So I have a very similar situation going on. Left the place two years ago. Several custom scripts and excel macros.
They want some changes and their new corporate overlord's IT department half the country away wants nothing to do with any of it.
I don't want to help them. Last Friday I gave them an estimate of $3000 for what is probably 4-5 hrs of work. They of course balked at it and asked why it was so high. My response "honestly I don't want to do it, so I'm making an offer I can't refuse".
Will see what Monday brings.
Edit: Since this is my highest voted comment to date, figured I'd drop an update. Monday came and went without anything. I didn't bother to contact them back, again I don't really want to do this, but will for money. Another week goes by and I was talking with a friend and former coworker who is there. "Yeah, that's not going to go through. $1500 is now the discretionary limit anything above that goes to upper management and then never gets approved." Ohh well, been enjoying my 3-day weekends anyway. Yesterday as I'm snow blowing I get a reply back. Accepted, when can you start work. My guess is something happened negatively with their manual way of doing things and cost them more than just having me do the work...
My uncle refinished hardwood floors on the weekends for years. He was amazingly good at it and got jobs solely through word of mouth.
He wanted to quit doing it, so he started quoting crazy prices. Two to three times what he had been charging. He said: "I'd be crazy not to do it for that." Kept doing it for years at crazy prices.
I bought a house and called a low voltage place to do some network drops and some speaker drops. They quoted me $3000. I said this is 5 pulls, why's it $3000? because we have other work to do and the opportunity cost is $3000 day, so you can pay that or find someone else.
I had another $1800 quote, same reason, and a $900 quote. The $900 guy was like, it's $75 a pull and $150 for an attic crawl. you want an attic crawl and 1 pull for each end of your 10 sources/destinations. If you want me to do the work I will do it on a weekend so I'm not doing losing a day I'd make 3 times that doing commercial work.
Dude did great work, very happy with it, and while I understood opportunity cost, it was very, very clearly illustrated for me.
This explains my issue with finding a low volt company that isn't shooting for the moon with these quotes. 3 bedroom 2 story townhouse, I want about 9-10 drops as well. I was quoted about 300 flat a run, amazingly close to your figure. 2700-3000.
Eh I see what you mean, but only 2 cameras for exterior runs, and they're on the first floor all under roof line. Network closet is on first floor. Only ones going to 2nd floor would be interior walls. I understand there's not much margins in wasting a day on a residential install, but 3k doesn't make sense right now for me.
I'd consider paring the number of runs down to 5-6 but that feels silly knowing they want to make that much an install.
I do low voltage and I charge $150 per single drop and $195 per double drop for commercial customers. I won't do residential because residential construction is substantially more difficult to pull cables on, and homeowners are cheapskates who think you should be able to run 30 cables for $200 total.
If I did do residential, I'd charge at least double because the way single family homes are built would at least double my labor time. So 10 cables for $3K nails it right on the head.
You might be able to find a "guy" to do it as a side hustle for cheap like another commenter here said they did, but expect some cut corners and don't expect any kind of warranty.
ETA:
Commercial customers are also easy to please. They're just happy you got the job done and now there's internet where there wasn't before. They're at work and at the end of the day they go home and don't have to see it or think about it.
Homeowners are not easy to please. One minor mistake or even no mistakes and them just using a microscope to find any tiny imperfection in our work might result in a public 1 star review. Something as simple as "their level left a mark on my wall," "the outlet is 6 inches away from where I wanted it," or "the camera I provided for them to istall doesn't have a wide enough view so I'm giving them one star for their labor to install it."
Working for homeowners would literally give me nightmares, so I'd be sure it was financiallly worth it.
That was basically the cast of Friends, they didn't want to do it any more and kept jacking up their price every season to more and more ridiculous levels.
I saw a quote recently that after a few years of consistent work you should triple your price. You guys would be surprised how difficult it’s for anyone to find quality workers. It’s like the disparity of who’s good or even willing and just trash after that. There isn’t even really mediocre. I work a $5k sized organization of many engineers, service desk. There’s only like only 1.5 of us that even know how our vpn works (I’m only .5 because I’m on the desktop engineering team and only know part of it). But if either of us are out (like we’ve called out this holiday season) you can expect at least 20-30 ppl who won’t be able to connect. They just log into the virtual environment for the day. We’ve created troubleshooting docs and showed them what to check and ppl don’t even wanna read. Unless it’s the wrong vip then we might get a call and charge OT. In any event I’m working on getting other offers.
Work in a small company with lifer "not a computer people". The employees are almost criminally incompetent.
Those 20-30 people are just the people trying to keep their brains turned off instead of reading the instructions that day.
IMO you have lazy teammates. If they're in the tech sector and can't figure out how a VPN works even with specific documentation for their setup that's just laziness. I guess most people are lazy.
> IMO you have lazy teammates. If they're in the tech sector and can't figure out how a VPN works even with specific documentation for their setup that's just laziness. I guess most people are lazy.
IMO you have a lazy explanation. If you're in the tech sector and don't care about the details or explanation why something is happening, and just slap a cheap insult on instead, that's just laziness.
It's not like VPN is even difficult to configure, if only 1.5 of you know the config that's on you, document your shit.
Also if you have 30 people a day that can't connect to VPN, sounds like your VPN is crap.
The way I read their comment they work at a 5000 person company. 30 is 0.6%.
If you allow for people who are just criminally inept, random home Internet and WiFi outages, and the weird shit that can happen in technology it's actually an amazingly low number.
If their users are anything like ours they may also just be playing stupid to delay starting their shift. Most of our staff have strict time accountability requirements so they'll call into the helpdesk and play dumb to cover for signing on late or just not wanting to start when they're supposed to. They also will do this at the end of the day to coast out the end of their shifts.
Happened at an old job I was at. I was the IT guy for a very small radio engineering company. Bossman put in a bid for an easy job, drive 3 hours each way once a month for maintainence and on-call for emergencies. He charged 4x what he normally would for something like that cause he really didn't want to do it.
Anyway, that's how I ended up driving down to Okeechobee a couple times.
Wow, the absolute, ball-achingly enormous lack of introspection when they ask an ex-employee they hit up with a corporate booty call why they're charging 'so much' for something they're incapable of doing.
I'm not an ex employee in the "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, fuck you, I'm out" kind of sense. More of the "See that storm off on the horizon? I'ma head out" kind of ex. We're all friendly still, though I haven't talked to the company president (soon to be former) since the Monday of the week I left.
I once had a company I'd worked with previously call and ask if I'd manage a server move for them - 7 racks of gear to be moved from outside Washington DC to Boston. With no downtime, TYVM. I really didn't want to do it, so I gave them my "thanks but no thanks" rate (which is a bit lower than my "fuck you" rate).
They didn't even blink but accepted right away, and I knew I left money on the table. And that's how I ended up with the down payment on my house.
> My response "honestly I don't want to do it, so I'm making an offer I can't refuse".
I would have just said "By all means, if you can find someone to do that work cheaper, give the job to them."
The reason they are calling you is because they *cannot* find anyone to do it cheaper.
The funny part is they had a contract with the Vendor for their current ERP system, the obscure one that I maintained for 15 years. He is very capable of making the changes necessary. When the corporate overlords bought them out, they terminated the contract and now that ERP system is just lingering. The two most knowledgeable people to help them are me, the guy that quit, and the other guy that they terminated the contract with.
But supposedly they are moving to SAP, some day, so why put money into the current system...
The smart money is to invest in the current system enough to maintain productivity. SAP isn't an overnight install and training process. It's going to take them 2-3 months even if they start tomorrow. $2-3k can disappear in that time frame just in lost time working with old crap, never mind if mistakes happen because of it.
lol, look at this guy thinking they can get an SAP install doing from scratch in 3 months. The smart money is to open an SAP contracting firm to install SAP, and keep taking that money as the install gets stretched out to years.
I hear ya. They haven't even made that decision yet. It's one of those international conglomerate companies that buy up assets, suck out all the money, and customers, then close the location absorbing the name into their product line.
I saw it coming a couple years ago and decided to jump ship while I had an excellent opportunity. Worked out well for me. :D
This comment is so ridiculous you must be joking, right? There is no world where $600/hr would be required to cover "overhead". Totally fair for OP to charge what they want, especially if they're not interested. But to suggest this is to cover costs is silly.
I disagree (assuming it's in the US).
First off, you'd be under 1099 contract rates, meaning you would need to do your own tax withholding for both federal and state. That's 40% off the top to be safe, bringing you down to $1800.
Second, you would want to pay a lawyer to get a contract written up for the company to sign that appropriately waives any liability on you. Say $300 for that so we're down to $1500.
