
A Modest Proposal for Hourly Billing - esaym
https://daedtech.com/a-modest-proposal-for-hourly-billing/#more-12456
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dusted
When I negotiate consultant work that I don't want to do that much, I tell my
hourly rate and estimate. That usually scares people off.

When I think the job would be fun/interesting/challenging(intherightway) I
tell "I will do this, it will cost you $LARGE_SUM, and in the odd case I can't
fix the problem, you pay nothing." Companies are usually very happy with this
arrangement, as they can quickly consider whether having their problem fixed
is worth $LARGE_SUM, especially since the not-fixed scenario means no risk for
them. My hourly income from those tasks is sometimes very small, sometimes
very very large, and on average, I earn more pr. hour than I could ever charge
on a $/h deal.

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Wowfunhappy
...I think the author has several strong arguments, but I'm really having
trouble getting past the tone.

Business is business, but the people who work for you deserve to be treated
with some degree of empathy and respect. If the author thinks how he writes, I
would _not_ want to work for him, ever, regardless of how I billed him.

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eindiran
I think the tone is intended to mimic the acerbic and deadpan style of satire
of the original "A Modest Proposal".

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Terretta
Through the years, referencing that title has indicated author understands the
proposal in question is a truly terrible idea, satire, deliberately
ludicrously bad (solving hunger by eating babies) in order to point out it's a
seriously skewed problem.

It's not clear this author thinks his proposal is ludicrously bad, or satire.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
I believe the author thought the proposal itself ("I will bill you hourly for
the time I spend I spend reviewing your hourly bill") was a terrible idea, and
in that section, I understood the tone. But he kept it up for the rest of the
article as well, despite explicitly saying "Alright, that was fun, but now
I’ll break character." I don't think he was being satirical at that point.

I feel guilty for complaining about the tone rather than addressing the
substance, but it was really hard to concentrate on the substance through the
tone, and I think the tone speaks to the level of empathy the author has for
his colleagues. That matters a lot when you're making an argument like this.

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sqldba
Long post of someone making an ass of themselves because they demand every
cost be knowable up front.

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AllegedAlec
The article explicitly mentions _predictable_ work.

~~~
Terretta
And says that's what you pay hourly for. Says that in detail. Misunderstands
that the experts are generally hired to "discover" or "invent" an answer that
wasn't known, and discovery / invention often isn't estimable.

Further, author goes into risk, the real risk is of course acceptability of
the expert's answer, which involves the buyer "being brought along" with
accepting the answer, a process the expert genuinely cannot predict.

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AllegedAlec
Note: link leads to halfway in the article. I don't know if this is intended.

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kindly_fo
Author wants everything to be like some grocery store. But if there's no such
thing in store, there's no fixed price for this.

Seems like author has no logic in head.

