Yes I will work for free /sarcasm (longish)

[Seraph]

Oy. This lady hurts my head.

Bit O' Background: Since I now have a kid of my own, I decided to start up my own tiny company for web design and such. This makes it easier on both my husband and I, since he can go work, and I can work whenever the heck I feel like it at home, and still take care of the kid. A major bonus is the fact that I don't have to do anything strenuous right now, especially since I'm nine months pregnant. :P

So...the story.

A few months back, I was hired by a freelancer programmer to design a portfolio for her to display her work in. We had a nice little chat, talking shop....mainly about how difficult the freelance world could be sometimes. With all of this, I (stupidly) agreed to be nice and do the design for the very low price of $135.

...She then turns into Le Major SC.

We went through no less than SIX major revisions. We're talking, total revamping of EVERY SMIDGEN of the design. I spent two weeks and countless hours working on it to make it "just right". Eventually, I mentioned to her that she was starting to go beyond what the original contract stated...which was a design that she had in mind already and a couple of revisions. (She gets a full-blown copy of each revision. This is important.)

She apologized, and said she'd definitely pay for the extra work I'd put into it....and asked for another revision. Okay, well she did just say she'd pay...sure. I email it, and ask for feedback on it. No response.

A week later, she finally gets back to me, and explains that she has a brother-in-law who wants to design it for her for "cheaper". Okay, well, I understand that but she did sign a contract and she did take up all of my time for two weeks. She agrees to pay, and I send her the payment info so she can just get it paid and get it over with.

Guess what happens?

Yep. No response. For two months. I called, emailed, IMed her (she eventually blocked my AIM, even though the most I ever sent was a single polite "Hey, xxxxx, can we talk for a minute?")...even called her husband's cell phone. So, sick and tired of having been walked all over on, and since I also had a couple of other unpaid accounts, I decided to hire a collection agency to handle it. (Yes, it's *only* $135....but that's a lot of money to me.)

Collection agency calls back...apparently they got ahold of her the first phone call...and she SCREAMED at them. According to her, since she never ended up using my work, she should not have to pay. She also said that I agreed to not accept any payment, even though she "generously offered to pay $50 for my time". Oh, and the final kicker? We apparently had a nice long chat about the whole thing, in which we joked and generally were buds.

W. T. F.

I laughed and sent every bit of correspondence between the two of us, clearly showing that she was lying through her teeth. CA people go back to her...she starts to cry on the phone. Yes, cry. And then gives the phone to her mother, who announces that she is now the only one to speak to regarding the matter. Yes, she dragged in Mommy. Oh, and Mommy then says she has now hired a lawyer, who will take me to court over this.

Yes, she hired a lawyer...which is what...$400 an hour?...to fight paying $135 that she ever-so-clearly owes. While this will slow up the process, I gotta wonder how much she'll end up blowing before she realizes she has no other recourse than to eventually pay me the $135.

I've now turned the entire matter over to CA...I really don't need to be dealing with the "stress" of the matter (even though it's more comedic to me than anything).

I just hope that my SC and her mommy enjoy the slow but painful eventual realization that they're going to have to pay up sometime...and that they then look at that nice lawyer bill.

[IT Grunt]

Oh yeah... heck, I'd tack any court costs you have to incur onto what they owe. On top of that, it seems to me you have every right to go for the money incurred by the extra time spent above and beyond the original quote. You have someone do work, you pay 'em. Period. It's like the consulting firm I work for. If you come to us for a project, and we take the time to analyze it for you, determine what's needed, lay out the requirements and then send it to you for the green light, you still owe us for that time even if you decide then not to go through. Work's work.

OT, congratulations on your pending new arrival.

[fish3k1]

Damn, I'm so glad I got out of the freelance world before I got into it... no way I'd be able to deal with this kind of kerfuffle.

Just goes to show that getting the client to sign the contract before is nothing more than good practice - you'd have gotten seriously burned without it.

