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My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

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Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#61

Post by [deleted] »

oelmekki wrote: post #15
Devilboy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the client is 'not worth it' you're just not charging enough. Just work out what your price is and send them a new quote. Don't ever fire a client, that's just silly. Make the client say no.

> Make the client say no. That's the better thing to do, but there's a problem, here : they already are in contract. Developer tried to do something that way (mentioned in update), arguing there must be an other contract for the video thing and making it way too expansive. But from what I understand, they've just felt back on first contract. Maybe in that very specific case it would be a good thing to break the deal…

[deleted]

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#62

Post by antihero »

I'll keep it short and sweet: Surely if the client has already agreed the price/signed the contract, they have indicated that they are happy to pay the given amount of money for the software they are getting in return. Even if it takes you 20% of the time you quoted and you spent the other 80% masturbating and browsing reddit, it doesn't matter because it wouldn't affect the price either way.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#63

Post by new299 »

michaelochurch wrote: post #22
zorbo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the price for your mental health?

At $50,000 per hour, I'd do 40 hours of work for a hideous client. We're not talking about murder or anything with risk to life. We're talking about dealing with assholes. There is a price (theoretically) that makes that OK, so long as it's time-limited. Of course, the client will almost certainly not agree to $50k per hour, but isn't that kind of the point?

assholes often don't pay their bills.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#64

Post by BjoernKW »

This really makes me angry. Not only the fact that there are actually customers out there who demand such outrageous bullshit from their contractors but also that most certainly there are freelancers who put up with that sort of behaviour.

What makes this all the more infuriating is that both the original poster and lots of commenters waste a considerable amount of their valuable time for justifying or coming up with a solution for weaseling out of the contract with the customer while the only reasonable answer to said customer is to bugger off.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#66

Post by nnq »

Devilboy wrote: post #6
downandout wrote: post #2

In this case, it's probably a good idea to fire the customer. These types of outrageous requests don't exist in a vacuum. People like this are very difficult to deal with, tend to be very miserly, and will be a non-stop headache. The customer will question everything you do, why you did certain things a certain way (even if he or she has no idea what they are talking about), etc. Drop kick this customer from your lif…

If the client is 'not worth it' you're just not charging enough. Just work out what your price is and send them a new quote. Don't ever fire a client, that's just silly. Make the client say no.

Just curious: If the client asks you to also plumb hist toilet, you'd say "yes, but I'll bill you at $5k/hr for the toilet project"?

You really want to be the "do anything for enough money" guy? ...cause this is how you're labeling yourself by going this route more than one time. Imho, taking some pride and saying "no, fuck of, I don't do this, find someone else" makes you feel 1000x better as you realize you don't do what you do just because the client pays you, but also because you want to do it and you want to just do a good job at it. ...it might bring you less money but boy it's wort it (I may be weird, but I get a real kick when I get to just tell someone "NO", regardless of whether it's client that you're too busy to take his project or someone close asking for a favor: it really underlines your freedom and individuality and makes you feel good).

(And just to make it clear: in my book "plumbing the client's toilet" and "letting the client see a video recording of me working" are in the same league of completely unreasonable requests.)

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#67

Post by safwanc »

passerinelabs wrote: post #56
chops wrote: post #44

This is something I actually offer to my clients, and I do it for fun. I guess I was inspired by watching some of Notch's screencaps over a few days. So I capture it with RecordMyDesktop (I run xubuntu), and run through an ffmpeg script ( https://github.com/choptastic/watchmecode ) that resizes the video to be the same length as an MP3, and makes an X minute screencap montage for the client. Then it produces somethin…

Watching Notch's Ludum Dare videos inspired me to create my first OS X app store app. It takes screenshots at a configurable interval and than creates H.264 encoded video of the resultant timelapse. Here it is: http://appstore.com/mac/ScreenshotTimelapse Here are 25 promo codes if anyone wants to try it out: http://pastebin.com/K6Xx59jY

Thanks! I grabbed 9NNKANNR4MPL

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#68

Post by mikeash »

Devilboy wrote: post #6
downandout wrote: post #2

In this case, it's probably a good idea to fire the customer. These types of outrageous requests don't exist in a vacuum. People like this are very difficult to deal with, tend to be very miserly, and will be a non-stop headache. The customer will question everything you do, why you did certain things a certain way (even if he or she has no idea what they are talking about), etc. Drop kick this customer from your lif…

If the client is 'not worth it' you're just not charging enough. Just work out what your price is and send them a new quote. Don't ever fire a client, that's just silly. Make the client say no.

I agree with the sentiment when it comes to the work they want you to do, but this client is indicating that they're likely to cause trouble when it comes to collecting payment, in which case it's probably just not worth dealing with them at all.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#69

Post by mikeash »

nnq wrote: post #66
Devilboy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the client is 'not worth it' you're just not charging enough. Just work out what your price is and send them a new quote. Don't ever fire a client, that's just silly. Make the client say no.

Just curious: If the client asks you to also plumb hist toilet, you'd say "yes, but I'll bill you at $5k/hr for the toilet project"? You really want to be the "do anything for enough money" guy? ...cause this is how you're labeling yourself by going this route more than one time. Imho, taking some pride and saying "no, fuck of, I don't do this, find someone else" makes you feel 1000x better as you realize you don't d…

I'd definitely accept toilet jobs for $5,000/hour, then subcontract out to a plumber for their going rate, and pocket the difference. IMO a bad example.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#70

Post by GhotiFish »

nnq wrote: post #66
Devilboy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the client is 'not worth it' you're just not charging enough. Just work out what your price is and send them a new quote. Don't ever fire a client, that's just silly. Make the client say no.

Just curious: If the client asks you to also plumb hist toilet, you'd say "yes, but I'll bill you at $5k/hr for the toilet project"? You really want to be the "do anything for enough money" guy? ...cause this is how you're labeling yourself by going this route more than one time. Imho, taking some pride and saying "no, fuck of, I don't do this, find someone else" makes you feel 1000x better as you realize you don't d…

Just to be clear here. I will gladly plumb a clients toilet for 5k/hr. I won't, on the other hand, go around killing people. I won't make the next big brother for 5k/hr. I won't develop viruses or spam for 5k/hr. Those are ethical reasons, not pride. No one would ever think less of me for plumbing a clients toilet for 5k/hr.
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