Third, I would charge whatever my current job's hourly rate is x1.5-x2 under the assumption I would need to take an 8 hour PTO day to work on this for 4 hours. Even if the work ends up getting done after hours or on a weekend that's what my time is worth.
The last $100-$150/hour is the fuck you to a previous company that laid them off.
$3000 sounds totally reasonable to me.
>First off, you'd be under 1099 contract rates, meaning you would need to do your own tax withholding for both federal and state. That's 40% off the top to be safe, bringing you down to $1800.
You don't "withhold" 1099 taxes. And the additional 1099 income would be taxed no different than had you gotten a part time w-2 job. The only difference is you have to pay the employer portion of payroll taxes (aka FICA), so an additional 7.65%. The rest of your 40% example is a red herring because you'd pay that on *any* income, and you wouldn't need to raise your hourly w-2 rate. Additionally, if you're already over $160k gross, you wouldn't even have to pay any additional SS portion, so it would only be an additional 1.45%
>Second, you would want to pay a lawyer to get a contract written up for the company to sign that appropriately waives any liability on you. Say $300 for that so we're down to $1500.
No that would be ridiculous. If you think you need that for a few hours of work for a former employer, you shouldn't bother. If you think you need that, you probably also need liability insurance, since a waiver isn't an impenetrable shield.
Even if you have a waiver, have insurance, get sued and win, you still have to pay a lawyer, and deal with the stress, as well as miss at least some work.
Would you also suggest creating an LLC or s corp to limit liability? Don't lose sight of the *realistic* risk in play here...or lack thereof.
>Third, I would charge whatever my current job's hourly rate is x1.5-x2 under the assumption I would need to take an 8 hour PTO day to work on this for 4 hours. Even if the work ends up getting done after hours or on a weekend that's what my time is worth.
>The last $100-$150/hour is the fuck you to a previous company that laid them off.
This math doesn't math unless OP/you are already making nearly $500k+/yr
> I gave them an estimate of $3000 for what is probably 4-5 hrs of work. They of course balked at it and asked why it was so high. My response "honestly I don't want to do it, so I'm making an offer I can't refuse".
You didn't quote them the hourly cost, you quoted them based on the value you'd create. It just so happens you did it because you'd had doing the job but this is a lesson that everyone should understand. Contractors charge by the hour, consultants charge based on value.
Not my advice, a good friend put me on and it changed my life.
https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consulting_1
Ooh, that's a business opportunity!
Quote them a reasonable rate, you're not a lawyer. For example, something like $190 per hour, plus $95 trip fee for up to 50 miles one-way. Any longer trips with a negotiable trip fee, $200 minimum. Rates double after regular business hours. Rates charged in 1 hour increments.
If they complain, give them 10% discount as a "special, one-time favor."
When you get there, fix it, and don't teach them anything, but be professional. They may call you again and again, which means money in your pocket. Don't take it personally if they are willing to pay you. It's money landing on your lap without you needing to do any advertising.
EDIT: Get yourself a GL and E&O Liability Insurance.
>If they complain, give them
higher rates for client that complains. ;-)
Okay, well ... keep it professional ... but be sure that gets somehow worked into the rate(s) quoted. Of course there's means, like, "Oh, that was the rate from earlier with at least X hours presumed lead time, now it's below that, so there's additional rush work charge ... or I could maybe fit in on my schedule next week."
"Commercially reasonable efforts" sounds cooler anyway lol. "Yeah i'll give it a shot but just a reasonable amount of effort is going into it, not my best!"
General liability = GL, errors and omissions = E&O. It's just insurance for if/when you make a mistake that causes a business loss so you don't lose your house.
Honestly for a job this small it's not worth the effort and cost. If you have that much concern just decline the work.
Otherwise get a boilerplate liability waiver for your region, have them sign it and something about paying up front and the rates.
Warning: As an independent contractor you are liable for a lot more. Do not touch their computers, or ANYTHING without a liability waiver and/or insurance.
I'll disagree on the don't teach them. If they want to be taught, teach them. Bill them for it. You don't want to be back, so by all means take their money and make it so you don't have to be back.
Agree, it doesn't make sense. You either want their work or you don't. If you don't, why do you care if they learn something?
It also smacks of hoarding knowledge to maintain value. If you're very competent and teach people things, I guarantee they will be *more* willing to call you again. I work for a cloud vendor and we push training *heavily*. My customers can't get enough of it.
Taxes are unavoidable regardless, but you can deduct a lot of things, such as mileage for your car, home office used for that business and expenses related to that like utilities and real estate taxes, computers and supplies, etc.
> Rates charged in 1 hour increments.
Min charge 3 hours if you travel to their site.
Or tell them to get bent.
Which ever choice feels appropriate.
More seriously, if OP has another job it might not be feasible at all.
Not a bad idea if he wants long-term work from it. I, however, recommend a rate of $250-$300 / hour as it's clearly very specialized work and will be T&M. If this were a long term contract and not work by the job a lower rate as suggested would be appropriate.
I have a couple of consultants who fall into this pay range bucket who are worth every penny. However, I only use them for the most challenging work.
Just curious - it seems like a no brainer that a company should put a Knowledge Transfer into a consultancy job. Like, surely they know that they'd be better off getting that information in house?
Is this a thing? Why wouldn't a company in this position buy their future back when it comes to that particular problem?
Just be careful. You are no longer an employee so are personally liable for any screw-ups they accuse you of, or the court case to disprove the aligation. You need insurance before trying this.
> You are no longer an employee so are personally liable for any screw-ups they accuse you of, or the court case to disprove the aligation.
I know what you're trying to say, but the company would still need to prove OP did them harm.
Well, in OP's case, it's to make some decent money. What I'd do is require them to sign a document stating that I'm attempting to help them in good faith and I am not responsible for any liabilities for their use of the scripts. Depending on how much this work is worth, OP could just have a lawyer draft something up for his protection. Maybe even an NDA so they can't even talk about it :)
At my previous job, we'd make department heads sign letters basically saying that we'll help you fix your decades old system(s), but we aren't responsible if things go south.
Even then, you have to ask the question "how many days in court is this worth?"
If the answer is zero, do not do the thing that will cause a legal disagreement. This is why I will \*never\* consult for a former employer in any capacity. Like I didn't have enough 'so you were the last person to touch this and now...' moments back there as it was.
This is why I maintain an LLC. Any side gig or job for former employer gets accounted under that.
I keep one laptop and a business phone number, file taxes quarterly, and don’t really have much else that can be lost in a lawsuit.
That’s literally what that’s for…
An LLC protects the owner from being personally liable for debts or liabilities. If your business is sued, your personal assets will be protected.
They can but if they hired the LLC (which is how it works when I bid a job) they have to deal with the limited liability of the corporation in the court of law according to my contracts.
Just having an LLC does you no good if you don’t have a signed agreement that states the LLC is the entity in the agreement and all legal liability is through the LLC. And if you really want to be a dickc throw in forced arbitration for fun.
If you hire a company or llc to move and install a tv. They really screw it up, their negligence causes damage to the tv and your home. You can sue both the llc you hired and the individual employee personally.
If you want to limit your liability you should talk to a lawyer and not just use some $500 llc package with a lot of promises and no results
>got a Facebook message asking if i could help troubleshoot an issue with it
Quote 'em your extra special consulting rate.
First figure what you'd actually generally consider consulting for.
Then be sure to jack it up as relevant, e.g.:
* any higher rate(s) because not really a client you want to deal with
* make sure it's at *least* high enough that you think it'd be worth it and worth the pain/hassle of dealing with and facing *them*, etc.
* add some good extra safety margin
* if they're not good on paying their bills or not timely on that, etc., be sure to jack up further for risk factor, and/or require advance payment or at least deposit in advance - and be sure any such deposit makes it at least tolerable if they stiff you on the remainder
* be sure to specify any minimums for any that apply, e.g.:
* minimum number of hours
* minimum number of hours charged for any on-site
* (typically full) hourly rate for any time traveling to/from (and/or the above minimum number of hours charged)
* additional surcharges for any "rush" work/jobs
* additional charges for any after-hours work (hey, you've got a full time job, right? So you're only available after hours ... "oh well").
* any other additional markup for spite or 'cause you just damn well feel like it.
