mistakes based on subtle information can have very real, very painful consequences long term and a lot of this knowledge is only gained through hard-won experience. With more inexperienced contractors entering the market it seems like a field day for unscrupulous types looking to lock in some cheap labour without the annoying hassle of traditional employment laws but that's just my hot take. I'd encourage people to think very carefully before making any transition one way or the other that's for sure.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoI used to stop working once they were 15 days late. In general the people causing payment problems were not the ones commissioning the project. The project owner would kick up a stink and a cheque would arrive the next day.
- parksy 5y agoLike I say, I made the mistake in signing the contract. In my case there was no "15 days late", it was payment on completion, and to the letter of the agreement the work wasn't complete until they said it was. Definitely do things different these days. Edit to add - as per your experience the team themselves were pretty good to work with but in my case they had no sway (or at least said they didn't) with whatever archaic nested babushka-esque financial and legal mechanisms this century-old institute had. Perhaps if I'd put my foot down and refused to work it would have forced a proper renegotiation and worked out better in the end but it was a constant state of "we'll be finished next week, just one more thing" so the old sunk cost fallacy was always in deadlock with pragmatism and the frog slowly boiled.
- swishman 5y agoWhat do you do differently nowadays? How do you stop this happening
- parksy 5y agoMe, my problem has always been eagerness to please, so I'd agree to "just do it" and skip the first part. Don't, under any circumstances, do that. If the client asks for a fixed price, then don't propose an implementation cost. Instead, propose a discovery cost. I can easily say how long I'll need to figure out what needs to be done and deliver a documented solution with an estimate of the work needed. If they refuse this approach, then the only other option is "time and materials", i.e. I will send you a log each week of the hours I've worked and the product I've delivered, and you will pay me each week. If they refuse discovery as well as time and materials, and insist on fixed price, then I walk away.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoDon't do fixed priced work.
- lobocinza 5y agoIt can be difficult to find work that pay per hour but almost impossible to find fixed price work that does not result in at least some feeling of being exploited. And I would only do fixed price work again if: a) The deliverables are commoditized and I own the codebase; b) I am desperate.