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Comment by CoolGuySteve | Hacker News Reader

Horror stories like this are the main reason I only ever bill by the hour and invoice biweekly. Like, sure, I'll change things to meet requirements but I'm not going to work for free or go without pay for months. It's also much easier to fire bad clients or to stop working when an invoice goes unpaid for too long.

The only downside to this approach is when salaried subordinates don't understand this dynamic and rack up billable hours with useless meetings or busywork. Oftentimes when this happens management doesn't realize it until they get sticker shock from an invoice which is why I try to issue invoices frequently.

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> Horror stories like this are the main reason I only ever bill by the hour and invoice biweekly.

This sort of thing is why I've always kept a salaried position. I could make more, perhaps have more varied & interesting work, and maybe gain other flexibility, if I switched to contracting, but few people extolling these benefits to me ever mention the flip side when things aren't perfect – I'm more than happy to make less to avoid all that.

From the article:

> The contract never showed up.

> but if I needed more time, they would be happy to amend the contract later

No contract, no work. Work starts late because of no fault of mine, including late/no contract? Delivery is likely delayed. Want me to accept an assurance: put it in the contract or otherwise in indisputable writing now. This probably marks me as someone unsuited for contract work, or too difficult to work with as a contractor, ete, and that is fine by me!

> This probably marks me as someone unsuited for contract work, or too difficult to work with as a contractor, ete, and that is fine by me!

This actually makes you an ideal contractor, you just have to know how to do this tactfully.

The real issue with this situation is working as a contractor on a single project. At the point you're working for one client, full time, as a contractor...you're an employee.

If you've got no other clients, you have no ability to negotiate with the simple statement, "I have other clients I have to tend to and can't dedicate time to this work until the contract is addressed. Let me know when you're ready to resume."

> The real issue with this situation is working as a contractor on a single project. At the point you're working for one client, full time, as a contractor...you're an employee.

I disagree. I currently work as a contractor for one company more or less fully time. Because I'm a contractor, not an employee, I get to choose my hardware and OS, my own hours, I can take vacation when I want and most importantly, the employer can't force me to work in office.

Contract renewal is coming up soon, my rate is going up, and if they don't agree to it I'll just leave (if anyone needs a senior Java dev, email in bio :)).

> If you've got no other clients, you have no ability to negotiate with the simple statement

You don't need to negotiate, you need to assert you wont do free work and then don't do it.

I suppose I should have said, “You have to be able to walk away.”

For some people, that will mean multiple clients. For others, it might just be self confidence or good savings.

> Work starts late because of no fault of mine

Yes, but apparently in Mick's case your name is on the product, and your reputation gets ruined if you don't play ball. A big software company can pay lawyers much longer than you can keep food on the table without pay.

Even good lawyers would have trouble bending the obvious. He had no contract to produce the OST (first) and he could have publicly claimed, that he only produced the game music and was not involved in that final mix of the OST.

His name was there without permission effectively, due to the lack of contract, so I doubt they'd try to fight that way. They have the big team but the opposition has an open&shut case, not worth the cost and the risk of subsequent action for wrongful use of the name. They might threaten of course, so he'd still need nerves. Again, reasons why I've always stayed away from contracting!

One thing that surprised me was milestone billing with approvals, but moving on to the next milestone without getting approval on previous ones.

I agree with you, this project structure sounds… much worse than T&M billing, but if I were going to take on a contract in this structure I would have a simple rule of “I won’t work on the next milestone, without getting approval on the prior one” (for something like this, where the milestones are pretty small, maybe I’d be willing to work one milestone ahead).

But I’d absolutely use the schedule pressure as a tool to get them to care about approvals. Because, from the described contract structure, what incentive does the client have to give timely approvals or rejections? None!

    why I try to issue invoices frequently.

Agree 100%.

Although I've found that for this to be effective, you also need to be able to cease work which means you need a sufficiently large financial cushion.

A long time ago, when I contracted, I was essentially living month to month. I invoiced frequently but clients would often pay up in a painfully slow manner. But I had no real leverage because I was unable to cease work.

Kudos to contractors who achieve what I wasn't quite able to.

> which means you need a sufficiently large financial cushion.

Absolutely. But this happens wih pay-per-project also, which is why on-demand contract work is much more expensive than salaried.

> no real leverage

You can always look for a new job/client, even while working for the present one. A counteroffer is quite convincing.

As an independent developer, I stop working as soon as more than once invoice is outstanding. Anything else is asking to be left holding the bag (or more of it than you already are.)

Another alternative to hourly billing is value-based pricing with up-front payments. May not work in every industry, but if a client isn't willing to do that, they're probably not a good-faith client anyway.

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