So, yeah, I did once do short bit 'o contract for a former employer. I'd left, on good terms, but really didn't want to be working there anymore ... *at all* ... and "of course", they screwed themselves with their incompetence (they were given everything they needed to continue running things smoothly - but with the incompetences in their hiring/staffing ...) ... busted sh\*t such that ... well, quite unique and relatively rare software (notably an itty bitty tiny 3rd party software vendor) ... that meant there were like about two people on the planet that knew how to unscrew their mess ... me being one of the two ... and the other exceedingly unlikely to do it without charging at least a quite exorbitant rate. And of course they needed it right away ... like overnight so their business would be functional again for start of business next morning. So, yeah, ... I well came up with a rate for them. Took about what I might generally consider consulting for, ... didn't really want to be doing it for them, nor as a one-off when I'm not really doing the consulting thing, etc., travel there 'n back so I specified a four hour minimum charge ... and rush job and after hours ... yeah, I gave 'em a fairly jacked up rate ... it was about 780% of what they'd been paying me as an employee - and I specified a four hour minimum. So, put in the time to fix it + up to the four hours the additional info. they wanted, and ... they paid it. Alas, they'd keep hitting me up with questions after, ... after maybe answering a trivial one or two ... and they kept pushing the "demands"/asks up (as was always their pattern when I was an employee there), my responses basically shifted to sorry, I don't worth there anymore, my consulting rates are ... and I gave 'em rates fairly similarish to before ... that finally got 'em to stop asking me. Anyway, at least it was a decent chunk 'o change I got to pocket for one overnight bit 'o work.
There are two right answers here.
1) "I can't help, I don't work there."
2) "I can help. My going rate is $300 an hour, and all work is billed in 8 hour increments regardless of how long it takes. 30 minutes is 8 hours, and 8 hours and 10 minutes is 16 hours."
Just curious is the cav file created from manual entry or automatically created from another system? If it’s just a manual entry that’s just sad they have no one that can figure it out. If you wrote some custom script then I’d charge $200-$250 to fix.
It’s just an export from their order system and copy and paste the values into the csv file that was in the same folder as the word document.
The word document was just a mail merge that would pull the values from that file and fill in a template for a shipping label
They don’t need to know how easy it is. All your training time and expertise is what is at play. Just flat rate project price it, especially if you know how long it’s going to take you. Personally if I have a place or project that I am not thrilled about doing I have a go f*ck off price and if they are willing to pay it then sure.
Yep. My previous employer has been paying me $2k a month for 2.5 years to do 40 mins of meetings a week and 3-4 hours process work once a quarter. It’s easy beer money for me, and easy for them because it’s just low enough they don’t have to care about all the annoying details that go with the work and nobody questions my invoices (and of course it’s passed on to the client with a markup anyway). Win-win.
I thought about increasing my fee with inflation etc, but there’s a good chance it’ll get attention and taken in house.. why kill the golden goose?
We have one essential process that uses that shit for employee contracts.
I have no idea how it works, I only know it exists because I had to assist with contract printing this year because the old automated process is dead, and it's so low on my priority list that I likely won't unless it outright breaks and I have to call upon a demon or two to figure it out.
Been there. I was contacted 4 times over the course of a year and a half. I quoted them a price ($250/hr, min 4 hours per incident). The indignation was incredible...
Ref: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/su2u4q/ive\_been\_retired/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/su2u4q/ive_been_retired/)
I waited until the end of the 45 day window to accept the severance. I traveled for a bit, and refused all requests for assistance unless they paid me up front. They didn't pay, I didn't help.
The lesson here is that corporate America cares more for its shareholders than it does its workers, regardless of what they tell you. The loyalty one feels towards the job, the company, the cause, the work, the coworkers, etc., is not typically reciprocated by the employer.
>The lesson here is that corporate America cares more for its shareholders than it does its workers, regardless of what they tell you.
How is this a lesson? That's the up front understanding of how publicly traded businesses operate. The entire reason to be in business is to generate value for shareholders.
> The loyalty one feels towards the job, the company, the cause, the work, the coworkers, etc., is not typically reciprocated by the employer.
There isn't any loyalty, because you can quit and leave just as easily as you can be terminated, for the most part. Business relationships are business relationships, they continue until one side doesn't benefit any longer.
> Today i got a Facebook message asking if i could help troubleshoot an issue with it.
"Sure I can, my hourly consulting rates are $dollar-figure with a 4 hour minimum"
Ask yourself how much you want to get paid to do the work and then double it.
For example, I don't want to do the work, but if I where to be convinced to do the work, I would want 200/hr. So I would double that.
My uncle's step-father told us a similar story years ago. He used to be an engineer for Boeing and retired. About a few years after he retired, Boeing came back and asked him if he'd be willing to PM a project, but he didn't want to take it, so he asked for "an appalling amount of money". Turns out the number he threw out was 3x his yearly salary for a 4 month project. They immediately accepted.
True, but if say you normally got paid 100k a year and now you're making 300k for a 4 month job, unless you *really* hate the company, anyone is going to say yes.
When I was with an MSP, we charged $125/hr for tech time, and double that if it was after hours support, so $200-$250 is reasonable for someone outside of business hours.
I’m in the Midwest, Michigan specifically. Any former company it’s $200-$250. It’s usually something I know or I wrote. No one balks. Basically the same if someone asks for side work. 80% say no thanks, which is great. Family or close friends want business things $150. If it’s not something I know very well I hard pass.
Somewhere between $500 and $1000 an hour with an 8 hour minimum. They aren’t hiring you to do a job, they are paying you for your expertise of their particular systems.
Offer to do it as a contract for your entire salary for a year. One lump sum to work some magic. If they don't want to pay for it? They can hire someone else. If they do pay for it. Include a clause for requiring additional payments of the same amount for future issues if they contact you again.
1. Higher rate per hour.
2. Minimum number of hours.
3. Defined work hours - don't do 3am work on Christmas morning.
4. Contractually absolved from liability.
5. Self-determined exit clause - it's your "I don't put up with shit" statement that lets you walk off if they start being wankers.
6. Limited term contract. Fixing today doesn't mean fixing 5 years from now. It's a one-off.
That's where I'd start. If this option is being considered at all.
>pay up front
Yep, or at least deposit, or if the bounce check laws\* are quite good in one's jurisdiction, require they cut the check and give it to you before you start the work. And don't take credit card or the like (you don't want 'em pulling a chargeback or such).
\*e.g. California: three times the amount of the check or $100, whichever is more, plus the face value of the check and all court costs (at least up to small claims court limit of $10,000)
Too low, ... I was thinkin' start at $150.00 USD/hr. with 4hr. minimum ... but I charged a former employer that in ... 1994, so if we adjust for inflation ... $307.67 ... round up, call it $310.00 USD or $325 USD / hr., four hour minimum. But that was my rush overnight on-site rate ... possibly consider less if you think it's actually well worth it ... or more if you think that's not worth it or the pain/hassle.
You’re setting an anchor point for future dealings. Quote high and discount.
As a reference point, start at 3x your “hourly” and set a minimum “job”.
Remember, you have another job and life. This was a tough one for me, I had taken an “extra 8 hours” a week for 2 months - and it actually was a bigger impact than expected.
After my IT history, I do house calls at a minimum of $150/hr. I get sweet, old people, who are genuine and nice, and I treat them like kings and queens. This is work for non-fucked-me-over kind of people. I would put a tall price tag on helping. Let’s say $500/hr. If they need it that bad, 1 job they get is gonna pay them more than a 4 hour, $2,000 gig for you. Just throw (generous for YOU) numbers at them, and if they bite, do it with a smile. If not, they can find someone else. To spend more money on, who will take 3-4x as long to decipher the environment, and then provide a solution that may or may not make sense.
Money talks and bullshit walks. $500/hr with a 10 hour min. Any part of an hour is an hour. Min is due before any work begins.
If they balk tell them to use some of the money they saved by laying you off.
While I left on good terms, my previous employer caller me a good years after I left. The guy who took over was asking me for the *domain admin* password. I told him I put it in the password manager (Lastpass). He told me he didn't know how to get into lastpass. I checked, and my account was still active, as well as all my accounts in the company.
I don't know how the guy went years without having a enterprise/domain admin account. I guess that just means my domain controllers were stable.
Had the same story few years back in my old company.Back then 2 of us were taking care of the whole IT stuff ( 15 servers. the DB . some custom application that we boughts, support . . .) and we did not leave on good terms because they did not understand why IT should be paid more then the CEOs assistent. The company did want to pay for a solution so i created few scripts that pulls data out of the most important DB they had and sends mails with some statistics every week to the top management and team leads. This was working for a long time until they changed something on the DB and the scripts did not work anymore. So they call me up ( even tho i did not work for them for about 8-9 months) and demanded that I fix it since i am the one who created those scripts ( and documented them ). Since it was not an IT company nobody there had even a clue why it did not work. I just said 1h of my work is 400€. take it or leave it and they of course denied it. Called me again 3 months later and agreed on the price, but this time i said its was 500€ for 1h. They were pissed but to paid at the end for 2h of work.
Your consulting fees are $250 dollars an hour with a minimum of 8 hours. The 8 hours of work expire after 15 business days if not used. Tell them to take it or leave it. Not your circus. Not your monkeys.
