

A french freelancer's nightmare - keeguon
https://plus.google.com/u/0/116975024782869852103/posts/Ay1KyGARs4B

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pfisch
It kind of sounds like this guy took an agreed upon amount of money to do a
project and then kept trying to charge more and more for it while only sort of
working on it, and then just bailing and never delivering the final product.

I'm not sure what he did deliver but it sounds more like he owes the company
all the money he has been paid so far since he didn't deliver the product. I
mean really the nightmare of this all sounds like it is on the side of his
employer. He really didn't include enough details though about the original
arrangement.

~~~
keeguon
That's a bit harsh. Granted I bailed at the end because of exhaustion and I
didn't reach the expected goals. And sure the company did some gestures over
those 7 months that were in my favor. I totally understand the decision to
withheld the money of the hours of work done those past couple of months since
the project is not delivered (I would probably do the same myself). But you
got to agree those hours of work deserves at least some credit.

~~~
pfisch
It really depends what the initial agreement was. Were you a regular employee
or was there an initial contract that you would complete X project for Y
dollars by some deadline Z.

If it was the second one then IMO you really owe them back the initial deposit
they gave you depending on what kind of final work you delivered to them.
Honestly handing codebases from one developer to another is less than ideal
and makes projects more expensive than they should be. Also I'm sure it was
way past the expected deadline of the client.

If you delivered nothing in the end then it was really more like they hired a
con artist that stole their money, again if you were under the kind of
contract I stated above.

If you were a normal employee then you just didn't do a great job due to all
the stuff you mentioned.

Either way I don't know why you would publicize a situation like this. It
doesn't matter what way you look at it, this whole story doesn't make you
sound like a developer that people would want to hire.

~~~
pfisch
For some reason I can't reply to you directly...

If you left good deliverables for them in the end then that is better.

But like I said, I don't think it is a great idea to publicize this situation
because it doesn't exactly make you look good, and the internet's memory is
forever.

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mgkimsal
"Back then I was in a pretty scarce situation so I decided to go for the first
job I got offered since I needed money."

I've found that pretty much every decision I've come to regret has been made
in times when I've been in bad financial situations, and I made the decision
primarily based on money reasons.

A couple jobs I've taken turned out to be really bad choices, but I took them
because I needed something _right then_. In one case, the company itself was
not good (really dysfunctional team/operations inside) and I didn't feel bad
about quitting - the other case, I did feel bad about quitting so soon after
starting. The people were nice, but I realized I'd made a bad decision and had
to get out.

Having a strong financial base to draw on when you 'go freelance' either due
to choice or you get laid off(!) can not be overstated. I used to be relieved
if I had a few weeks of living expenses in the bank, and look back now and
wonder how I ever survived with that mentality. (Obviously I did!).

shameless plug - <http://indieconf.com> \- the conference for web freelancers
- has an open call for speakers. Some of the sessions we've had in the past
have focused on freelancer financials and legal issues like the issues raised
in the OP post.

tl;dr - It's _really_ hard to make wise/good decisions from a position of
financial insecurity. Well... it's hard enough to make wise/good decisions
anyway - doing so from a position of insecurity multiplies that difficulty.

EDIT - misread this - the OP hadn't "gone freelance" - had just taken the
first job offer that came along. So... not entirely a related plug above,
but... the CFP is still open :)

~~~
Loic
It was a freelance work, _"the company decided to stop paying me until the
project would be completed due to the multiple delays"_. The post is fairly
well balanced by the way, he totally agrees that issues were on both side.

The biggest mistake he made was: _"I hadn't took holidays for 2 years at the
time"_. This is really really sad. Normally in France you have at least 5
weeks of vacations a year, but you need to _earn_ them for the next year. So,
if you change job each year, you get the vacations paid as money but no free
time. It looks like he did just that.

I am really sorry for him, freelancing is hipped all over the place but it is
hard to do it well and nearly impossible without good money in the bank to
support the bad months.

------
enko
I can't read this without signing into google. While I know a lot of people
would think that's not a big deal, it really irks me having to sign in just to
read a blog post, or whatever.

I wish this site had a rule that content behind a login- or pay-wall wasn't
allowed.

~~~
Loic
At the time of my previous comment, 3h ago, it was freely available (I always
access Google in incognito mode).

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dsirijus
My personal burnouts always ended up with visits to ER, so I kind of got lucky
there.

Why lucky, you say? Because I had legitimate sick leave for those, and good
luck finding and employer who will recognize, empathize and treat your burnout
as a regular illness. It usually just spirals out of control until it kills
everything around it.

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posabsolute
Having done a bit a of freelancing, to me it just sound that at some point in
that project you should just have cut your loss and move out of it.

Being a freelancer you get 2 big advantages, you can choose when you take
holidays, and you can choose what project you want to work on (it seems to me
you failed at taking advantages of either one). Maybe you should have been
more direct and say I'm going to take a week off and your project will wait.

What you describe look to me as a typical inexperienced freelancer (don't take
it the wrong way, we are all inexperienced when we start) agreeing on
deadlines that can't be done, without a good team, and without taking the
steps to get a better communication around this company, (your were the lead
if I am not mistaken).

You have a lot to think about, a lot to learn from it, try to think at each
point of failure and what you would have do different!

But I will agree with the some of the guys here, since this post clearly put
you in a bad light, I would not have post it, I would personally remove it.

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keeguon
As some of you recommended I removed the post but thanks anyway for your
advices/replies/comments.

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conradfr
FWIW, when you want to quit a job in France and you agreed with your company
(the hard part;) ), you can leave and get unemployment benefits.

That said, burnout + having to look for a place in Paris without steady
employment, it must have been hard.

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antr
Is the link broken? 3.05pm GMT

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RommeDeSerieux
Looks like he removed the post.

