May 20, 2019 at 18:24I billed $ 18,000 for a static web page ... and I got away with it
- Transfer
Not so long ago, I worked as a contractor, jumping from one project to another. He managed some short-term projects in a week. Others lasted a couple of months. They brought enough money to take a vacation. But I preferred short ones, because there you could set a higher hourly rate. I’m not only my own boss, but I didn’t have to work too much to earn a living. Even my highest rates were quite reasonable, and I always provided high quality service. That was until I was offered a contract in a large company.
This company contacted me urgently, and the manager said that they needed a person right now. The employee who will provide maximum productivity after minimum training. For better or worse, that was my motto. I really liked the project. He was small, fast, and paid well.
After agreeing on a decent bet, I received an email with instructions. Reasons for urgency have become clearer. Their developer left without prior warning and did not inform anyone about the status of the project.
The instructions were simple: read the requirements, then give an estimate of how long it will take to complete the project. It was one of the easiest projects of my career: an HTML page with small animations and several embedded videos. I spent the evening studying the requirements and pondering the implementation. Over the years, I have learned to not write code until I have a guarantee of payment from the client.
I decided that this project would take a whole day. But just in case, he called 20 hours with a total of $ 1,500. After all, this is one HTML page and I can take so much. They asked me to come to their representative office 40 kilometers away. I have to go there for three days, I will work for them.
The next day I arrived at the office. In the mall, a secret door led into a secret world where several employees quietly fumbled in their cubes. The administrator gave me a brand new MacBook Pro, which I had to configure from scratch. I prefer to use company computers because they often require contractors to install suspicious software.
All day I installed tools, set up email, ssh keys and requested invites for different services. In other words, did nothing. That’s why I immediately called 20 hours: 8 hours of estimated time was spent on this fuss.
The next day I was ready to start. Armed with the MacBook Pro, I sent an email to the manager that I was ready to work and was waiting for the above resources. That day I sat in my cube under a softly buzzing lamp and flexed my fingers until the sun went down.
I counted again. I had 4 hours to do the work: it’s real for one HTML page. But it is needless to say that the next day I spent the remaining 4 hours at a corporate dinner, where I ate very well and talked with other employees.
When the time was up, I immediately sent another manager an e-mail and informed me that I was present at the place, but did not receive the resources necessary to complete the work. Of course, he ignored this letter.
The following Monday, I drove 40 kilometers and hesitantly entered the office. To my surprise, the manager himself visited the branch and greeted me enthusiastically. At thirty and a little he was a pleasant, flexible guy. I'm confused. He did not have that insistent tone as he spoke on the phone when he hired me. We had a friendly conversation in which the work was not mentioned. Later we went down to dinner, where he paid for my meal. A good day. There was still no work.
Call me a man of habit, but if you feed me and pamper me every day, I get used to it. The process has become a chore. I came to work, spent time on the Internet, read and watched a video. I sent one letter a day to remind me of my presence. Then he went to dinner and hang out with the guys who told interesting stories. In the evening I got up, stretched, yawned and drove home.
I'm used to it. In fact, I even experienced some disappointment when I finally received a letter with a link to the resources needed to work. I went down to the ground and set to work on the project. But after spending a few minutes viewing the zip file, I noticed that most of what I need is missing from it. The designer sent several files in Adobe Illustrator format, and I could not open them on a MacBook.
I replied to the email, explaining the essence of the problem, and also set out several other questions to save time. At that moment, my 20-hour time has long expired. I already wanted to end this work. Shortly after clicking the "Submit" button, an answer came. There was only one phrase in it: "Add to the thread", with a copy of the letter for Alex. Then Alex himself answered, adding Steve to the thread. Steve replied that the designer is Michelle, and she knows more about it. Michelle received an automatic response that she was on vacation and for all questions contact her manager. The manager answered with a question: “Who is Ibrahim?” My manager apologized for not introducing me.
As a contractor, I usually come and leave the company before other employees notice me. But here I had to accept a stream of letters greeting me on board. The flow continued for some time, and I had to respond to these terribly pleasant messages. Some wanted to meet me in person. They were a little disappointed when I said that I was in California. Envious, they said what a wonderful weather we had.
