Are you paying for your employer’s ability to stay in business

by Evil Buck on July 23, 2010

Here is a scenario:
A project/job needs a bid. The employees of the company are asked to input their time estimate. They do, and it turns out that the job has a tighter budget than the time required at the normal rate. The boss then decides to lower the price to get the project. Now they can’t have it eating into their profits. What do they do? They make the employees work long hours (because you can legally require tech workers over a certain wage without paying overtime). This shifts the cost to the employees.
This is common in job shops, but it shouldn’t be. This isn’t a good business model. This isn’t sustainable.

Sure. You could say it’s better to take a hit in times of need. What about when the company exceeds it’s mark? I’m willing to bet these job shops aren’t profit sharing.
This needs to be a give and take situation. If all you do is take, then you’ll have a mutiny on your hands. Or more likely, a never ending revolving door of needy employees.
No one should accept these terms. Deferring Cost to the employee is not a good thing! Whether that cost be in labor or currency, it doesn’t matter. It’s still shifting cost.

Instead of making the employees eat the cost, the company should absorb the cost. It’s worth it just to break even temporarily so they can keep their good employees. Or have the employees work on it strictly in their downtime. Don’t make it a priority. Get creative, but don’t push your costs on the people working for you. That is the opposite reason they are there.

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Outsourcing – Get the Whole Story!

by Evil Buck on July 21, 2010

Last night I went to a seminar in which the speaker owns close to a hundred websites producing some sort of passive income. He was teaching people how get started and replicate his success.

During the course of this 3 hour seminar he scratched the surface of using outsourcing. Claiming only the good things, $3 per hour, english speaking, systems to find them. What he failed to mention was the countless hours lost trying to find good people. Or the fact that all of his projects are 1-3 files and nothing of substantial substance. I feel that this kind of information leads people to believe that you can find that magical employee who works for pennies for any project. I laugh when he says you may have to pay as much as $10-15 for shorter term employment. With this kind of build-up the people in the audience are going to think it’s easy to find such outsourcing.

I’ve worked with quite a few outsource teams and individuals. I’ve had very little luck with anything outside of the U.S. Probably because of the cultural differences in expectations based on the the loose specs given for a project. Time lost finding a good person/team can be more valuable than the pennies you save paying them.

Outsourcing can work, especially for small 1-2 page websites with some sort of utility. But the people in this audience should really be working with someone local until they get their feet wet. They don’t know how to explain to technical person across cultural boundaries what they mean. They need a back and forth dialog with a local person that can meet them face to face a few times until they learn the ins and outs. Of course, if they’re willing to experiment and learn the hard way (spending money) until they learn to effectively deal with remote outsource teams, then that’s their prerogative.

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Managing your project – meet your Requirements First

by Evil Buck on July 20, 2010

Don’t stray from the original requirements to do work that is sexier, or is the result of scope creep. I’ve seen this time and time again. Especially with those new to freelancing. This is not a problem limited to freelancers though.

Complete the initial task first. Before you run out of time and money. Then go back and add the polish. At least when you finish, you’ll have a usable product ripe for an up-sell.

Sometimes it’s hard to stay on track. Especially when your client keeps asking for work to be done outside of the scope of the original agreement. I get it. It’s hard to say no at first. Get used to it though. You need to think about who he is going to blame when the project is late. You’ll know why it was late, and you can tell him. It won’t matter. It can still lead to you getting fired from that project. Or if you’re an employee, you won’t win any brownie points.

Sometimes you have to manage your boss. When I’m asked to do work outside of the original scope, I always make it clear that we can address it once we get the first priority out of the way. If I’m working on a fixed price bid, my response is, “I can get you a quote for that”. Usually that makes the priorities clear. Even if I’m working hourly, I make it clear it will not be started until the task at hand is done.

Sometimes there is a real need to interrupt the current task/project and start something new. Putting up road thinking blocks helps the client understand his actions better. It means synapses need to fire before making the decision. He can better associate the decision to stop the presses with being his own.

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Don’t be cheap

July 8, 2010

When it comes time to hire. Be it for a permanent position or a one time job. Don’t let price be your determining factor. It can prove to be more costly in the long run. Take hiring an employee for an example. You need the skills of a guy that is outside of your budget. [...]

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Godaddy – Cheap, but you get what you pay for

June 30, 2010

I admit. I use Godaddy for my domain and ssl cert purchases. Mainly because I’ve been using them for years and the price they offered long before anyone else was in the discount domain game. However, I would never use them for a hosting company. They always seemed to offer slimmed down hosting packages. They [...]

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hey! bad programmers!

June 22, 2010

Listen up. Yea you. Please stop writing code that intermixes presentation with data. Please, please don’t create a class that abstracts out the model and then rely on POST superglobals! Damn! What was the point of writing that class anyways? Coupling is bad. Now I can’t reuse this >:/ . Yea, I’m on a project [...]

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What not to do – 37signals Product Blog: Basecamp becomes more finger friendly

June 15, 2010
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37signals Product Blog: Basecamp becomes more finger friendly. Here is a good example of not to do. 37signals is a great company, and I agree with most of what they have to say about usability and KISS. Not everyone get’s it right all of the time. Please don’t tout your new iOS interface then put [...]

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The Outsourcing Low Cost Lie | Lessons of Failure

June 10, 2010

Nearly 50% of outsourced projects fail outright, or fail to meet expectations
76% of companies said that vendor management effort and costs were much higher than expected
30% reported ongoing issues with outsourcer management processes (e.g., inadequate governance and conflict resolution procedures)
51% reported that outsourcer was not performing to expectations
In the end, the average cost savings for projects was a mere 26%.

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Quit your job now!!!

June 9, 2010

Hey, if you like your job, and every morning you get up and it gives you a chubby to go there. Keep it. But, if you’re miserable, or wish you were doing something else. You need to quit. Not tomorrow, not when things are better, but NOW! Do you work in a place that feels [...]

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sometimes there needs to be more obstacles

May 6, 2010
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Sometimes, having the ability to instantly communicate with someone is a bad thing. Sometimes, a few extra steps need to be involved before disturbing someone else pointlessly. Where I work, for instance, used to be in a cramped workspace where most people were in earshot of each other. Everyone else was a 10-15 second walk [...]

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