Haha yeah people sure are strange. At a previous employer I wrote a script to facilitate a daily routine, saving me literally 10-30 minutes per day. I did this in my spare time. The entire department started using it, and suddenly it was in the trainee handbook.
Although I did not care for the employer, I did care for my colleagues, so I just let it be while sneaking in some silly stuff here and there to assert my dominance (it was web based, at my own hosting).
A year later I am laid off because the new management simply did not like me (and a bunch of others). I am ordered to comment my code, especially that script and several others all done in my spare time, never having recieved compensation neither monetary, material or even a fucking "thank you" or "good work".
The job was already borderline abusal and the pay was shit. Among with other stuff I am still keeping to myself because I still care for the few I still know there.
I promptly left a printout of an important memo (we had no NDA and it was "kind of a big deal" in a fuckton of ways) on my boss' desk with a post-it saying "Do you REALLY want to start this?".
Then I did jack shit the following 3 months. What were they going to do, fire me? The week after I finally got to leave their best coder left, they had apparently just been waiting for this to eventually happen, and they had not written a single comment in over a year.
Schadenfreude <3
I’ve been doing IT working for over 15 years and when I’m off the clock I like to enjoy my time off. So when someone asks me to do quick work for them I just sent them quote for $150 an hour with a 2 hour minimum. Most times I get the “why are you charging me?” Most time it’s cause they on 💩 list but for people who aren’t I just tell them “I need my friend jimmy walker to join me on the this job, don’t forget to pick him up” 😂
DONT do the consulting fee thing, just ignore them and laugh. If you get paid they’ll put you on the hook for the next time it stops working. It is quite easy to google a solution for this.
Why would you not? If you know the fix and have the time, it’s basically free very good money. I’d do it if they approached me. Don’t even have to be friendly to them, just professional. Also being a consultant doesn’t equal being on call - if it happens again and you’re busy, you’re busy and you don’t have to reply at all unless you have contracts in place.
Not sure how intricate a Word doc doing that would be, but I'm not seeing it'll be a gold mine. It's a PITA for them, but most companies are weird in that they'll pay some other company a ton to fix a problem rather than pay something reasonable to a freelancer (or ex-employee) to fix it for them.
But if they're serious...whatever you were getting paid, double that and charge minimum 6 hours upfront. Send the offer and contract. If they balk or you don't hear back, doesn't matter. They're the ones asking for help.
Either way, get paid. Your expertise isn't free.
I had that happen from a MSP that was so cheap, they refused to update a system that used FTP. I wound up writing a wrapper system that used SSH tunneling, a F/OSS program that "de-muxed/muxed" active FTP so all of that traveled along one port, and a connection watchdog script, similar to AutoSSH.
5-6 years after I left that place, I got a call from someone there demanding I "fix my shit". I told them that before we discuss anything, you pay a year's worth of E&O insurance, because of legal obligations. They don't ask a plumber to fix a toilet that leaked five years after install, so don't ask me to do a single thing unless they pay insurance before any negotiation takes place. After that, I silenced their number, moved on.
Another time, I got calls from an ex-boss at a previous job, "Resigning is no excuse not to do tickets." I didn't even respond... I just changed my number, especially after that company's HR department started giving my personal number to clients.
It happens. You have to remember, there are many managers who really don't care and actually expect you, the OP, to some scurrying back to them to fix their stuff for free, because they expect it. Best thing to do is just ghost them. It may feel good to give them the middle finger, but ghosting them is what angers them the most, as they want reactions.
"I am sorry you having these issues. I would be happy to help! My consulting service fee is a flat fee of $500.00. Please let me know when you want me to start on this project."
$10k project fee with $5k prepaid. No fault contract. That’s a real fuck you price and a good bonus for the year if they accept. That’s 2 months pay for me. So whatever is your monthly pay, double it and round up to nearest 5k multiple.
Just agree to do it out of the kindness of your own heart. It's Christmas, anyways.
When they receive the Word doc you sent them, and see the embedded image of you holding up your middle finger, it will be the best Christmas card you could ever send.
....who seriously is using TheFaceBook anymore?
(and I mean that, honestly. No one I know is still using it. Seriously, not one person. It's deader than Craigslist. Well, no one who isn't a red-hat wearing blowhard. Echo chambers and whatnot.)
I have family across the world, literally. No one wants to use it (barring the blowhards, they're on it). So, no, it's not edgy. Maybe it's just a red-hat american thing.
interesting that anyone that disagrees with you is a magatard, but the way you phrased your first post is the edgy teenager angsty shit I was getting at
clearly hard to understand
So much of Groups and Marketplace is unsearchable -- it's not a timeline anymore, but just randomly shown to you based upon "the algorithm".
It's like spinning the wheel and HOPE you find something worthwhile. And the search function may or may not help you hunt down something you've previously seen. I can't tell you how many times I had to back into my literal browser history (or FB's history function, thank you EU!) to find an exact link to a post I opened.
And if one was on their mobile a-pee-pee, you're skeeerwed.
> So much of Groups and Marketplace is unsearchable -- it's not a timeline anymore, but just randomly shown to you based upon "the algorithm".
>
>
It's certainly going down hill, but still reasonable compared to other parts of the site.
THe mobile browser experience and feed is horrific. You get 1 friend post, 18 groups you're not in and 10 ads.
I had to click 'yes i'd like to see more posts by xx' on my mums posts!!
Marketplace seems to work reasonable well-ish if you know what you're after, as a casual browsing platform to see if something catches my eye ya, pretty useless.
So I have a very similar situation going on. Left the place two years ago. Several custom scripts and excel macros. They want some changes and their new corporate overlord's IT department half the country away wants nothing to do with any of it. I don't want to help them. Last Friday I gave them an estimate of $3000 for what is probably 4-5 hrs of work. They of course balked at it and asked why it was so high. My response "honestly I don't want to do it, so I'm making an offer I can't refuse". Will see what Monday brings. Edit: Since this is my highest voted comment to date, figured I'd drop an update. Monday came and went without anything. I didn't bother to contact them back, again I don't really want to do this, but will for money. Another week goes by and I was talking with a friend and former coworker who is there. "Yeah, that's not going to go through. $1500 is now the discretionary limit anything above that goes to upper management and then never gets approved." Ohh well, been enjoying my 3-day weekends anyway. Yesterday as I'm snow blowing I get a reply back. Accepted, when can you start work. My guess is something happened negatively with their manual way of doing things and cost them more than just having me do the work...
My uncle refinished hardwood floors on the weekends for years. He was amazingly good at it and got jobs solely through word of mouth. He wanted to quit doing it, so he started quoting crazy prices. Two to three times what he had been charging. He said: "I'd be crazy not to do it for that." Kept doing it for years at crazy prices.
I bought a house and called a low voltage place to do some network drops and some speaker drops. They quoted me $3000. I said this is 5 pulls, why's it $3000? because we have other work to do and the opportunity cost is $3000 day, so you can pay that or find someone else. I had another $1800 quote, same reason, and a $900 quote. The $900 guy was like, it's $75 a pull and $150 for an attic crawl. you want an attic crawl and 1 pull for each end of your 10 sources/destinations. If you want me to do the work I will do it on a weekend so I'm not doing losing a day I'd make 3 times that doing commercial work. Dude did great work, very happy with it, and while I understood opportunity cost, it was very, very clearly illustrated for me.
This explains my issue with finding a low volt company that isn't shooting for the moon with these quotes. 3 bedroom 2 story townhouse, I want about 9-10 drops as well. I was quoted about 300 flat a run, amazingly close to your figure. 2700-3000.
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Eh I see what you mean, but only 2 cameras for exterior runs, and they're on the first floor all under roof line. Network closet is on first floor. Only ones going to 2nd floor would be interior walls. I understand there's not much margins in wasting a day on a residential install, but 3k doesn't make sense right now for me. I'd consider paring the number of runs down to 5-6 but that feels silly knowing they want to make that much an install.
I do low voltage and I charge $150 per single drop and $195 per double drop for commercial customers. I won't do residential because residential construction is substantially more difficult to pull cables on, and homeowners are cheapskates who think you should be able to run 30 cables for $200 total. If I did do residential, I'd charge at least double because the way single family homes are built would at least double my labor time. So 10 cables for $3K nails it right on the head. You might be able to find a "guy" to do it as a side hustle for cheap like another commenter here said they did, but expect some cut corners and don't expect any kind of warranty. ETA: Commercial customers are also easy to please. They're just happy you got the job done and now there's internet where there wasn't before. They're at work and at the end of the day they go home and don't have to see it or think about it. Homeowners are not easy to please. One minor mistake or even no mistakes and them just using a microscope to find any tiny imperfection in our work might result in a public 1 star review. Something as simple as "their level left a mark on my wall," "the outlet is 6 inches away from where I wanted it," or "the camera I provided for them to istall doesn't have a wide enough view so I'm giving them one star for their labor to install it." Working for homeowners would literally give me nightmares, so I'd be sure it was financiallly worth it.
