[BLOG] Working freelance isn't always a bed of roses
I do freelance web development outside of my TV station job for extra income and experience. I graduated college with a BA in web development, and since my current part-time job has no dev-related work at all, freelance work keeps my abilities sharp while building a portfolio. I've been doing this for a little over three years now.
Anyone who's ever worked freelance knows of the ups and downs of working for clients. This blog will unfortunately not be about the 'ups', but rather the annoying and frustrating 'downs'.
A year and a half ago I landed a gig with a company that will remain nameless. This company is owned by the father of a friend of mine. My friend approached me about the gig with the usual cry for help. His dad's business really needs a new website, you do web work right? Come help us.
I was glad to oblige. Extra cash and a new site to put in my portfolio. How could I refuse.
I sat down with 'boss' to discuss the gig. Looked at his current site, evaluated it, asked what he'd like to see in his site, told him my opinions on development, gave an estimate on time, and finally discussed payment.
This site was a MESS. One of the worst I had ever seen. Their current site at that time was developed in PageMaker AND Front Page (this is me CRINGING), and it was in it's third generation, it had been rebuilt upon itself three times in a WYSIWYG editor.
I've never seen messier code. Terrible WYSIWYG code formatting aside, there was useless old code from versions one and two still lying amuck. The amount of garbage clogging the system was staggering. There was no fixing this site. It was time to start fresh.
I told boss that our best course of action was to throw out the old site, start new with a fresh design and launch a lean, efficient site. Boss turned that idea down. In his mind starting from scratch wouldn't be cost-effective and it would take too long. He told me to just rebuild the look of the site using the current content and clean things up. I told him this wasn't a good idea, I tried to explain that it would actually cost MORE for me to build a V4 site on 3 generations of garbage, but he just didn't get the semantics of hand-written code. I was to build a new design on the current backend.
Words don't do justice how bad this site was. Links to his products stacked as high as a mountain, all disorganized. Trying to find anything in code was an hourly task.
But I set out to do what he wanted. After awhile I had a new design and layout, categorized drop downs for his product lines, continuity with contact emails, consistent product layouts... it was an awfully difficult job, but I fought through it.
Boss didn't know anything about computers, but was too stubborn to admit it. He just kept calling uninformed shots. His computer was an old machine running win 98 and IE version lord knows what. His display was an at least decade old CRT that had become so dark and discolored that you couldn't read anything. He would always ask why the site didn't look right. I couldn't make him understand that 85% of the users out there had better, more appropriate hardware and software that negated the problems he saw.
Months into to project the new site was up and I was fixing things on a weekly basis. I'd meet, he'd say what he'd like added, I'd do it, I'd get a paycheck. The site wasn't finished, we had bigger plans, be he chose to implement as work was finished. It was very frustrating working with the site, but I was making money and progress so I was content. That feeling didn't last much longer.
One day I walked into the office, dropped off an invoice and waited for the secretary to cut me a check. She asked me a question. "So, how much longer is this going to take?" I replied with a very legitimate "huh?"
"The site I mean," she continued. "how munch longer until you finish it? Because boss is wanting to know since we're paying you so much money, and I mean it's just not done yet..."
I'm a bit confused at this point. I thought we were in it for the long haul, until this project was complete. But now the secretary is doing boss' dirtywork for him, as if he was too afraid to approach me about it himself.
"Well, we're getting there. I can't put an accurate date on completion time, this is a very difficult project. I tried to explain to boss that it would have been faster and cheaper to start over new, but by telling me to rebuild off the current site it's making things far more difficult. (here I tried to explain to here HOW that makes it more difficult, in vain). I'm trying as hard as I can, but the conditions are hindering." When I saw she wasn't getting it, I added, "Masterpieces don't happen overnight."
I probably shouldn't have added that last line, hindsight is 20/20.
She got a little defensive. She had that 'how dare you know what you're talking about' look on her face. "Well, he'd just like you to try and finish it soon."
I left, angered and confused. I'm the developer here, I know what would have been best for this project. Why didn't he just listen to me from the start! I was trying my best, but because the one calling the shots knows nothing about actual website development, he gave us all a recipe for disaster.
The following week they didn't contact me, so I didn't come in. Months went by, I didn't hear anything from them. I just sort of assumed they were happy with the site as it was (it was entirely functional, but missing good details and cleanup). I moved onto other clients and sort of forgot it happened.
Today I remembered that old client. I was updating my resume, website, and portfolio as I was preparing to apply for jobs. I checked their website to make sure the URL was right on my work sample page. To my utter shock my site was gone, replaced by a new, shiny, cookie-cutter godaddy template site.
My jaw dropped to the floor.
I didn't expect him to come back to me for web work, not after such a long time of silence. But why put so much money into a project just to dump it later on? This frustrated me because it could have all been avoided in the first place had he just listened to me. If we would have started from scratch like I suggested, I'd probably still be working for him, and he'd have a very functional and unique website to his brand. Instead he bailed out on me and chose to accept the simple way out.
