Historically computers have made micromanagement easier. Think about company vehicles being tracked by GPS. It also enables managers to manage more people more effectively, have a flatter organisational structure. IT people are doing this to others, there is no reason to expect it wouldn't happen to us :)

"...The customer considers that if I don't want to record the video, it's because I have something to hide and want to lie about the real time spent on his project".

Dealing with a client that tells you from the outset that they believe you are going to lie to them isn't merely an annoyance. It presents a risk to your career. This client will never be satisfied, or trust a word you say. He will inevitably sue or trash your reputation because, in the end, it isn't possible to satisfy delusional clients. That risk isn't worth any amount of money.

The client can agree to a ridiculous rate, but actually collecting is a whole different story. My gut says clients with red flags like this will be exceptionally difficult to collect from.

BS.

Happiness as a function of wealth is not a linear curve. After the first few millions, a hundred millions or a billion isn't that a big deal.

Therefore, if the price to justify some headache or discomfort is above a million or so, just getting rid of the headache is more valuable.

You don't sell time, you sell a product, even if it's part of a 'project'.

I disagree. The more you charge the more you put yourself at risk—nominating some insane figure to scare him off is just as silly as his request (or close to it).

There is nothing wrong with not taking on work or firing a client. It is a risk assessment, and the risks with a client who asks these kind of questions are huge.

PS: I actually find it concerning that someone has to ask how to respond. Some people need to learn to say "no".

We had someone approach us a few years ago we really didn't want to work with as everything they did screamed "moron in a hurry", so, rather than telling them to naff off, we gave them a quote that should have caused cardiac arrest.

They agreed to it.

Two years on. Still working with them. No amount of money makes it worth it. Particularly given that they still haven't paid said insane quote.

We have leverage over them in terms of "whoops, looks like your sole revenue stream just got turned off", they have leverage over us in terms of reputational damage.

Were this some sole trader on the far side of the planet, there'd be nil compunction. But they're not.

"Payment upon completion?" Biggest lie ever

With these particular goons, we have our 75%, and a never-ending stream of "we've re-interpreted the specification and believe that X means Y, Z, Q, R, P and M, which we require before we will sign off", much as we'd anticipated.

This is why we charge a minimum of 75% prior to go-live. Means that even if they do decline to pay the remainder, we aren't left out of pocket, and can play silly buggers for as long as it takes for them to get bored and go away.

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.)

I probably would walk away from that, but my point is that if you are a contractor, then the requirement is simply that the work be done, not that you do it personally. If they're willing to pay absurd money for something you don't want to do but other people will do, subcontract.

Also note that a client that you don't want to do business with is probably a client that others do not want to do business with, so they are used to being charged exorbitant fees.

Going back and forth to reach a higher price, only to have the client say No, is a waste of time.

Even if they do agree to a higher price, money can only reconcile so much. Based on bad experiences I've had with a couple clients in the past, they couldn't pay me enough to work for them again.

Me: OK no problem, that will cost an extra $X

Client: Ah actually don't worry about the recording

Having been independent for 5+ years, saying "no" is a learned skill.

You only find out how difficult a client is after dealing with them. And in many cases, if you have a feeling that this client is not going to be a very generous one, firing them might be most profitable thing to do.

Some things aren't worth doing, at any price. Compromising my professional standards is one example. Working with a client who doesn't trust me to do my job properly is another. This sounds like an example of both.

Sometimes it's better to just save yourself the headache of having to deal with a person any further than you already have.

If at the end of the day the customer can deal with that, then I'd accept it. I can isolate all my resources specific to that customer, provide them with dedicated kit (presumably with enough storage for them to keep the video footage) and they're (hopefully) happy with what I've done.

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 early, because as parent mentionned, there certainly will be other problems (and reputation may be hurted more badly than if breaking the deal).

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?

In the end I solved it. I wrote in an email that he was just too stressed and really needed some time off, so he started to attack me personally.

I wrote to him then that he should take what he just wrote and show it to his parents or some other persons he had trust in, and ask them how he was doing. He finally realized he had behaved as a complete asshole for a while.

No, it wasn't a permanent solution. But he took a long, long, long vacation half a year later.

I might work for him again, but I'd keep a reserve plan and be out of the door quite directly. Life is too short.

Edit: Too small company to have an HR department. (I might add: I don't know if I succeeded, or he got himself under control when a quarter of the people quit and the rest had the CV out or at least updating it.)