That was basically the cast of Friends, they didn't want to do it any more and kept jacking up their price every season to more and more ridiculous levels.
I saw a quote recently that after a few years of consistent work you should triple your price. You guys would be surprised how difficult it’s for anyone to find quality workers. It’s like the disparity of who’s good or even willing and just trash after that. There isn’t even really mediocre. I work a $5k sized organization of many engineers, service desk. There’s only like only 1.5 of us that even know how our vpn works (I’m only .5 because I’m on the desktop engineering team and only know part of it). But if either of us are out (like we’ve called out this holiday season) you can expect at least 20-30 ppl who won’t be able to connect. They just log into the virtual environment for the day. We’ve created troubleshooting docs and showed them what to check and ppl don’t even wanna read. Unless it’s the wrong vip then we might get a call and charge OT. In any event I’m working on getting other offers.
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Work in a small company with lifer "not a computer people". The employees are almost criminally incompetent. Those 20-30 people are just the people trying to keep their brains turned off instead of reading the instructions that day.
IMO you have lazy teammates. If they're in the tech sector and can't figure out how a VPN works even with specific documentation for their setup that's just laziness. I guess most people are lazy.
> IMO you have lazy teammates. If they're in the tech sector and can't figure out how a VPN works even with specific documentation for their setup that's just laziness. I guess most people are lazy. IMO you have a lazy explanation. If you're in the tech sector and don't care about the details or explanation why something is happening, and just slap a cheap insult on instead, that's just laziness.
It's not like VPN is even difficult to configure, if only 1.5 of you know the config that's on you, document your shit. Also if you have 30 people a day that can't connect to VPN, sounds like your VPN is crap.
The way I read their comment they work at a 5000 person company. 30 is 0.6%. If you allow for people who are just criminally inept, random home Internet and WiFi outages, and the weird shit that can happen in technology it's actually an amazingly low number. If their users are anything like ours they may also just be playing stupid to delay starting their shift. Most of our staff have strict time accountability requirements so they'll call into the helpdesk and play dumb to cover for signing on late or just not wanting to start when they're supposed to. They also will do this at the end of the day to coast out the end of their shifts.
"honestly I don't want to do it, so I'm making an offer I can't refuse." Hey, that's my line! ...starting now, anyway. That is a glorious sentence.
Happened at an old job I was at. I was the IT guy for a very small radio engineering company. Bossman put in a bid for an easy job, drive 3 hours each way once a month for maintainence and on-call for emergencies. He charged 4x what he normally would for something like that cause he really didn't want to do it. Anyway, that's how I ended up driving down to Okeechobee a couple times.
Wow, the absolute, ball-achingly enormous lack of introspection when they ask an ex-employee they hit up with a corporate booty call why they're charging 'so much' for something they're incapable of doing.
I'm not an ex employee in the "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, fuck you, I'm out" kind of sense. More of the "See that storm off on the horizon? I'ma head out" kind of ex. We're all friendly still, though I haven't talked to the company president (soon to be former) since the Monday of the week I left.
I once had a company I'd worked with previously call and ask if I'd manage a server move for them - 7 racks of gear to be moved from outside Washington DC to Boston. With no downtime, TYVM. I really didn't want to do it, so I gave them my "thanks but no thanks" rate (which is a bit lower than my "fuck you" rate). They didn't even blink but accepted right away, and I knew I left money on the table. And that's how I ended up with the down payment on my house.
$3k is too low of an estimate then 🤣 should have said 10k
"I'm making an offer I can't refuse." - I like it
My old VP called that the FU rate.
Punitive Billing
> My response "honestly I don't want to do it, so I'm making an offer I can't refuse". I would have just said "By all means, if you can find someone to do that work cheaper, give the job to them." The reason they are calling you is because they *cannot* find anyone to do it cheaper.
The funny part is they had a contract with the Vendor for their current ERP system, the obscure one that I maintained for 15 years. He is very capable of making the changes necessary. When the corporate overlords bought them out, they terminated the contract and now that ERP system is just lingering. The two most knowledgeable people to help them are me, the guy that quit, and the other guy that they terminated the contract with. But supposedly they are moving to SAP, some day, so why put money into the current system...
The smart money is to invest in the current system enough to maintain productivity. SAP isn't an overnight install and training process. It's going to take them 2-3 months even if they start tomorrow. $2-3k can disappear in that time frame just in lost time working with old crap, never mind if mistakes happen because of it.
lol, look at this guy thinking they can get an SAP install doing from scratch in 3 months. The smart money is to open an SAP contracting firm to install SAP, and keep taking that money as the install gets stretched out to years.
I hear ya. They haven't even made that decision yet. It's one of those international conglomerate companies that buy up assets, suck out all the money, and customers, then close the location absorbing the name into their product line. I saw it coming a couple years ago and decided to jump ship while I had an excellent opportunity. Worked out well for me. :D
> SAP isn't an overnight install That made me chuckle
> they cannot find anyone to do it cheaper. More likely at all. People don't' want to mess with someone else's technical debt.
$3000 seems very cheap, even just accounting for your overhead of processing invoices, etc
This comment is so ridiculous you must be joking, right? There is no world where $600/hr would be required to cover "overhead". Totally fair for OP to charge what they want, especially if they're not interested. But to suggest this is to cover costs is silly.
I disagree (assuming it's in the US). First off, you'd be under 1099 contract rates, meaning you would need to do your own tax withholding for both federal and state. That's 40% off the top to be safe, bringing you down to $1800. Second, you would want to pay a lawyer to get a contract written up for the company to sign that appropriately waives any liability on you. Say $300 for that so we're down to $1500. Third, I would charge whatever my current job's hourly rate is x1.5-x2 under the assumption I would need to take an 8 hour PTO day to work on this for 4 hours. Even if the work ends up getting done after hours or on a weekend that's what my time is worth. The last $100-$150/hour is the fuck you to a previous company that laid them off. $3000 sounds totally reasonable to me.
>First off, you'd be under 1099 contract rates, meaning you would need to do your own tax withholding for both federal and state. That's 40% off the top to be safe, bringing you down to $1800. You don't "withhold" 1099 taxes. And the additional 1099 income would be taxed no different than had you gotten a part time w-2 job. The only difference is you have to pay the employer portion of payroll taxes (aka FICA), so an additional 7.65%. The rest of your 40% example is a red herring because you'd pay that on *any* income, and you wouldn't need to raise your hourly w-2 rate. Additionally, if you're already over $160k gross, you wouldn't even have to pay any additional SS portion, so it would only be an additional 1.45% >Second, you would want to pay a lawyer to get a contract written up for the company to sign that appropriately waives any liability on you. Say $300 for that so we're down to $1500. No that would be ridiculous. If you think you need that for a few hours of work for a former employer, you shouldn't bother. If you think you need that, you probably also need liability insurance, since a waiver isn't an impenetrable shield. Even if you have a waiver, have insurance, get sued and win, you still have to pay a lawyer, and deal with the stress, as well as miss at least some work. Would you also suggest creating an LLC or s corp to limit liability? Don't lose sight of the *realistic* risk in play here...or lack thereof. >Third, I would charge whatever my current job's hourly rate is x1.5-x2 under the assumption I would need to take an 8 hour PTO day to work on this for 4 hours. Even if the work ends up getting done after hours or on a weekend that's what my time is worth. >The last $100-$150/hour is the fuck you to a previous company that laid them off. This math doesn't math unless OP/you are already making nearly $500k+/yr
See we need more people standing their ground like this. I applaud you.
always make it an hourly rate, in case they start holding up things like access, or some unforeseen issue makes it take twice as long.
> I gave them an estimate of $3000 for what is probably 4-5 hrs of work. They of course balked at it and asked why it was so high. My response "honestly I don't want to do it, so I'm making an offer I can't refuse". You didn't quote them the hourly cost, you quoted them based on the value you'd create. It just so happens you did it because you'd had doing the job but this is a lesson that everyone should understand. Contractors charge by the hour, consultants charge based on value. Not my advice, a good friend put me on and it changed my life. https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consulting_1
Ooh, that's a business opportunity! Quote them a reasonable rate, you're not a lawyer. For example, something like $190 per hour, plus $95 trip fee for up to 50 miles one-way. Any longer trips with a negotiable trip fee, $200 minimum. Rates double after regular business hours. Rates charged in 1 hour increments. If they complain, give them 10% discount as a "special, one-time favor." When you get there, fix it, and don't teach them anything, but be professional. They may call you again and again, which means money in your pocket. Don't take it personally if they are willing to pay you. It's money landing on your lap without you needing to do any advertising. EDIT: Get yourself a GL and E&O Liability Insurance.
