7 ms·

A french freelancer's nightmare

24 points by keeguon 14y ago

mgkimsal 14y ago
"Back then I was in a pretty scarce situation so I decided to go for the first job I got offered since I needed money." I've found that pretty much every decision I've come to regret has been made in times when I've been in bad financial situations, and I made the decision primarily based on money reasons. A couple jobs I've taken turned out to be really bad choices, but I took them because I needed something right then. In one case, the company itself was not good (really dysfunctional team/operations inside) and I didn't feel bad about quitting - the other case, I did feel bad about quitting so soon after starting. The people were nice, but I realized I'd made a bad decision and had to get out. Having a strong financial base to draw on when you 'go freelance' either due to choice or you get laid off(!) can not be overstated. I used to be relieved if I had a few weeks of living expenses in the bank, and look back now and wonder how I ever survived with that mentality. (Obviously I did!). shameless plug - http://indieconf.com http://indieconf.com - the conference for web freelancers - has an open call for speakers. Some of the sessions we've had in the past have focused on freelancer financials and legal issues like the issues raised in the OP post. tl;dr - It's really hard to make wise/good decisions from a position of financial insecurity. Well... it's hard enough to make wise/good decisions anyway - doing so from a position of insecurity multiplies that difficulty. EDIT - misread this - the OP hadn't "gone freelance" - had just taken the first job offer that came along. So... not entirely a related plug above, but... the CFP is still open :)
- Loic 14y ago
  It was a freelance work, "the company decided to stop paying me until the project would be completed due to the multiple delays". The post is fairly well balanced by the way, he totally agrees that issues were on both side. The biggest mistake he made was: "I hadn't took holidays for 2 years at the time". This is really really sad. Normally in France you have at least 5 weeks of vacations a year, but you need to earn them for the next year. So, if you change job each year, you get the vacations paid as money but no free time. It looks like he did just that. I am really sorry for him, freelancing is hipped all over the place but it is hard to do it well and nearly impossible without good money in the bank to support the bad months.
pfisch 14y ago
It kind of sounds like this guy took an agreed upon amount of money to do a project and then kept trying to charge more and more for it while only sort of working on it, and then just bailing and never delivering the final product. I'm not sure what he did deliver but it sounds more like he owes the company all the money he has been paid so far since he didn't deliver the product. I mean really the nightmare of this all sounds like it is on the side of his employer. He really didn't include enough details though about the original arrangement.
- keeguon 14y ago
  That's a bit harsh. Granted I bailed at the end because of exhaustion and I didn't reach the expected goals. And sure the company did some gestures over those 7 months that were in my favor. I totally understand the decision to withheld the money of the hours of work done those past couple of months since the project is not delivered (I would probably do the same myself). But you got to agree those hours of work deserves at least some credit.
  - pfisch 14y ago
    It really depends what the initial agreement was. Were you a regular employee or was there an initial contract that you would complete X project for Y dollars by some deadline Z. If it was the second one then IMO you really owe them back the initial deposit they gave you depending on what kind of final work you delivered to them. Honestly handing codebases from one developer to another is less than ideal and makes projects more expensive than they should be. Also I'm sure it was way past the expected deadline of the client. If you delivered nothing in the end then it was really more like they hired a con artist that stole their money, again if you were under the kind of contract I stated above. If you were a normal employee then you just didn't do a great job due to all the stuff you mentioned. Either way I don't know why you would publicize a situation like this. It doesn't matter what way you look at it, this whole story doesn't make you sound like a developer that people would want to hire.
    - keeguon 14y ago
dsirijus 14y ago
My personal burnouts always ended up with visits to ER, so I kind of got lucky there. Why lucky, you say? Because I had legitimate sick leave for those, and good luck finding and employer who will recognize, empathize and treat your burnout as a regular illness. It usually just spirals out of control until it kills everything around it.
spqr 14y ago
Sounds more like a company's nightmare. I hate developers with refactoritis. Sounds like his "cleaning up messy code" that led to the derailment of the project shows he has a terminal case. Programmers have to get over themselves. Their code is not as good as they think it is and other programmers code is not as bad as they think it is. I especially loved calling their lack of payment for lack of agreed upon delivery as blackmail.
conradfr 14y ago
FWIW, when you want to quit a job in France and you agreed with your company (the hard part;) ), you can leave and get unemployment benefits. That said, burnout + having to look for a place in Paris without steady employment, it must have been hard.
posabsolute 14y ago
Having done a bit a of freelancing, to me it just sound that at some point in that project you should just have cut your loss and move out of it. Being a freelancer you get 2 big advantages, you can choose when you take holidays, and you can choose what project you want to work on (it seems to me you failed at taking advantages of either one). Maybe you should have been more direct and say I'm going to take a week off and your project will wait. What you describe look to me as a typical inexperienced freelancer (don't take it the wrong way, we are all inexperienced when we start) agreeing on deadlines that can't be done, without a good team, and without taking the steps to get a better communication around this company, (your were the lead if I am not mistaken). You have a lot to think about, a lot to learn from it, try to think at each point of failure and what you would have do different! But I will agree with the some of the guys here, since this post clearly put you in a bad light, I would not have post it, I would personally remove it.
keeguon 14y ago
As some of you recommended I removed the post but thanks anyway for your advices/replies/comments.
enko 14y ago
I can't read this without signing into google. While I know a lot of people would think that's not a big deal, it really irks me having to sign in just to read a blog post, or whatever. I wish this site had a rule that content behind a login- or pay-wall wasn't allowed.
- Loic 14y ago
  At the time of my previous comment, 3h ago, it was freely available (I always access Google in incognito mode).
antr 14y ago
Is the link broken? 3.05pm GMT
RommeDeSerieux 14y ago
Looks like he removed the post.

