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Why you should never use Upwork

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Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#131

Post by almata »

Mithaldu wrote: post #120
almata wrote: post #69

From the Upwork FAQ: "You'll need to download and use the Upwork Team App—this tool includes the Work Diary, which ensures you are guaranteed payment. By taking work-in-progress screenshots every 10 minutes, it provides proof to your clients that you are hard at work." Screenshots every 10 minutes? You mean... screenshots of MY SCREEN every 10 minutes? That was what made me close their website and totally forget it u…

I can understand why some would not like this, and maybe it's because i'm german, but i do not mind this at all. Here's why: If i'm employed in an office and working at my work pc, not only is the machine often administrated by the company i am doing work for, and thus may have additional software in there, even if it's as simple as a VNC server. It is also on their premises and the screen plainly visible to cameras…

Even when I don't agree with you (I may receive a mail notification with some private content) the system is totally useless as I can have an iPad next to my main computer and use it to spend all the time I want doing other stuff. Or just work with two computers. Or whatever.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#132

Post by throwaway7312 »

ftrflyr wrote: post #95

Long time user of Elance and then Upwork here. I can attest, what occurred in this story is common. The problem that Upwork doesn't realize is that without an active and happy freelancing demographic, clients will go elsewhere. Historically, Upwork has made it a priority of catering to the client. This is evident given their JSS. For those of you who are not familiar with JSS, it is a score that companies / clients u…

We had a similar incident with a freelancer recently. We left them a 5 star review, a nice written review, marked the job as successfully completed, and left no private feedback.

They wrote us immediately after we reviewed them to tell us their score had gone down from our review and we must have done something wrong.

I asked them to send back to us; nothing in there I could see to fix. I asked them to escalate to UpWork; UpWork support gave a non-answer. So I escalated it myself.

The reply I got from UpWork was essentially this: we're happy to see your concern for your freelancer. You gave your freelancer a 5-star review, you marked the job successful, it's a perfect review. The way UpWork gauges freelancer scores is on a rolling #-of-month period. Past a certain number of months, older reviews stop counting toward a freelancer's score and only reviews within that #-of-month period count. So a declining rating is most likely due to older good reviews aging out of the scoring.

So this could be another possibility, if you have better older reviews dropping off the chart and a few more recent reviews that weren't as good, and now are weighing more heavily without the better older ones to offset them.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#133

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

shadlovesgrowth wrote: post #104

FROM THE AUTHOR, PLEASE READ: Apologies for the capitals, ladies and gentlemen. Please can I remind all of you to be Civil. I've just received an email from the man himself, suggesting that I'm getting people to give his FB page 1* reviews and to spam his email. He's threatened (implied) legal action directly against me. Publicly let me say, for the record (Hopefully it doesn't get wiped), that I do not encourage any…

well, of course i was spamming his email... you implied i should by posting his info with a big "FUCK YOU"...

but, thanks for also suggesting i use the 1* reviews... i forgot about that... good idea!

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#135

Post by rakic »

marcell wrote: post #109

Shameless plug: I run a new company, CodeGophers, that competes with Upwork. We get a lot of unhappy Upwork customers. Unlike Upwork our service has a quality guarantee, so clients aren't forced to manage freelancers, and deal with low quality work. It's kind of like a product manager and freelancer combo, and overall it's much easier for the client. If you're unhappy with Upwork, please give us a shot. You can see o…

Hey Marcell,

I really like the idea. Do you code simple iOS apps in Swift?

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#136

Post by Mithaldu »

almata wrote: post #131
Mithaldu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand why some would not like this, and maybe it's because i'm german, but i do not mind this at all. Here's why: If i'm employed in an office and working at my work pc, not only is the machine often administrated by the company i am doing work for, and thus may have additional software in there, even if it's as simple as a VNC server. It is also on their premises and the screen plainly visible to cameras…

Even when I don't agree with you (I may receive a mail notification with some private content) the system is totally useless as I can have an iPad next to my main computer and use it to spend all the time I want doing other stuff. Or just work with two computers. Or whatever.