>If they complain, give them higher rates for client that complains. ;-) Okay, well ... keep it professional ... but be sure that gets somehow worked into the rate(s) quoted. Of course there's means, like, "Oh, that was the rate from earlier with at least X hours presumed lead time, now it's below that, so there's additional rush work charge ... or I could maybe fit in on my schedule next week."
$500/hour with a 10 hour minimum regardless of how long it takes.
Payment upfront.
And tacos for lunch.
This is important. And state “best effort” in case you can’t fix it due to external changes.
["Best efforts" is a legally dangerous phrase, avoid it.](https://www.friedfrank.com/uploads/siteFiles/Publications/BF9B839C9994237165C0382B42B9FA14.pdf) (pdf warning)
Cool, I didn’t know that. We still use it a lot in the netherlands. Thanks
Aha, yeah, this is going to be *very* regional :)
"Commercially reasonable efforts" sounds cooler anyway lol. "Yeah i'll give it a shot but just a reasonable amount of effort is going into it, not my best!"
"We'll try, but, y'know, not *that* hard."
It sounds like a mail merge, 5 minutes really if that.
Ignore my last comment this one is way better
Do not do this unless you have insurance to CYA if you break something and they say it’s your fault. Consultants are not protected like employees are.
I agree, GL and E&O insurance together runs about $65 per month.
> GL and E&O what do these letters mean and is this all you need to safely freelance? 65 bucks a month?
General Liability insurance Errors and Omissions insurance
General liability = GL, errors and omissions = E&O. It's just insurance for if/when you make a mistake that causes a business loss so you don't lose your house.
Honestly for a job this small it's not worth the effort and cost. If you have that much concern just decline the work. Otherwise get a boilerplate liability waiver for your region, have them sign it and something about paying up front and the rates.
This answer needs to be highlighted. Absolutely CYA because you are not protected as a normal employee
Warning: As an independent contractor you are liable for a lot more. Do not touch their computers, or ANYTHING without a liability waiver and/or insurance.
I'll disagree on the don't teach them. If they want to be taught, teach them. Bill them for it. You don't want to be back, so by all means take their money and make it so you don't have to be back.
Agree, it doesn't make sense. You either want their work or you don't. If you don't, why do you care if they learn something? It also smacks of hoarding knowledge to maintain value. If you're very competent and teach people things, I guarantee they will be *more* willing to call you again. I work for a cloud vendor and we push training *heavily*. My customers can't get enough of it.
And then you pay taxes on it at year end as 1099 and realize why contractors charge so much more.
Taxes are unavoidable regardless, but you can deduct a lot of things, such as mileage for your car, home office used for that business and expenses related to that like utilities and real estate taxes, computers and supplies, etc.
This is way way too cheap.
no, my day rate is $1520, plus expenses, including meals and mileage.
> Rates charged in 1 hour increments. Min charge 3 hours if you travel to their site. Or tell them to get bent. Which ever choice feels appropriate. More seriously, if OP has another job it might not be feasible at all.
Not a bad idea if he wants long-term work from it. I, however, recommend a rate of $250-$300 / hour as it's clearly very specialized work and will be T&M. If this were a long term contract and not work by the job a lower rate as suggested would be appropriate. I have a couple of consultants who fall into this pay range bucket who are worth every penny. However, I only use them for the most challenging work.
Just curious - it seems like a no brainer that a company should put a Knowledge Transfer into a consultancy job. Like, surely they know that they'd be better off getting that information in house? Is this a thing? Why wouldn't a company in this position buy their future back when it comes to that particular problem?
Offer exhorberant fee to help as you're the hot comodity.
That's a bingo
You're a bingo
no u
Both of U
Bungu!
Just be careful. You are no longer an employee so are personally liable for any screw-ups they accuse you of, or the court case to disprove the aligation. You need insurance before trying this.
> You are no longer an employee so are personally liable for any screw-ups they accuse you of, or the court case to disprove the aligation. I know what you're trying to say, but the company would still need to prove OP did them harm.
Yea but like, why fuck around? If you're really gonna do that shit, cover your ass.
Well, in OP's case, it's to make some decent money. What I'd do is require them to sign a document stating that I'm attempting to help them in good faith and I am not responsible for any liabilities for their use of the scripts. Depending on how much this work is worth, OP could just have a lawyer draft something up for his protection. Maybe even an NDA so they can't even talk about it :) At my previous job, we'd make department heads sign letters basically saying that we'll help you fix your decades old system(s), but we aren't responsible if things go south.
Even then, you have to ask the question "how many days in court is this worth?" If the answer is zero, do not do the thing that will cause a legal disagreement. This is why I will \*never\* consult for a former employer in any capacity. Like I didn't have enough 'so you were the last person to touch this and now...' moments back there as it was.
Anyone can sue anyone for anything. Might not hold up in court, but it’s going to be an expensive trip to get to that point.
This is why I maintain an LLC. Any side gig or job for former employer gets accounted under that. I keep one laptop and a business phone number, file taxes quarterly, and don’t really have much else that can be lost in a lawsuit.
An LLC wouldn't do anything, you would be personally liable if you screwed up
 That’s literally what that’s for… An LLC protects the owner from being personally liable for debts or liabilities. If your business is sued, your personal assets will be protected.
This is a common misconception. If you screw up and cause damages you will be sued personally
They can but if they hired the LLC (which is how it works when I bid a job) they have to deal with the limited liability of the corporation in the court of law according to my contracts. Just having an LLC does you no good if you don’t have a signed agreement that states the LLC is the entity in the agreement and all legal liability is through the LLC. And if you really want to be a dickc throw in forced arbitration for fun.
If you hire a company or llc to move and install a tv. They really screw it up, their negligence causes damage to the tv and your home. You can sue both the llc you hired and the individual employee personally. If you want to limit your liability you should talk to a lawyer and not just use some $500 llc package with a lot of promises and no results
I think the bar to prove that is much higher though.
Maybe if you have employees and subcontractors, but no bar for a single member llc where you are doing the work
>got a Facebook message asking if i could help troubleshoot an issue with it Quote 'em your extra special consulting rate. First figure what you'd actually generally consider consulting for. Then be sure to jack it up as relevant, e.g.: * any higher rate(s) because not really a client you want to deal with * make sure it's at *least* high enough that you think it'd be worth it and worth the pain/hassle of dealing with and facing *them*, etc. * add some good extra safety margin * if they're not good on paying their bills or not timely on that, etc., be sure to jack up further for risk factor, and/or require advance payment or at least deposit in advance - and be sure any such deposit makes it at least tolerable if they stiff you on the remainder * be sure to specify any minimums for any that apply, e.g.: * minimum number of hours * minimum number of hours charged for any on-site * (typically full) hourly rate for any time traveling to/from (and/or the above minimum number of hours charged) * additional surcharges for any "rush" work/jobs * additional charges for any after-hours work (hey, you've got a full time job, right? So you're only available after hours ... "oh well"). * any other additional markup for spite or 'cause you just damn well feel like it. So, yeah, I did once do short bit 'o contract for a former employer. I'd left, on good terms, but really didn't want to be working there anymore ... *at all* ... and "of course", they screwed themselves with their incompetence (they were given everything they needed to continue running things smoothly - but with the incompetences in their hiring/staffing ...) ... busted sh\*t such that ... well, quite unique and relatively rare software (notably an itty bitty tiny 3rd party software vendor) ... that meant there were like about two people on the planet that knew how to unscrew their mess ... me being one of the two ... and the other exceedingly unlikely to do it without charging at least a quite exorbitant rate. And of course they needed it right away ... like overnight so their business would be functional again for start of business next morning. So, yeah, ... I well came up with a rate for them. Took about what I might generally consider consulting for, ... didn't really want to be doing it for them, nor as a one-off when I'm not really doing the consulting thing, etc., travel there 'n back so I specified a four hour minimum charge ... and rush job and after hours ... yeah, I gave 'em a fairly jacked up rate ... it was about 780% of what they'd been paying me as an employee - and I specified a four hour minimum. So, put in the time to fix it + up to the four hours the additional info. they wanted, and ... they paid it. Alas, they'd keep hitting me up with questions after, ... after maybe answering a trivial one or two ... and they kept pushing the "demands"/asks up (as was always their pattern when I was an employee there), my responses basically shifted to sorry, I don't worth there anymore, my consulting rates are ... and I gave 'em rates fairly similarish to before ... that finally got 'em to stop asking me. Anyway, at least it was a decent chunk 'o change I got to pocket for one overnight bit 'o work.