They kindly ignored my letters. They used CC to reject questions. They used spam to reject everything I requested. I spent my days as an archaeologist, rummaging through the deep trenches of emails in the hope of finding answers. You can imagine what level of impostor syndrome I experienced every time I remembered that my only task was to create one static HTML page. The 20-hour project with an overestimated hourly rate turned into a 7-week adventure, where I enjoyed free meals, drove 80 kilometers every day and delved into email.
Finally, I completed the project and posted to the corporate Github. All great adventures come to an end sooner or later. But shortly afterwards, I received an invitation to review the code by the whole team in Google Hangout. I spent more than a month creating one static HTML page, and now the whole team should consider my work? In my defense, there were some JavaScript interactions, a responsive interface, also CSS animations ... Imposter.
Of course, the video call was postponed several times. When it finally happened, my work and I were not particularly discussed. They all sat in the same room somewhere in New York and talked like a close-knit group. In fact, only a few words were said about the project:
Having returned home in the evening, I realized that I was facing another problem. I worked at this company for 7 weeks, and the initial rate was $ 1,500. This is roughly equivalent to $ 11,100 per year or $ 214 per week. Or it turns out just $ 5.35 per hour.
It barely covered the cost of gasoline. So, I billed them for 7 weeks of work at the initial hourly rate. The total amount was $ 18,000. Of course, I was ashamed, but what else was left to do?
As I expected, there was no answer. If all large companies have something in common, it is that they are not very keen to pay bills on time. I felt like a con man who takes so much for such a simple job, but this is not charity. I drove 80 kilometers every day to get the job done. And if the work was not done, then it was not my fault, but their slow answers.
The following week came the answer. A cold letter from the manager, where he broke all my working days into hourly blocks. Then he highlighted those where I worked, and every day I noticed one hour for a lunch break. In the end, he made some calculations at an agreed rate.
It turned out that I was wrong and incorrectly calculated the total amount. After adjustment, the debt amounted to $ 21,000.
I quickly confirmed this watch.
This company contacted me urgently, and the manager said that they needed a person right now. The employee who will provide maximum productivity after minimum training. For better or worse, that was my motto. I really liked the project. He was small, fast, and paid well.
After agreeing on a decent bet, I received an email with instructions. Reasons for urgency have become clearer. Their developer left without prior warning and did not inform anyone about the status of the project.
“To complete the project, we need all your time. Throughout the duration of the contract, you will work exclusively with us to ensure timely results. We plan to compensate for your troubles. ”
The instructions were simple: read the requirements, then give an estimate of how long it will take to complete the project. It was one of the easiest projects of my career: an HTML page with small animations and several embedded videos. I spent the evening studying the requirements and pondering the implementation. Over the years, I have learned to not write code until I have a guarantee of payment from the client.
I decided that this project would take a whole day. But just in case, he called 20 hours with a total of $ 1,500. After all, this is one HTML page and I can take so much. They asked me to come to their representative office 40 kilometers away. I have to go there for three days, I will work for them.
The next day I arrived at the office. In the mall, a secret door led into a secret world where several employees quietly fumbled in their cubes. The administrator gave me a brand new MacBook Pro, which I had to configure from scratch. I prefer to use company computers because they often require contractors to install suspicious software.
All day I installed tools, set up email, ssh keys and requested invites for different services. In other words, did nothing. That’s why I immediately called 20 hours: 8 hours of estimated time was spent on this fuss.
The next day I was ready to start. Armed with the MacBook Pro, I sent an email to the manager that I was ready to work and was waiting for the above resources. That day I sat in my cube under a softly buzzing lamp and flexed my fingers until the sun went down.
I counted again. I had 4 hours to do the work: it’s real for one HTML page. But it is needless to say that the next day I spent the remaining 4 hours at a corporate dinner, where I ate very well and talked with other employees.
When the time was up, I immediately sent another manager an e-mail and informed me that I was present at the place, but did not receive the resources necessary to complete the work. Of course, he ignored this letter.