I'd also keep an eye on her afterwards if you can - if her portfolio comes out looking too much like the work you've done, take her/her brother-in-law (not sure who's accountable in these circumstances) for copyright theft ^_^

[HereWeGo]

Great read. I'm studying design to go into freelancing for the same reasons you're doing it, and my SO is a freelance writer. I know how much work goes into it, the hassle, the grueling hours, the total commitment and the stressful deadlines, and sadly I've seen the calls mysteriously stop and the emails go unanswered when it comes time to be paid.

Reading your victory brought a smile to my face. I love the thought of this SC screaming and crying when she realized that she couldn't make you disappear after burning you.

I really have to wonder, as a freelancer herself, if she knew what she was doing or if she was one of those people that think art/writing/music/anything more spiritually fulfilling than a desk job isn't "real work." There's a huge misconception out there that these crafts either come naturally to people or they don't. Easy it ain't.

[digilight]

As a small business owner myself who at times deals with situations that could turn out like this I have a few suggestions for you.

Have a contract stating the scope of the project. Also have a stipulation for what the quoted price covers. If it only covers 4 pages utilizing their supplied text and information then include what costs are if they suddenly change the project midstream on you to cover 7 pages with you doing graphic design work and php programing on the site.

If you just have a blanket quote of 135 bucks to design a site, you will get screwed. If you have a quote of 135 bucks to do a job that will cover A B & C, and anything else is additional (With your pricing for additional work as part of the quote) then you are covered.

You also need to include when payment is due. Is it when the site goes live, is it when they sign off the final proof and you supply them a disc with the material. is it on a piecemeal system (you bill them weekly for work done and they pay as you go).

Cover you ass, cause no one else will cover it for you. I've lost some bucks over the years for not following these simple rules and have gotten smarter. Learn from this mistake and cover yourself.

Also, include the info about when invoices are due, what interest past due invoices are charged at, collection costs/court costs etc. And a small discount for cash paid immediatly is always helpful. I have on client who has some larger invoices. THey used to take 60 days to pay (their standard AP Agreement) they offered me a 2% discount at 10 days and I jumped on it. I'd much rather loose a few bucks and have the check in hand that much quicker.

[LifeCarnie]

$135 is actually a substantial amount. I've seen people receive collections notices over non-payment of $15 magazine subscriptions.

[draftermatt]

In addition to what digilight said. If any changes are required submit a "change order request" to them saying that you will not do any of the extra work until a signed change order is recieved by you.

That way if you start at $135 and they add $200 of work you can get your extra money.

[Seraph]

OT, congratulations on your pending new arrival.

Thanks! We're expecting the new one later this week or next. I'm scared as get out, but it'll be nice to stop feeling like Jabba the Hutt soon!

I'd also keep an eye on her afterwards if you can - if her portfolio comes out looking too much like the work you've done, take her/her brother-in-law (not sure who's accountable in these circumstances) for copyright theft ^_^

Oh it's already out. Thankfully it doesn't look a lot like my work, or else I would've REALLY toasted her.

<snip snip to avoid excessive quoting but I mean pretty much all of digilight's post>

Thanks for the advice. It's definitely been a trial-and-error process, and I literally treasure any drops of wisdom like what you provided. I've been most definitely looking for a revamp of how I structured my contracts, invoices, etc. due to some losses recently.

I'm actually going to sit down later tonight and figure out some new stuff using what you've said. Thanks a TON!

[Apathy]

I want to know what's going through this moron's head.
She's probably just filled with righteous indignation that you want her to pay for services rendered. Hence the lawyer.

[Pedersen]

Here's something else for you: I don't know how useful it will be, but MyBizOffice.com tries to be, basically, the best of both worlds: You're an independent contractor. You do the work, they handle the billing. And you get benefits. Plus they have some standard contracts you can use.

