Re: Newbie Contractor needs advice

["Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM>]

Hallo:

Ouch.

You can bill for the time spent trying to contact the company, sure. It is a
legitimate use of your time. Would they pay? Do you have the resources to
make them?

Have you considered returning all money paid, all materials, and cutting
your losses, with a knowing nod to experience?

Certainly, up from, you could require a retainer of 20, 40, or however-many
hours per week. The idea being that having you waiting for work prevents you
from getting other contracts and the customer needs to pay you for the hours
you spend twiddling your thumbs if the customer fails to deliver the
promised materials. I'd wager the SME would be on the ball if his company
were on the financial hook. I suspect you cannot successfully negotiate this
after the fact, however.

All the best,

Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com

>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: temoore -at- BELLSOUTH -dot- NET [mailto:temoore -at- BELLSOUTH -dot- NET]
>>>Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 1999 4:38 PM

<snip>
>>>
>>>I arranged time in my schedule to accommodate this client,
>>>and the SME
>>>has not been keeping up their end of the bargain. The result
>>>is that the
>>>manual has been reduced to around 50 pages and I have not put in the
>>>hours expected. I wait and wait for the SME to submit the information
>>>needed, and I call and leave messages and email with the SME and the
>>>Project Manager to no avail. In fact, I spent an entire day
>>>and a half
>>>trying to get someone to answer my phone calls and even physically
>>>visited the office with no results. (Do I bill for that time?)
>>>
>>>Because it's an hourly assignment, I've lost significant $ in the
>>>process. How do you, as contractors, protect yourself
>>>against this? Is
>>>it possible to require a client to agree to, say, a minimum
>>>of 40 hours
>>>a week for two weeks? How do you handle such situations?

>

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