24 points by keeguon 14y ago

"Back then I was in a pretty scarce situation so I decided to go for the first job I got offered since I needed money." I've found that pretty much every decision I've come to regret has been made in times when I've been in bad financial situations, and I made the decision primarily based on money reasons. A couple jobs I've taken turned out to be really bad choices, but I took them because I needed something right then. In one case, the company itself was not good (really dysfunctional team/operations inside) and I didn't feel bad about quitting - the other case, I did feel bad about quitting so soon after starting. The people were nice, but I realized I'd made a bad decision and had to get out. Having a strong financial base to draw on when you 'go freelance' either due to choice or you get laid off(!) can not be overstated. I used to be relieved if I had a few weeks of living expenses in the bank, and look back now and wonder how I ever survived with that mentality. (Obviously I did!). shameless plug - http://indieconf.com http://indieconf.com - the conference for web freelancers - has an open call for speakers. Some of the sessions we've had in the past have focused on freelancer financials and legal issues like the issues raised in the OP post. tl;dr - It's really hard to make wise/good decisions from a position of financial insecurity. Well... it's hard enough to make wise/good decisions anyway - doing so from a position of insecurity multiplies that difficulty. EDIT - misread this - the OP hadn't "gone freelance" - had just taken the first job offer that came along. So... not entirely a related plug above, but... the CFP is still open :)

Loic 14y ago
It was a freelance work, "the company decided to stop paying me until the project would be completed due to the multiple delays". The post is fairly well balanced by the way, he totally agrees that issues were on both side. The biggest mistake he made was: "I hadn't took holidays for 2 years at the time". This is really really sad. Normally in France you have at least 5 weeks of vacations a year, but you need to earn them for the next year. So, if you change job each year, you get the vacations paid as money but no free time. It looks like he did just that. I am really sorry for him, freelancing is hipped all over the place but it is hard to do it well and nearly impossible without good money in the bank to support the bad months.

pfisch 14y ago

It kind of sounds like this guy took an agreed upon amount of money to do a project and then kept trying to charge more and more for it while only sort of working on it, and then just bailing and never delivering the final product. I'm not sure what he did deliver but it sounds more like he owes the company all the money he has been paid so far since he didn't deliver the product. I mean really the nightmare of this all sounds like it is on the side of his employer. He really didn't include enough details though about the original arrangement.

keeguon 14y ago
That's a bit harsh. Granted I bailed at the end because of exhaustion and I didn't reach the expected goals. And sure the company did some gestures over those 7 months that were in my favor. I totally understand the decision to withheld the money of the hours of work done those past couple of months since the project is not delivered (I would probably do the same myself). But you got to agree those hours of work deserves at least some credit.
- pfisch 14y ago
  It really depends what the initial agreement was. Were you a regular employee or was there an initial contract that you would complete X project for Y dollars by some deadline Z. If it was the second one then IMO you really owe them back the initial deposit they gave you depending on what kind of final work you delivered to them. Honestly handing codebases from one developer to another is less than ideal and makes projects more expensive than they should be. Also I'm sure it was way past the expected deadline of the client. If you delivered nothing in the end then it was really more like they hired a con artist that stole their money, again if you were under the kind of contract I stated above. If you were a normal employee then you just didn't do a great job due to all the stuff you mentioned. Either way I don't know why you would publicize a situation like this. It doesn't matter what way you look at it, this whole story doesn't make you sound like a developer that people would want to hire.
  - keeguon 14y ago

dsirijus 14y ago

My personal burnouts always ended up with visits to ER, so I kind of got lucky there. Why lucky, you say? Because I had legitimate sick leave for those, and good luck finding and employer who will recognize, empathize and treat your burnout as a regular illness. It usually just spirals out of control until it kills everything around it.

spqr 14y ago

Sounds more like a company's nightmare. I hate developers with refactoritis. Sounds like his "cleaning up messy code" that led to the derailment of the project shows he has a terminal case. Programmers have to get over themselves. Their code is not as good as they think it is and other programmers code is not as bad as they think it is. I especially loved calling their lack of payment for lack of agreed upon delivery as blackmail.

conradfr 14y ago

FWIW, when you want to quit a job in France and you agreed with your company (the hard part;) ), you can leave and get unemployment benefits. That said, burnout + having to look for a place in Paris without steady employment, it must have been hard.

posabsolute 14y ago

Having done a bit a of freelancing, to me it just sound that at some point in that project you should just have cut your loss and move out of it. Being a freelancer you get 2 big advantages, you can choose when you take holidays, and you can choose what project you want to work on (it seems to me you failed at taking advantages of either one). Maybe you should have been more direct and say I'm going to take a week off and your project will wait. What you describe look to me as a typical inexperienced freelancer (don't take it the wrong way, we are all inexperienced when we start) agreeing on deadlines that can't be done, without a good team, and without taking the steps to get a better communication around this company, (your were the lead if I am not mistaken). You have a lot to think about, a lot to learn from it, try to think at each point of failure and what you would have do different! But I will agree with the some of the guys here, since this post clearly put you in a bad light, I would not have post it, I would personally remove it.

keeguon 14y ago

As some of you recommended I removed the post but thanks anyway for your advices/replies/comments.

enko 14y ago

I can't read this without signing into google. While I know a lot of people would think that's not a big deal, it really irks me having to sign in just to read a blog post, or whatever. I wish this site had a rule that content behind a login- or pay-wall wasn't allowed.

Loic 14y ago
At the time of my previous comment, 3h ago, it was freely available (I always access Google in incognito mode).

antr 14y ago

Is the link broken? 3.05pm GMT

RommeDeSerieux 14y ago

Looks like he removed the post.