Re: My wife the job hunting instructional designer

["Bergerson, Carl A" <Carl -dot- Bergerson -at- UNISYS -dot- COM>]

I don't think that this is likely to be a satisfactory experience for
your wife. If she didn't prepare the estimate of the effort involved to
complete a well-defined deliverable, signing this contract is like
leaving you car unlocked and putting the keys in the ignition as well.

I did ONE fixed price contract (as a sub-contractor). The defined
deliverable was a manual and on-line help. As we got into it, it turned
out that they wanted three manuals, help files, and function key
overlays. The page count doubled, the graphics count increased
four-fold, and the product kept changing. None of that is unusual. But,
it just goes to show that you can't really do a fixed cost project,
especially if you can't nail down the deliverable items, the feature set
of the product, and do your own estimate of the effort involved.

> ----------
> From:         Ron Sering CDS[SMTP:ronaldse -at- MANX -dot- CDS -dot- TEK -dot- COM]
> Sent:         Wednesday, August 27, 1997 2:18 PM
> To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      My wife the job hunting instructional designer
>
> Well, my wife has found work, but she's being thrown a few curves from
> her prospective employer. Perhaps you can help cut through this.
>
> We have both posted questions before about this  issue, but here's a
> summary: my wife has been seeking entry-level work as an instructional
> designer/CBT developer. She has some experience in CBT, having done a
> very nice CBT course for a large community college. She  has decided
> to seek fortune and glory in the private sector.
>
> After a couple months of job-hunting with a couple of near-misses, she
> has been offered contract work at a small documentation/training
> development firm. The owner, founder and undisputed grand poobah of
> the firm has indicated that they would prefer to pay her a lump sum,
> based on a 40-hour work week for a 3 month contract, rather than a
> straight hourly rate for hours worked. The reason for this: she says
> she doesn't want to "pay for her to learn the job;" if the work took
> longer to complete than the planned hours (we don't know how these
> "planned" hours were planned, or if they were selected arbitrarily),
> my wife would have to essentially work for free or at a reduced hourly
> rate.
>
> This little curveball is a new one on me; I've been sheltered in my
> salary-paid positions for too long to really counsel her wisely on
> this issue. Is this a kosher thing for someone to do? On the surface,
> it seems okay; I know that lump-sum fees are sometimes  the payment of
> choice. But IMHO it seems like the person hiring her should  be
> willing to bear some of the cost of helping someone learn the ropes.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> - Ron Sering-not-Serling
>
> ~~
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