In a large company, HR's job isn't to help you but to keep the company from getting sued. They will almost always side with management. You might make a dent in a manager's reputation and, if 5 or 6 people come forward with the same complaint about him, he might be "promoted away" into a role with less direct people management... but you're fired by that point, so it means nothing to you.

HR is not your friend.

Your best move if you have a bad boss is to work out a transfer behind his back, and leave on good terms. Find someone with more clout who will request sponsor you. Don't "apply for" transfer. Get requested. Never say anything bad about your boss in the process, just that you're looking for work that's more relevant to your skill set.

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 something like this, which I did while working on a specific feature[2] for my sports league management system[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwn7mfmo0SQ

In my experience, my clients basically find it interesting seeing a snippet of how a programmer works. I had one client who would show the video around in his office like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. At first, I thought the reaction was sarcastic, but I realized after the 3rd time showing another employee, and his elderly father, that he was just genuinely impressed by it.

THAT SAID, if a client required this of me because they wanted to monitor me (to make sure I'm working or whatever), I'd let them know that "sure, I can do it for the most part, but I have to disable it when checking my email, and any time spend curating the video due to privacy concerns will be billed to you as well."

But if a client asked it of me to satisfy their own curiosity of my workflow (which is unlikely, since I typically just volunteer it anyway), I'd be more than happy to do it.

[1] http://bracketpal.com (homepage is still embarrassingly sparse, as I've been working one-on-one with customers, a landing page redesign and online customers are coming first).

[2] The video above is the screencap of the implementation of this feature: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxTfaSfa_dQ

Here it is: http://appstore.com/mac/ScreenshotTimelapse

Here are 25 promo codes if anyone wants to try it out: http://pastebin.com/K6Xx59jY

I'm happy to hear any feedback: andrew at passerinelabs.com or @passerinelabs on Twitter.

My first feedback to you is that the first contact is great thanks to the app's minimalism. It's really unobtrusive.

A second piece of feedback is that the menu bar icon looks poor on a retina display. I believe that one can use vector graphics (in PDF) or double the resolution (I always feel weird saying that, and want to say _quadruple_, but you know what I mean) to get a crisp rendering. I can screenshot what it looks like on my screen, if you have no opportunity to see it.

(Classic version 'free forever'; doesn't seem to support stitching all the images together to export a video but should be do-able manually.)

brew install watch watch -n10 'screencapture `date +%s`.png'

Thanks.

Thanks!

I took XET4YHM63J7R

[1] puts the client at ease and ensures they don't bug me while I'm working and also reminds me that I did get things done even when it feels like the whole day just vanished somewhere in a sea of tiny obstacles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

Maybe I'll open source it at some point, it could be a fun tutorial for people who want to learn this stuff.

I would do it, but there would be a fee for the hassle and my legal expenses.

Source: I work for an agency that does this.

Alternatively, you could just run multiple X servers.

  Client: We would like a fixed-price bid on this project.
      Me: Well, let's talk about your project. What's the scope?
  Client: We're working on a list, which will grow over time.
      Me: Let's make sure I understand. You want a fixed price for a variable project?
  Client: Yes. We're budgeting $5000.
      Me: I'm sure I do not understand.
          Do you expect the entirety of work to basically be my 
          bill rate X number of hours = $5000?
  Client: We expect you to manage that. The reason we're interested in a fixed-price 
          bid is because we need to contain costs.
      Me: You mean contain *your* costs. Do you think there is any risk 
          in this project from my side?
  Client: Only your time is at risk.
      Me: (face-palm)

I would start by explaining that there are 6 project management variables: benefit, cost, scope, risk, time, and quality, and that you usually can't change one variable while holding all the others fixed.

Scope in particular is an important issue to discuss with clients who want a fixed price; explain that unless the scope of the project is fixed, your risk is unlimited but your revenue is fixed.

I suggest offering, as an alternative, cost estimates with tolerances; in other words, offer a time and materials contract, with a best estimate of the costs. In addition, agree to a tolerance - if your revised forecasts suggest you will exceed the tolerance at any point, you will contact the client and give them the option of cancelling the project and paying only for costs already incurred or setting a new higher tolerance.

If a client really wants a fixed price contract, consider breaking the project down into smaller, lower risk, very well defined tasks, and contracting each one separately (and only quote later tasks when you have more information available from earlier ones, so you can add tasks for things like a second design iteration). Ensure that tasks which are already completed are paid for before new ones are undertaken, and that you have the contractual right to quit and still get paid for the tasks you completed.