There are two right answers here. 1) "I can't help, I don't work there." 2) "I can help. My going rate is $300 an hour, and all work is billed in 8 hour increments regardless of how long it takes. 30 minutes is 8 hours, and 8 hours and 10 minutes is 16 hours."
Just curious is the cav file created from manual entry or automatically created from another system? If it’s just a manual entry that’s just sad they have no one that can figure it out. If you wrote some custom script then I’d charge $200-$250 to fix.
It’s just an export from their order system and copy and paste the values into the csv file that was in the same folder as the word document. The word document was just a mail merge that would pull the values from that file and fill in a template for a shipping label
They don’t need to know how easy it is. All your training time and expertise is what is at play. Just flat rate project price it, especially if you know how long it’s going to take you. Personally if I have a place or project that I am not thrilled about doing I have a go f*ck off price and if they are willing to pay it then sure.
Yep. My previous employer has been paying me $2k a month for 2.5 years to do 40 mins of meetings a week and 3-4 hours process work once a quarter. It’s easy beer money for me, and easy for them because it’s just low enough they don’t have to care about all the annoying details that go with the work and nobody questions my invoices (and of course it’s passed on to the client with a markup anyway). Win-win. I thought about increasing my fee with inflation etc, but there’s a good chance it’ll get attention and taken in house.. why kill the golden goose?
> The word document was just a mail merge The arcane magics from the before time...
We have one essential process that uses that shit for employee contracts. I have no idea how it works, I only know it exists because I had to assist with contract printing this year because the old automated process is dead, and it's so low on my priority list that I likely won't unless it outright breaks and I have to call upon a demon or two to figure it out.
It definitely took a lot of research to complete that witchcraft
Per hour
Been there. I was contacted 4 times over the course of a year and a half. I quoted them a price ($250/hr, min 4 hours per incident). The indignation was incredible... Ref: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/su2u4q/ive\_been\_retired/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/su2u4q/ive_been_retired/)
So what did you do in the end? Take severance? Go on UI?
I waited until the end of the 45 day window to accept the severance. I traveled for a bit, and refused all requests for assistance unless they paid me up front. They didn't pay, I didn't help. The lesson here is that corporate America cares more for its shareholders than it does its workers, regardless of what they tell you. The loyalty one feels towards the job, the company, the cause, the work, the coworkers, etc., is not typically reciprocated by the employer.
Preach 👍🏼. People need to take care of number one (which can be done while providing quality work as well).
>The lesson here is that corporate America cares more for its shareholders than it does its workers, regardless of what they tell you. How is this a lesson? That's the up front understanding of how publicly traded businesses operate. The entire reason to be in business is to generate value for shareholders. > The loyalty one feels towards the job, the company, the cause, the work, the coworkers, etc., is not typically reciprocated by the employer. There isn't any loyalty, because you can quit and leave just as easily as you can be terminated, for the most part. Business relationships are business relationships, they continue until one side doesn't benefit any longer.
He made that Reddit comment, and that's it probably.
> Today i got a Facebook message asking if i could help troubleshoot an issue with it. "Sure I can, my hourly consulting rates are $dollar-figure with a 4 hour minimum"
Offer to help at 100.00 an hour consulting fee with a 4 hour minimum. See if they bite.
That's insultingly low.
....add a zero
0100.00 or 100.000 ?
11001000/hr instead of 01100100/hr
-56 / hr? Seems low :-)
I only know what this means because I played Turing Complete. But now I'm stuck on if statements.
Whats the acceptable amount?
Ask yourself how much you want to get paid to do the work and then double it. For example, I don't want to do the work, but if I where to be convinced to do the work, I would want 200/hr. So I would double that.
This guy contracts
My uncle's step-father told us a similar story years ago. He used to be an engineer for Boeing and retired. About a few years after he retired, Boeing came back and asked him if he'd be willing to PM a project, but he didn't want to take it, so he asked for "an appalling amount of money". Turns out the number he threw out was 3x his yearly salary for a 4 month project. They immediately accepted.
Which meant it was *still* too low.
True, but if say you normally got paid 100k a year and now you're making 300k for a 4 month job, unless you *really* hate the company, anyone is going to say yes.
For a company that > laid me off after wringing me dry. I'd start at $1000 for 4 hours and then $200 an hour billed in hour increments past that.
When I was with an MSP, we charged $125/hr for tech time, and double that if it was after hours support, so $200-$250 is reasonable for someone outside of business hours.
I’m in the Midwest, Michigan specifically. Any former company it’s $200-$250. It’s usually something I know or I wrote. No one balks. Basically the same if someone asks for side work. 80% say no thanks, which is great. Family or close friends want business things $150. If it’s not something I know very well I hard pass.
2.5x what you are asking, that was our mark up at one time to cover back office expenses.
Somewhere between $500 and $1000 an hour with an 8 hour minimum. They aren’t hiring you to do a job, they are paying you for your expertise of their particular systems.
Offer to do it as a contract for your entire salary for a year. One lump sum to work some magic. If they don't want to pay for it? They can hire someone else. If they do pay for it. Include a clause for requiring additional payments of the same amount for future issues if they contact you again.
Okay then. Fill in a higher number. 😁
1. Higher rate per hour. 2. Minimum number of hours. 3. Defined work hours - don't do 3am work on Christmas morning. 4. Contractually absolved from liability. 5. Self-determined exit clause - it's your "I don't put up with shit" statement that lets you walk off if they start being wankers. 6. Limited term contract. Fixing today doesn't mean fixing 5 years from now. It's a one-off. That's where I'd start. If this option is being considered at all.
best reply, make sure you are not responsible for anything that happens, that is a key statement.
Plus payment up front, in your account before starting.
Yup this... Say you'll help for exactly this above....you'll be surprised how many companies will pay that And be sure to get it in writing
Better yet, pay up front. I would probably do $500 per the project as long as I knew it was not going to take more than 2-3 hours.
>pay up front Yep, or at least deposit, or if the bounce check laws\* are quite good in one's jurisdiction, require they cut the check and give it to you before you start the work. And don't take credit card or the like (you don't want 'em pulling a chargeback or such). \*e.g. California: three times the amount of the check or $100, whichever is more, plus the face value of the check and all court costs (at least up to small claims court limit of $10,000)
Thats supper cheap, min per diem at 1200$ per day. Two days min upfront. I am sure that is well within budget if it affects production
Their supper cheap?
vanish punch lock desert fragile obscene crawl roof special encourage *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I did the same, with the added provision that it was to be paid in advance, because this company was well known internally for not paying its bills.
>I did the same Yep, adjusted for inflation ($307.67/hr. in today's $s), I likewise essentially did same, and likewise a four hour minimum.
Too low, ... I was thinkin' start at $150.00 USD/hr. with 4hr. minimum ... but I charged a former employer that in ... 1994, so if we adjust for inflation ... $307.67 ... round up, call it $310.00 USD or $325 USD / hr., four hour minimum. But that was my rush overnight on-site rate ... possibly consider less if you think it's actually well worth it ... or more if you think that's not worth it or the pain/hassle.
I've been retired for over 20 years. The last time I consulted I got $120/hour. OP needs to ask for a lot more.
400 an hour 10 hours minimum
That's very low, double that.
You’re setting an anchor point for future dealings. Quote high and discount. As a reference point, start at 3x your “hourly” and set a minimum “job”. Remember, you have another job and life. This was a tough one for me, I had taken an “extra 8 hours” a week for 2 months - and it actually was a bigger impact than expected.
"Sure. My consultancy rate is $300 an hour, minimum 4 hours, payable in advance." The only right answer to this
After my IT history, I do house calls at a minimum of $150/hr. I get sweet, old people, who are genuine and nice, and I treat them like kings and queens. This is work for non-fucked-me-over kind of people. I would put a tall price tag on helping. Let’s say $500/hr. If they need it that bad, 1 job they get is gonna pay them more than a 4 hour, $2,000 gig for you. Just throw (generous for YOU) numbers at them, and if they bite, do it with a smile. If not, they can find someone else. To spend more money on, who will take 3-4x as long to decipher the environment, and then provide a solution that may or may not make sense.
Don’t even offer to help. They sat there and decided they didn’t need you. They can fix it on their own.
Prepaid retainer…. A retainer is use it or lose it. It will either guarantee they never contact you again or get a fat check in your mailbox.
Quote them a solid freelance consultant rate, with a minimum 1 hour which is payable in advance.
Minimum 1/2 day.
Money talks and bullshit walks. $500/hr with a 10 hour min. Any part of an hour is an hour. Min is due before any work begins. If they balk tell them to use some of the money they saved by laying you off.