Not sure if it's the right choice for you or not, but it might be worth checking out. Haven't used them myself yet, but have been pondering.

[Dreamstalker]

Damn, I'm so glad I got out of the freelance world before I got into it... no way I'd be able to deal with this kind of kerfuffle.

I'm freelancing now (computer lessons and repairs/maintenance), but only for friends of the family. I've been thinking of doing it publicly, but I don't tolerate asshats so that probably wouldn't go well.

In college, The Twit used the "fact" that IT employees weren't supposed to ask for money (newsflash: that only applies to full-time dept employees who are on the school payroll, how did you find that out anyway?) to try to get me to fix her crap for free. She wanted me to design a website for her (before she called me "selfish" and cussed me out for asking to be paid the $50 we agreed on for me to get her internet working), but I declined. That probably would have turned into the same fun that Seraph had.

I might look into MyBizOffice as well, the IT job front isn't going too well for me at present (ye olde catch-22 with a few companies: in order to be hired I need experience with X, the only way to realistically get experience with X is to be exposed to it in a work environment).

[Pedersen]

IT Career Paths. Epic Length Post!

I might look into MyBizOffice as well, the IT job front isn't going too well for me at present (ye olde catch-22 with a few companies: in order to be hired I need experience with X, the only way to realistically get experience with X is to be exposed to it in a work environment).

Couple quick notes: If you go the mybizoffice route, do not expect them to find you contracts. They don't. What they provide is a billing/collection service, a portable permanent employer of record (which makes it easier to get car loans, home mortgages, etc), and benefits (but those benefits are paid for from earnings from your billing. For example, the health benefits for a full family are something like $1000/month last I looked).

There's good reasons to use them, and good reasons not to. Evaluate your options very carefully before you commit to doing so.

As for how to get the skills you need? In the IT world, that's fairly easy. First, determine the skill set you want to have, and build from there. Here's some advice on any of the options available. Since you're freelancing, the gigs you are likely to land are going to be amongst the following:

• Web Development
• Small custom programming (<6 months)
• Small to medium office technical support (<50 staff)
• Small to medium office installations (wiring, servers, etc)

Now, if you want your career path to be Windows dominated, start with an MSDN subscription. It's the cheapest way to get as much as possible.

If you want a UNIX style path, you have more choices to make. Chances are good, though, that you will want to stick to a Linux base. Right now, that means you should either purchase a copy of Red Hat, download a copy of CentOS, get the latest Ubuntu, or be ready to justify your other distro of choice. I'd go with CentOS (for server) and Ubuntu (for desktop).

Your next choice: Do you want an administrator path, or a developer path? Yes, this is a choice, and pretty much an either/or. You will rarely have a company which needs both in one person. That governs what you do next.

If you are going to be an administrator type, you need to set up a network, learn it in and out, and break it (repeatedly), and then fix it. To do that, you need either a bunch of computers, or something like VMWare Workstation (or VMWare Server).

Things to set up on your network: A firewall. A VPN. A web server. An e-mail server (including anti-spam and anti-virus). Remote desktop/access tools (ssh on linux, remote desktop on Windows). A DNS server. Active Directory (on Windows), OpenLDAP (on Linux). File sharing that works for both windows and linux. DCHP server, including dynamic DNS updates.

Explore the options. Turn stuff on and off. Try to break things. Then try to fix them. When you're done, you should be comfortable enough that you could be dropped into just about any office environment, and fix the problems that are given to you.

If you are going to be a developer type, your career path is different, but you face many of the same choices. You must get a development environment working. Ideally, you should have a non-development environment (a clean install of whichever OS), so you can test out deployment.

Things you must setup and learn: Version control system (sourcesafe is popular on Windows, but I prefer subversion on any platform). Pick one. Learn it. Use it in depth. You will need it to save your ass eventually, I promise.