I see a lot of tenders on these for fixed price projects with stuff like "winning bidder will receive NDA and project description".

So the seller is expected to bid a fixed price before they know what work needs to be done?

Yes, they wanted me to agree to a fixed price, then they would ask me what to do. The term "rent-a-slave" came to mind.

The contract is signed. At this point, if you deliver on your end of the deal, they have to deliver on theirs†. If they want anything other than what is in that contract - additions, changes, removals - you send them a change order. This is a new document for both parties to sign, covering the new request, and comes with its own price tag on top of the contract already agreed.

These are essential when you are engineering an actual physical product, because changing the specification of a natural gas compression plant when it's half built is very, very expensive. Change orders are an excellent tool for ensuring not that scope creep doesn't happen, but that scope creep doesn't turn a profitable project into a loss.

† Of course, practically, no-one wants to take on a client that they will have to sue to get the money from. But you should know where you stand when that contract is signed - you deliver your part, they deliver theirs. You can simply say "no" to additional requests and deliver on the original.

They know that the customer will inevitably want change, especially with things like a new senior civil servant or politician wanting to "make their mark". At that point they are the only bidder, so no competition to drive down the price, and the client will generally pay whatever they ask - because it isn't their money they are spending.

In practice, those change requests are usually rejected, because the people with control of the money aren't the people using the product, and the customer ends up paying for something they aren't happy with.

A lot of Agile methodologies are a response to this extremely strict change control.

The problem, from what I've seen, is that developers understand agile development, but the "money people" don't. To them, "agile" is just a buzzword that means "good" and they aren't actually interested in participating in the process. So now you get people who don't understand, or aren't interested in, attending demo sessions, prioritizing the backlog, or reading/writing user stories. And when things don't proceed along a nice, smooth, water-fall like sequence, they get stressed and start complaining.

One place I'd say the Agile movement has fallen on it's sword, is in terms of promotion, education and buy-in from the "business community" to the point that they understand that Agile processes require their active participation.

Which is useful in some contexts, but also why Agile isn't taken seriously in others. The most popular Agile methodologies (if that isn't itself an oxymoron...) are fundamentally incompatible with processes and practices that can be useful in real projects, particularly very large projects where there are many participants to co-ordinate and many stakeholders with an interest in the results but not necessarily the same interest. At some point, a more formal process is the only way you can get anything useful done, and that includes a sensible but controlled process for handling changing requirements.

This is commonplace in custom software development in my experience. Having a change control process in place, and negotiating a price-tag for changes to the original contract, happened all the time in my first programming job. We were mainly working for government agencies (municipal and county government), universities, etc., and this was all completely normal.

The only problem with this process is that it actively encourages the client to find any shred of loosely worded anything in any specification, and interpret the hell out of it, rather than having to go through change control.

ODesk enforces the use of their time tracking software for hourly projects. Their staff economist, John Joseph-Horton, has some interesting papers about the justification for this. He argues it is actually in the interests of freelancers to have such a system in place.

Basically, freelancers prefer to be paid hourly (or daily, or whatever), rather than per-project, because clients love ratcheting and requesting endless tweaks otherwise. But clients prefer to pay per-project, so they can predict how much stuff will cost and not have to risk paying for freelancers that pad hours. ODesk's solution removes some of the risk for hourly billing, making it a more acceptable solution for clients, which works out for the benefit of freelancers.

A similar concept is how companies benefit from being able to be sued. Because you can sue them if they screw you around, you feel more comfortable dealing with them.

Don't try to justify it. Don't lose your time with this person, don't lose emotional energy.

It is one thing to be efficient, another to "look efficient". You can be not efficient but look like you are or the contrary, specially when your client don't have a clue in software.

The reason this customer wants the video is to go against you, as you said, he already does not trust you.

When you do, he is going to go and say: look, you are not working 80% of the time, so I am paying you 20%. Probably he already have plans for doing that.

He probably does not have the money, or the organization changed plans and don't need the software as much as when the agreement was done and wants to backpedal with any excuse.

Two approaches for this client:

- Simple say no, and don't waste time trying to reason it with him.

- Just say no to the project and move on.

The customer sounds like the type who would use this video to nitpick everything.

------ On June 1st from 11:03-11:07 you spent your time on google searching for something called an API. I demand you deduct 4 minutes from my bill. ------

Then if you get tired of dealing with it he can trash your reputation and he has edited video to back it up. Let's face it, if someone has hundreds of hours of footage of your work, they can find problems.

The whole thing sounds like a nightmare that could easily spiral out of control.