Freelance work can be such a strange thing. You can't expect every client to work with you in the same ways. But I would at least expect clients to trust their developers to know what they're talking about. Drop the arrogance just because you're the boss. We know what we're talking about, and if you give us a shot, we may even impress you. That is, in fact, what we do.
Anyone who's ever worked freelance knows of the ups and downs of working for clients. This blog will unfortunately not be about the 'ups', but rather the annoying and frustrating 'downs'.
A year and a half ago I landed a gig with a company that will remain nameless. This company is owned by the father of a friend of mine. My friend approached me about the gig with the usual cry for help. His dad's business really needs a new website, you do web work right? Come help us.
I was glad to oblige. Extra cash and a new site to put in my portfolio. How could I refuse.
I sat down with 'boss' to discuss the gig. Looked at his current site, evaluated it, asked what he'd like to see in his site, told him my opinions on development, gave an estimate on time, and finally discussed payment.
This site was a MESS. One of the worst I had ever seen. Their current site at that time was developed in PageMaker AND Front Page (this is me CRINGING), and it was in it's third generation, it had been rebuilt upon itself three times in a WYSIWYG editor.
I've never seen messier code. Terrible WYSIWYG code formatting aside, there was useless old code from versions one and two still lying amuck. The amount of garbage clogging the system was staggering. There was no fixing this site. It was time to start fresh.
I told boss that our best course of action was to throw out the old site, start new with a fresh design and launch a lean, efficient site. Boss turned that idea down. In his mind starting from scratch wouldn't be cost-effective and it would take too long. He told me to just rebuild the look of the site using the current content and clean things up. I told him this wasn't a good idea, I tried to explain that it would actually cost MORE for me to build a V4 site on 3 generations of garbage, but he just didn't get the semantics of hand-written code. I was to build a new design on the current backend.
Words don't do justice how bad this site was. Links to his products stacked as high as a mountain, all disorganized. Trying to find anything in code was an hourly task.
But I set out to do what he wanted. After awhile I had a new design and layout, categorized drop downs for his product lines, continuity with contact emails, consistent product layouts... it was an awfully difficult job, but I fought through it.
Boss didn't know anything about computers, but was too stubborn to admit it. He just kept calling uninformed shots. His computer was an old machine running win 98 and IE version lord knows what. His display was an at least decade old CRT that had become so dark and discolored that you couldn't read anything. He would always ask why the site didn't look right. I couldn't make him understand that 85% of the users out there had better, more appropriate hardware and software that negated the problems he saw.
Months into to project the new site was up and I was fixing things on a weekly basis. I'd meet, he'd say what he'd like added, I'd do it, I'd get a paycheck. The site wasn't finished, we had bigger plans, be he chose to implement as work was finished. It was very frustrating working with the site, but I was making money and progress so I was content. That feeling didn't last much longer.
One day I walked into the office, dropped off an invoice and waited for the secretary to cut me a check. She asked me a question. "So, how much longer is this going to take?" I replied with a very legitimate "huh?"
"The site I mean," she continued. "how munch longer until you finish it? Because boss is wanting to know since we're paying you so much money, and I mean it's just not done yet..."
I'm a bit confused at this point. I thought we were in it for the long haul, until this project was complete. But now the secretary is doing boss' dirtywork for him, as if he was too afraid to approach me about it himself.
"Well, we're getting there. I can't put an accurate date on completion time, this is a very difficult project. I tried to explain to boss that it would have been faster and cheaper to start over new, but by telling me to rebuild off the current site it's making things far more difficult. (here I tried to explain to here HOW that makes it more difficult, in vain). I'm trying as hard as I can, but the conditions are hindering." When I saw she wasn't getting it, I added, "Masterpieces don't happen overnight."
I probably shouldn't have added that last line, hindsight is 20/20.
She got a little defensive. She had that 'how dare you know what you're talking about' look on her face. "Well, he'd just like you to try and finish it soon."
I left, angered and confused. I'm the developer here, I know what would have been best for this project. Why didn't he just listen to me from the start! I was trying my best, but because the one calling the shots knows nothing about actual website development, he gave us all a recipe for disaster.
The following week they didn't contact me, so I didn't come in. Months went by, I didn't hear anything from them. I just sort of assumed they were happy with the site as it was (it was entirely functional, but missing good details and cleanup). I moved onto other clients and sort of forgot it happened.
Today I remembered that old client. I was updating my resume, website, and portfolio as I was preparing to apply for jobs. I checked their website to make sure the URL was right on my work sample page. To my utter shock my site was gone, replaced by a new, shiny, cookie-cutter godaddy template site.
My jaw dropped to the floor.
I didn't expect him to come back to me for web work, not after such a long time of silence. But why put so much money into a project just to dump it later on? This frustrated me because it could have all been avoided in the first place had he just listened to me. If we would have started from scratch like I suggested, I'd probably still be working for him, and he'd have a very functional and unique website to his brand. Instead he bailed out on me and chose to accept the simple way out.
Freelance work can be such a strange thing. You can't expect every client to work with you in the same ways. But I would at least expect clients to trust their developers to know what they're talking about. Drop the arrogance just because you're the boss. We know what we're talking about, and if you give us a shot, we may even impress you. That is, in fact, what we do.
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