After that, your development environment. On Windows, it's much a guarantee that you need Visual Studio (some version). On Linux, a bunch of options. ViM, Kdevelop, and others. Visual Slick Edit is cross platform for Windows, Linux/UNIX, and Mac (but costly).

Finally, your programming languages. Learn a bunch of them, to at least a level that you can read simple stuff without having to struggle. At a minimum, learn the high level scripting languages (Python, Perl, PHP), learn some higher level programming languages, too (Java and C#). Finally, you can learn some lower level programming languages, and they will help you out (C++ and C).

If you will be doing web development, you will need to know HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Also, you need to know how they work in IE6, IE7, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, should know about Opera and Safari, and you should know about text browsers (elinks, links, and lynx).

Finally, you should try to know a couple of web frameworks that work for the programming languages you are learning. For instance, Python people would use Zope, or Plone, or Django, or TurboGears. Perl people would know HTML::Mason. I don't know the PHP ones.

Make no mistake, these are not quick and easy career paths. However, you do not have to be in a workplace environment to learn these skills, or to place them on your resume once you have them. Your resume can include a section "General Consultant" as a job title, and that job can have all the stuff you've learned on your own time. It's a valid way to get the skills on your resume.

Furthermore, I'd throw in a section on the resume which lists job skills that are not necessarily shown in other job descriptions, but which are there.

You can do all of this, and get yourself up to a very respectable level, in about 6 months (and that's assuming you're starting from next to nothing). Shoot me a message (or post here), and I'll help out however I can with getting your skills up higher.

Good luck!

[Seraph]

If you will be doing web development, you will need to know HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Also, you need to know how they work in IE6, IE7, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, should know about Opera and Safari, and you should know about text browsers (elinks, links, and lynx).

That's something I need to do myself. I currently can't code to save my life...I use Dreamweaver. (Don't shoot!!)

Oh, and an update.

Lawyer won't help her out anymore....so they've hired her UNCLE as an attorney. Who, amusingly, is not responding to the collection agency. So, CA says they're going to move a bit more aggressively towards her.

Normally I'm not a fan of collection agencies (I have one after me for my old apartments...another story there of a sucky landlord)...but these guys are HILARIOUS. Nothing like hearing them giggle like children when they give me updates on these shenanigans.

[depechemodefan]

Nothing like hearing them giggle like children when they give me updates on these shenanigans.

Hee, giggling. The library has been letting a CA contact people who owe fines/havn't returned books. Great when the customer calls and says, "I couldn't buy a car because I owe you money!" And really, if you took out 10 DVDs and a few books and never returned them, and owe the library $800, maybe you shouldn't have sold those DVDs on eBay.

Hope the SC cracks, Seraph.

[Pedersen]

That's something I need to do myself. I currently can't code to save my life...I use Dreamweaver. (Don't shoot!!)

Okay, to help out a bit:
If you're doing web development, do yourself a favor, and get VMWare Workstation or VMWare Server. If you're on a Mac, you will need VMWare Fusion (Yes, I know about Parallels, but I didn't like it. Fusion worked for everything, Parallels didn't).

VMWare Server isn't as user friendly, so if you're unsure, spring for the Workstation version.

Now, get yourself a legal copy of Windows XP (might take a bit, but it's out there to buy). Get it installed. SP2 will only have IE6. Get Firefox 2 installed there, as well.

Make a copy of the disk image file, and upgrade it all the way to have IE7. Install Firefox 3 (currently it's only beta). Also install Opera. Also install elinks

For more details on the exact steps to do all of the above, contact me (or post here).

For references on the three major technologies, along with details on what works and what doesn't across the browsers, check the following books/sites:

• W3 Schools
• Bare Bones Guide To HTML
• Javascript: The Definitive Guide
• HTML and XHTML: The Definitive Guide
• CSS: The Definitive Guide

As for any backend stuff (such as which web framework to use), well, there's too many possible links. Tell me what you to go to after Dreamweaver, and I'll help you get started