Sounds familiar

I was reading a blog post “Pay Me Please: A Freelance Web Designer’s Guide to Billing and Price” which really got me thinking. It has some nice helpful tips that I might use myself. But what really got me was when I started reading people’s comments to the post. I read the last one and I thought I would share it because it sounds a lot like people we have to deal with at work.

The story starts:

I was hired for a straightforward case of web design; this person approved of the work; she discussed ongoing maintenance and requested that I upload the site and supplied the account info in order for me to do so. The agreement to maintain the site was made on my part only in exchange for the unused disk space on the server, and free of charge; basically an act of good will and the best intentions on my part; she also requested to pay half at that point, half after upload; here is when things got interesting.

Something I have learned is that “acts of good will” are only good if you know the person. And even then it could go hairy. This is how easily someone can take advantage of you. It is really sad that you have to think twice about being nice. We actually prefer to have the sites stay on our serves. Not to gain money from web hosting, but so that we know what’s going on with the site and have direct access.

Although my policy is work first, pay later, upload last; on the assumption that I would be maintaining the site I foolishly thought I could trust her. This person never paid half first but I went ahead and uploaded the site. Agh. A few days later she informed me that the site was “funky” and had reverted seemingly by itself to its previous state, which was a generic template that she had made using the template builder provided with the web host. Hmm.

It is really sad that we can’t trust people anymore. We let things slide with people to be nice and they just turn around and take advantage of you. What bugs me the most is letting people have access to their site when they don’t know what they are doing. Then they turn around and screw things up. Then lie about touching. Then blame you for it. Come on people just be honest about it, I promise I won’t kill you for it.

This time she made a $50 payment, which was 1/2 of the ‘half first’ or 1/4 of the total payment; requesting me to again upload the site, and informing of the new password to the account, which had inexplicably been changed. Ok-?

In an effort to be helpful I stated the obvious in asking this person whether she had used the template builder, which still had the old copy of the template stored, which the client denied as if being accused of something. It was only a few days later when no further payment or instructions appeared from the client that I realized what was happening. She had waited for me to upload the site, then promptly changed the password to shut me out. The client then stupidly attempted to use the template builder to modify the new website, inadvertently reinstating the old one by mistake. I sent a two-page email, which went unanswered, patiently explaining the differences between the template editor and alternative means to edit the site, something I had contacted her about two weeks earlier, requesting to set a time when we could put our heads together to implement a customized solution; a request that also had gone unanswered. I then wrote another two emails over the course of two days patiently explaining my position in our agreement, all the things I had done and were willing to do for the benefit of her website, and explaining that the agreed upon fee for the site was more than $50.

After a few days this person responded. This time I had apparently crossed the line and been irrevocably disrespectful in some way with my ’smart comments’; and no further pay would be forthcoming. Sadly, it is apparent that THIS CLIENT NEVER INTENDED TO PAY ME. It is unfortunate that so many take advantage of Craigslist’s open market system to cheat and connive their way through the system.

It’s stuff like these that makes starting up a new business really hard to do. You are just trying to pay the bills and hey maybe put food on the table. It’s one thing to dick around the big companies. You have to have some respect and understanding that these people are just trying to make it. If you can’t afford it then you shouldn’t get it