[thelist] Contract Advice

[Ben Henick]

--- "aphelan (Andrea Phelan)" <aphelan at confederationc.on.ca> wrote:
> From July to September I did some contract work for what is one of
> the
> biggest web development firm in a rather small town. Their standards
<snip>
> $30/h on a per hour basis, not an assumption of project completion.
> This was
> settled, and I got to work on two projects.
> Unfortunately, silly, silly me did not get the contract in writing. I
<snip>
> On the same day my old computer crashed to a final death, taking my
> time
> sheets with it.
> Now here's the thing. The company had unwisely assumed that each
> project
> would take about 10 hours work. In fact, it took more than twice that
> long,
> totalling 48 hours. However I have no paper proof of this. When I
> resigned I
> explained this and he told me it would not be a problem, simply
> estimate my
> hours as accurately as i could and he would pay me accordingly.
> 2 months went by and I saw no money. I contacted the company again
<snip>
> in town. He was, so I called and left a voicemail.
> Still no reply. To date, he will not speak with me.
> What should I do now?

In short, I'd say that you've been had.

However, since you *did* invoice them, and since you *have* been credit
for the work...

If I were in your shoes I'd settle and be a Really Nice Person (if you
haven't lost the chance to do so)... with any luck, the gratitude will
come back around (especially seeing as they were anxious to have you
working for them to begin with).

However, if it becomes clear that they're gonna want you to eat the
loss no matter what, you just have to walk away.

Someone who refuses to pay you what you're worth, or who p***es on the
spirit of their agreements, is by default more trouble than they're
worth... Very Important Client or not.  Patience will reveal better
ones.

That would be my opinion...




=====
Ben Henick              |  "In the long run, men hit only
Web Author At-Large     |  what they aim at.  Therefore,
www.io.com/persist1/    |  though they should fail
persist1 at io.com         |  immediately, they had better aim
persist1_pdx at yahoo.com  |  high."  --Henry David Thoreau

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