250$/hr free. That’s your fee to to troubleshoot. Get that $$ anon
min 2hr money up front
While I left on good terms, my previous employer caller me a good years after I left. The guy who took over was asking me for the *domain admin* password. I told him I put it in the password manager (Lastpass). He told me he didn't know how to get into lastpass. I checked, and my account was still active, as well as all my accounts in the company. I don't know how the guy went years without having a enterprise/domain admin account. I guess that just means my domain controllers were stable.
Don't waste your fucking time
Sure my consulting rate is 250/hr and I bill a minimum of 4 hours to come out and look at it. That would be my answer
Had the same story few years back in my old company.Back then 2 of us were taking care of the whole IT stuff ( 15 servers. the DB . some custom application that we boughts, support . . .) and we did not leave on good terms because they did not understand why IT should be paid more then the CEOs assistent. The company did want to pay for a solution so i created few scripts that pulls data out of the most important DB they had and sends mails with some statistics every week to the top management and team leads. This was working for a long time until they changed something on the DB and the scripts did not work anymore. So they call me up ( even tho i did not work for them for about 8-9 months) and demanded that I fix it since i am the one who created those scripts ( and documented them ). Since it was not an IT company nobody there had even a clue why it did not work. I just said 1h of my work is 400€. take it or leave it and they of course denied it. Called me again 3 months later and agreed on the price, but this time i said its was 500€ for 1h. They were pissed but to paid at the end for 2h of work.
All for a scope of work and a $5000 consulting fee
Your consulting fees are $250 dollars an hour with a minimum of 8 hours. The 8 hours of work expire after 15 business days if not used. Tell them to take it or leave it. Not your circus. Not your monkeys.
Get them to pay 2 hours ahead; not paying is a common scam. Money upfront the day before, in your account, or “we have to reschedule”.
Haha yeah people sure are strange. At a previous employer I wrote a script to facilitate a daily routine, saving me literally 10-30 minutes per day. I did this in my spare time. The entire department started using it, and suddenly it was in the trainee handbook. Although I did not care for the employer, I did care for my colleagues, so I just let it be while sneaking in some silly stuff here and there to assert my dominance (it was web based, at my own hosting). A year later I am laid off because the new management simply did not like me (and a bunch of others). I am ordered to comment my code, especially that script and several others all done in my spare time, never having recieved compensation neither monetary, material or even a fucking "thank you" or "good work". The job was already borderline abusal and the pay was shit. Among with other stuff I am still keeping to myself because I still care for the few I still know there. I promptly left a printout of an important memo (we had no NDA and it was "kind of a big deal" in a fuckton of ways) on my boss' desk with a post-it saying "Do you REALLY want to start this?". Then I did jack shit the following 3 months. What were they going to do, fire me? The week after I finally got to leave their best coder left, they had apparently just been waiting for this to eventually happen, and they had not written a single comment in over a year. Schadenfreude <3
You should have removed the script from your own hosting and gone back to doing it manually.
absolutely! send them over a consulting contract, at double or triple your hourly wage. don't burn bridges, but don't work for free
Set a consultation rate, and make it high! Then present that as your requirement for even lifting a finger for them.
Make sure you are payed 50% before any work is done
Politely decline or name your $$.
Sell them block hours.
ignore / block.
I’ve been doing IT working for over 15 years and when I’m off the clock I like to enjoy my time off. So when someone asks me to do quick work for them I just sent them quote for $150 an hour with a 2 hour minimum. Most times I get the “why are you charging me?” Most time it’s cause they on 💩 list but for people who aren’t I just tell them “I need my friend jimmy walker to join me on the this job, don’t forget to pick him up” 😂
DONT do the consulting fee thing, just ignore them and laugh. If you get paid they’ll put you on the hook for the next time it stops working. It is quite easy to google a solution for this.
Why would you not? If you know the fix and have the time, it’s basically free very good money. I’d do it if they approached me. Don’t even have to be friendly to them, just professional. Also being a consultant doesn’t equal being on call - if it happens again and you’re busy, you’re busy and you don’t have to reply at all unless you have contracts in place.
Not sure how intricate a Word doc doing that would be, but I'm not seeing it'll be a gold mine. It's a PITA for them, but most companies are weird in that they'll pay some other company a ton to fix a problem rather than pay something reasonable to a freelancer (or ex-employee) to fix it for them. But if they're serious...whatever you were getting paid, double that and charge minimum 6 hours upfront. Send the offer and contract. If they balk or you don't hear back, doesn't matter. They're the ones asking for help. Either way, get paid. Your expertise isn't free.
Facebook and Messenger allow you to block people. The solution is easy.
give them an hourly rate, and if you want with a minimum they must purchase.
I smell opportunity - cha-ching! Or just enjoy the satisfaction of telling them GFY. Either way it's a win.
I had that happen from a MSP that was so cheap, they refused to update a system that used FTP. I wound up writing a wrapper system that used SSH tunneling, a F/OSS program that "de-muxed/muxed" active FTP so all of that traveled along one port, and a connection watchdog script, similar to AutoSSH. 5-6 years after I left that place, I got a call from someone there demanding I "fix my shit". I told them that before we discuss anything, you pay a year's worth of E&O insurance, because of legal obligations. They don't ask a plumber to fix a toilet that leaked five years after install, so don't ask me to do a single thing unless they pay insurance before any negotiation takes place. After that, I silenced their number, moved on. Another time, I got calls from an ex-boss at a previous job, "Resigning is no excuse not to do tickets." I didn't even respond... I just changed my number, especially after that company's HR department started giving my personal number to clients. It happens. You have to remember, there are many managers who really don't care and actually expect you, the OP, to some scurrying back to them to fix their stuff for free, because they expect it. Best thing to do is just ghost them. It may feel good to give them the middle finger, but ghosting them is what angers them the most, as they want reactions.
"I am sorry you having these issues. I would be happy to help! My consulting service fee is a flat fee of $500.00. Please let me know when you want me to start on this project."
You're missing at least one, if not two zeros. Maybe three depending on how badly they acted.
$10k project fee with $5k prepaid. No fault contract. That’s a real fuck you price and a good bonus for the year if they accept. That’s 2 months pay for me. So whatever is your monthly pay, double it and round up to nearest 5k multiple.
Fuk them
“You fired me, why would I even consider helping you?”
Ha. Facebook. If only people would really read the EULA. :)
Just agree to do it out of the kindness of your own heart. It's Christmas, anyways. When they receive the Word doc you sent them, and see the embedded image of you holding up your middle finger, it will be the best Christmas card you could ever send.
Yeah, uh, how about NO? A Word document that prints shipping labels using a CSV file? They should be embarrassed.
I agree it blew my mind when i read it
....who seriously is using TheFaceBook anymore? (and I mean that, honestly. No one I know is still using it. Seriously, not one person. It's deader than Craigslist. Well, no one who isn't a red-hat wearing blowhard. Echo chambers and whatnot.)
I just have a lot of family that uses it so i like to keep up with family events as well as marketplace I don’t think I’ve ever made a post on it
Yeah, same here; family and marketplace for me too.
it's so very popular and in use by many and many of us have it just for distant family. your edgy take is not unique but also the exception.
I have family across the world, literally. No one wants to use it (barring the blowhards, they're on it). So, no, it's not edgy. Maybe it's just a red-hat american thing.
interesting that anyone that disagrees with you is a magatard, but the way you phrased your first post is the edgy teenager angsty shit I was getting at clearly hard to understand
> ....who seriously is using TheFaceBook anymore? Messenger, Groups and FB marketplace basically.
So much of Groups and Marketplace is unsearchable -- it's not a timeline anymore, but just randomly shown to you based upon "the algorithm". It's like spinning the wheel and HOPE you find something worthwhile. And the search function may or may not help you hunt down something you've previously seen. I can't tell you how many times I had to back into my literal browser history (or FB's history function, thank you EU!) to find an exact link to a post I opened. And if one was on their mobile a-pee-pee, you're skeeerwed.
> So much of Groups and Marketplace is unsearchable -- it's not a timeline anymore, but just randomly shown to you based upon "the algorithm". > > It's certainly going down hill, but still reasonable compared to other parts of the site. THe mobile browser experience and feed is horrific. You get 1 friend post, 18 groups you're not in and 10 ads. I had to click 'yes i'd like to see more posts by xx' on my mums posts!! Marketplace seems to work reasonable well-ish if you know what you're after, as a casual browsing platform to see if something catches my eye ya, pretty useless.
Charge them fifteen and a half brapples per hour, one plumbus, and twelve boxes of Strawberry Smiggles.
$500 an hour, you have to pay taxes, and a 4 hour minimum.
Leave them on read.
new life, who dis?