The following Monday, I drove 40 kilometers and hesitantly entered the office. To my surprise, the manager himself visited the branch and greeted me enthusiastically. At thirty and a little he was a pleasant, flexible guy. I'm confused. He did not have that insistent tone as he spoke on the phone when he hired me. We had a friendly conversation in which the work was not mentioned. Later we went down to dinner, where he paid for my meal. A good day. There was still no work.
Call me a man of habit, but if you feed me and pamper me every day, I get used to it. The process has become a chore. I came to work, spent time on the Internet, read and watched a video. I sent one letter a day to remind me of my presence. Then he went to dinner and hang out with the guys who told interesting stories. In the evening I got up, stretched, yawned and drove home.
I'm used to it. In fact, I even experienced some disappointment when I finally received a letter with a link to the resources needed to work. I went down to the ground and set to work on the project. But after spending a few minutes viewing the zip file, I noticed that most of what I need is missing from it. The designer sent several files in Adobe Illustrator format, and I could not open them on a MacBook.
I replied to the email, explaining the essence of the problem, and also set out several other questions to save time. At that moment, my 20-hour time has long expired. I already wanted to end this work. Shortly after clicking the "Submit" button, an answer came. There was only one phrase in it: "Add to the thread", with a copy of the letter for Alex. Then Alex himself answered, adding Steve to the thread. Steve replied that the designer is Michelle, and she knows more about it. Michelle received an automatic response that she was on vacation and for all questions contact her manager. The manager answered with a question: “Who is Ibrahim?” My manager apologized for not introducing me.
As a contractor, I usually come and leave the company before other employees notice me. But here I had to accept a stream of letters greeting me on board. The flow continued for some time, and I had to respond to these terribly pleasant messages. Some wanted to meet me in person. They were a little disappointed when I said that I was in California. Envious, they said what a wonderful weather we had.
They kindly ignored my letters. They used CC to reject questions. They used spam to reject everything I requested. I spent my days as an archaeologist, rummaging through the deep trenches of emails in the hope of finding answers. You can imagine what level of impostor syndrome I experienced every time I remembered that my only task was to create one static HTML page. The 20-hour project with an overestimated hourly rate turned into a 7-week adventure, where I enjoyed free meals, drove 80 kilometers every day and delved into email.
Finally, I completed the project and posted to the corporate Github. All great adventures come to an end sooner or later. But shortly afterwards, I received an invitation to review the code by the whole team in Google Hangout. I spent more than a month creating one static HTML page, and now the whole team should consider my work? In my defense, there were some JavaScript interactions, a responsive interface, also CSS animations ... Imposter.
Of course, the video call was postponed several times. When it finally happened, my work and I were not particularly discussed. They all sat in the same room somewhere in New York and talked like a close-knit group. In fact, only a few words were said about the project:
Person 1 : Hey, is anyone working on this sponsorship page?
Man 2 : Yes, I think she is ready.
Man 1 : Fine, add it tonight.
Having returned home in the evening, I realized that I was facing another problem. I worked at this company for 7 weeks, and the initial rate was $ 1,500. This is roughly equivalent to $ 11,100 per year or $ 214 per week. Or it turns out just $ 5.35 per hour.
It barely covered the cost of gasoline. So, I billed them for 7 weeks of work at the initial hourly rate. The total amount was $ 18,000. Of course, I was ashamed, but what else was left to do?
As I expected, there was no answer. If all large companies have something in common, it is that they are not very keen to pay bills on time. I felt like a con man who takes so much for such a simple job, but this is not charity. I drove 80 kilometers every day to get the job done. And if the work was not done, then it was not my fault, but their slow answers.
The following week came the answer. A cold letter from the manager, where he broke all my working days into hourly blocks. Then he highlighted those where I worked, and every day I noticed one hour for a lunch break. In the end, he made some calculations at an agreed rate.
It turned out that I was wrong and incorrectly calculated the total amount. After adjustment, the debt amounted to $ 21,000.
“Please confirm the adjusted hours so that bookkeeping can write you a check.”
I quickly confirmed this watch.