I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page • Hacker News Board

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#171

Post by Consultant32452 » Wed, May 15, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #133

pault wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you an employee? I think the situation being described here is almost always with contractors and freelancers.

I was a contractor - as a general rule I find companies expect contractors to be productive really quickly because they are paying more for them then they are for employees.

In 5-ish years of consulting I only had this happen once. BigCo hired LittleCo to produce one piece of a very, very large system with many parts. I was consulting for LittleCo. Our part was on schedule, but no other parts were. They couldn't let us go because they needed support for initial roll out, but they didn't have anything for us to do.

We did some make-work projects, optimizations and stuff. We also picked a random technology stack per week and spent a day building "something" to learn those tools. Also, we played a lot of video games. This period lasted about 3-4 months.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#172

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 15, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

ryanbrunner wrote: post #3

Entertaining story - although as advice to anyone reading it, running up the clock without proactively notifying people that you're going way beyond your original estimate is a very good way to make getting paid incredibly difficult.

[deleted]

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#173

Post by Causality1 » Wed, May 15, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

Federal government is the only place I've worked that had a reasonable work/pay ratio. Every private company has either been eye-bleeding amounts of work and weekly hours for unsatisfying compensation or doing almost nothing and then getting a check that made me feel guilty.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#174

Post by botverse » Wed, May 15, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #168

madeofpalk wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its stories (and personal experience) like this that make me laugh when people try and say that governments are inefficient and lacks accountability.

Right - the government is the world's largest employer, with all the inefficiencies that come with that title.

Which government? Which world?

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#175

Post by jondubois » Wed, May 15, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

That's the problem with corporations; it's not the manager's own money, they don't know where it comes from, who the shareholders are, what the real goal of the company is, what high quality work looks like, etc... So if you're friends with the right people, you can get whatever amount you want and nobody cares.

The company is like a giant communal wallet. It sucks money out of lord-knows-where and dispenses it back to you. You just have to physically sit at your desk and waste time for 8 hours a day.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#176

Post by sharkweek » Wed, May 15, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

botverse wrote: post #174

sharkweek wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right - the government is the world's largest employer, with all the inefficiencies that come with that title.

Which government? Which world?

I'd assume in almost every country, their federal government is the biggest employer, but that'd actually be interesting data to try and find.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#177

Post by lone_haxx0r » Wed, May 15, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #120

sharkweek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big companies (rather, people at big companies) WANT to spend money on this kind of stuff for all sorts of reasons. -A team might have use-it-or-lose-it budget, so they have to spend it on something, and a contractor might be the lucky recipient! -Tax purposes! -Spending a lot on a contractor gives them someone to "fire" when they need to explain why something wasn't getting done or something went poorly! The list go…

Its stories (and personal experience) like this that make me laugh when people try and say that governments are inefficient and lacks accountability.

At least private companies are losing their own earned money when they're inefficient, not someone else's.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#178

Post by crispyambulance » Wed, May 15, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

My parents had been running their own tailor shop in the 80's, barely making ends meet, pulling in less than $20K a year.

It wasn't for lack of business, father was a master tailor trained in Italy and capable of elite bespoke craftsmanship. They had as much business as they could handle. The problem was that they were charging what they thought the work was worth rather than what their customers were willing to pay.

At some point, during the Reagan years, my mother had an epiphany and jacked up the prices massively, far beyond what my father thought was remotely reasonable. The result? Even more business, more pressure, more return customers. That put me and my brother through an expensive college.

There's something about high rates that makes customers feel more important, it's a status-thing and it also propels them to take you more seriously even if they have you do low-value stuff.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#179

Post by allannienhuis » Wed, May 15, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #141

w23j wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with peteradio, I also never understand this line of reasoning. Let's say the company has earned 1,000$ and the tax rate is 50%. Your expenses X are 100$. So 1,000$ - 100$ = 900$. Of which 50% (450$) are tax and 50% (450$) are profit. Now double X to 200$: Then 1,000$ - 200$ = 800$. Of which 50% (400$) are tax and 50% (400$) are profit. That means your profit is 50$ lower (400$ instead of 450$) then if you hadn't…

It doesn't make sense in terms of raw profit, I agree. But many expenses are paid pre-tax effectively making them cheaper than if you had paid for them with post-tax dollars.

aren't all expenses pre (income)tax, by definition?

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#180

Post by dymk » Wed, May 15, 2019, 7:06 PM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #71

Great illustration of why hourly billing makes no sense, for either side. In this case, as usual, the amount of hours "spent" on the project has little to do with actual value provided. From the contractor's side, he's excited about getting 12x the original quote, instead of realizing he's been severely undercharging for his work and could've been earning 10x or more all this time. I wonder if the author will start c…

I'm gonna disagree that hourly billing makes no sense for the contractor. He clearly just didn't charge enough per hour; $75/hour is way too low for contract work, and his $21k could have been $56k at $200/hour.

What if the project was billed at a fixed cost, he negotiated $21k, but the project took a year to complete because the company moved so slowly? That'd be a terrible salary. He'd have to quit and somehow bill even with no deliverables. How hairy would a contract covering that be to defend when you sue?