The time segments would have indicators of low user activity in that case, plus you'd have the exact same screenshot for a long time in a row.

Yes, you can game it even so, but it would be at least inconvenient for you.

Besides, if you do keep the stuff you don't want your client to see on another machine, then there's no reason to worry about being "spied" on. :)

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#137

Post by josephjrobison »

tptacek wrote: post #61
afro88 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just thinking out loud here (haven't tried this) but maybe a better approach would be to not mention time. Simply ask for project specs and break it down into priced components if need be. $1500 at $100 an hour sounds expensive if you're comparing to the CEO's salary. But $1500 for a piece of sales lead infrastructure that has to be built but can't be off the shelf bought. That sounds reasonable.

Heading off the objections you'll get to this: the downside to fixed-price billing is that it maximally exposes the worker both to errors in their own estimation and also to errors in specifications provided by client, and to scope changes. Fixed-price bidding forces the consultant to shoulder a lot of risk. That's fine, if you're sophisticated. Certainly I think fixed-price bids are smarter than hourly billing. In a…

This is definitely a way better approach than hourly billing, for sure.

On the flipside, stating daily billing is not much different than hourly since the client will just divide by 8 (usually). I stated my daily rate after hearing it from you and Patrick and Brennan Dunn, and one client just said - ok so your rate is "$xxx" per hour?"

My point is that daily billing is an improvement over hourly, and with your approach of an overall fixed price and also daily that's a great approach, but the client still knows a daily rate is essentially hourly. A better approach is retainer pricing if not a fixed one-time project!

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#138

Post by Mithaldu »

35bge57dtjku wrote: post #130
Mithaldu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand why some would not like this, and maybe it's because i'm german, but i do not mind this at all. Here's why: If i'm employed in an office and working at my work pc, not only is the machine often administrated by the company i am doing work for, and thus may have additional software in there, even if it's as simple as a VNC server. It is also on their premises and the screen plainly visible to cameras…

> and i don't need to field questions like "This is taking a long time, are you slacking off?" A screenshot taken every 10 minutes in no way proves you aren't slacking off. Your assertion that it protects you like this is specious.

To be more clear on this:

It doesn't mean that IF i get the question, i can say "just look at the log".

It means that i have gotten questions like that and similar before (think "keep a regular logbook of what you're working on") in other jobs; and have never gotten anything like that on Upwork.

You might argue my clients are simply different, and it's possible, but i think i simply don't get things like that because they feel comfortable enough with my work and are mollified by the logs if they have worries.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#139

Post by Mithaldu »

akio wrote: post #129
Mithaldu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand why some would not like this, and maybe it's because i'm german, but i do not mind this at all. Here's why: If i'm employed in an office and working at my work pc, not only is the machine often administrated by the company i am doing work for, and thus may have additional software in there, even if it's as simple as a VNC server. It is also on their premises and the screen plainly visible to cameras…

Your clients are not your bosses though, they are your clients. In your traditional office environment, for example, it would be unusual for the business's clients to require visibility of the business's computers.

In my particular area of work (programmer to hire by hour) the differences between a boss and a client are neglible.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#140

Post by almata »

Mithaldu wrote: post #136
almata wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even when I don't agree with you (I may receive a mail notification with some private content) the system is totally useless as I can have an iPad next to my main computer and use it to spend all the time I want doing other stuff. Or just work with two computers. Or whatever.

The time segments would have indicators of low user activity in that case, plus you'd have the exact same screenshot for a long time in a row. Yes, you can game it even so, but it would be at least inconvenient for you. Besides, if you do keep the stuff you don't want your client to see on another machine, then there's no reason to worry about being "spied" on. :)

It's not that I worry. It's just that I don't think it's correct. Same way as I don't have anything to hide in my email inbox but I don't like the idea of NSA (or anyone) having reading access to it.
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