Yes but they will have to spend hundreds of their own time to do that (and if they intend to sue you to get their money back, also a lawyer's time.) I wouldn't worry - they will lose their own job long before they find enough evidence to harm your reputation.

In short, do not expect reasonable behavior from unreasonable clients. :)

Just add zeroes until you get that warm fuzzy feeling. Myself, I'd be able to never work again :P

While I did not track my time, I often found that I spent less time than I estimated. I say that because my freelance was on some evenings and weekends, and it simply didn't add up to a great amount of time. Once, I had a client over time, that often paid late, and we stopped working together when he had an outstanding bill. Much later, he contacted me with an urgent request. I got up front payment for twice what I estimated. Then I dug into the project and completed it in a tiny fraction of the time it took me to do it.

If you contractually agree to give clients "dedicated time being truly productive towards creating the requested end result", then I suppose you really need to be meticulous about tracking your time and providing records of how that time was used to move the project forward. I'd really rather not get in the habit of selling my time at all. I'm selling my ability to reach your objective, to build what you want to use. We'll define to the best of our ability what I'll be providing to you, we'll agree on the price, and then we'll measure our success on my delivery to you and your payment to me. What happens in between is of my concern, and it is in my best interest to spend my time effectively and perform efficiently.

It's not even worth the cost of justifying it.

It's very simple: "I don't do this kind of service"

You'll waste less time that can be put to better usage like getting other customers

What's the standard rate? £400/hour for this, including set-up time, transferring the files etc.

The number doesn't even matter - just make it big enough to be worth your while in putting up with such nonsense.

Afraid you're being ripped off by a contractor? Write the contract so that you only pay in acceptable increments against the deliverables you want at a price you're happy to pay.

We once had a client request we deploy software across all desktop computers to measure how many keystrokes each user made, how often their screen saver was on, etc. I pointed out that they were already measuring employee activities such as calls answered, customer satisfaction, policies not surrendered (i.e. customers planning to sever their accounts who were retained) etc. why measure and reward activities when you were measuring and could reward results?

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Interesting how a single well placed post can achieve so much.

But most if not all of it would be too much to deal with for a freelancer and should at least incur a 3x price increase to deal with the various variables involved.

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.

I think most software engineers prefer this. But I'm not sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO_O4AD1MhI

While all those suggestions are equally valuable, I've personally chosen to say to my customer that I accept to do the videos, but in this case, we must renegotiate the contract, keeping in mind that there will be a considerable cost, including the additional fee for copyright release. The new overall cost would be in average three times the actual cost of the project. Knowing this customer, I'm completely sure that he would never accept to pay so much, so the problem is solved.

Second update:

The customer effectively declined the proposal to renegotiate the original contract, taking in account the considerable additional cost.

This clients sounds like they would be a world of pain.

The only issue is if the maximum cost is far beyond the estimate and there's no justification of why that may be the case beforehand. If there is good justification before hand you should be able to let the customer know if that risk's been realised and report on it immediately, giving evidence to show that this risk became a reality.

If you fire the customer, then in the customer's mind (s)he was right to be concerned, and you just proved it by running away.

Contract in place, signed. Keep all records of the unreasonable request and attempt to change the contract conditions. Do the work. Bill the customer. Sue if they don't pay.

If I were in your shoes I would calmly explain that you do offer video of the coding in the condensed form that the HN person 'chops' shows.

That service of offering the video will cost $X more per hour to implement and you would be happy to rewrite the contract to include that service.

I'm only half-joking. I can't see how the customer will get any value out of the videos though. I guess this only makes sense if the customer is one of those bewildering people who assume programming is just typing all the time.

  I can't see how the customer will get any value out 
  of the videos though.

Given that occasional mis-charging is inevitable, how can you make sure it's below the threshold you're able to tolerate if you don't maintain audit records?

With that said, I'd fire the client assuming I wasn't desperate for work.

Long-term, purging yourself of a toxic customer is at least as valuable as gaining a new one. For added points, direct him to your competition.

I've never freelanced, but I've spent a lot of time doing support, and I know what kind of personality is being dealt with here. The solution the poster has come up with is probably the best one apart from firing the customer (not always fiscally possible)

That made me think of that cuatomer's employees and their working environment. I've read just the other day about a tech company over here that forces employees to have lunch at the company restaurant (with abusive prices) among many other outrageous measures. I'd say no to this kind of people, just because I don't want to make them any money.

No developer should ever succumb to that kind of babysitting privacy invasion.