Work At Last

To everyone who has left comments or sent me private emails assuring me that I Did Not Suck: thank you, but I wasn’t worried that I did. And upon rereading my post I have reassured myself that no, that’s not what I said; I expressed my disappointment with my experience. I just didn’t enjoy myself. I’m not enjoying much these days.

The first part of the project finally arrived yesterday, almost a full two weeks late. And sure enough, they want it back two weeks earlier that the original timeframe defined. On top of that this project functions on a monthly billing schedule, which means I’m not going to see money until mid-August. After blocking off the last third of June and deciding against bidding for another job, this makes me very, very cranky. I have bills, and my savings are dangerously low. Also: monthly? That implies working for more than one month, which I highly doubt is the case here. The original timeline was for a four-week delivery, and with things being late, voila, we are already behind (as is usual in this industry, I understand). I did a bit of detective work last night and located the product for which I am doing this editing, and it’s scheduled for release this fall. I can understand the rush caused by the late delivery of the translation, but it irritates me that my schedule and finances are negatively impacted by it.

2 thoughts on “Work At Last

  1. Silly Imp

    I sympathise. Are you in a relationship with this client that you can charge a ‘rush’ premium, or a penalty for receiving the work late? I usually try to work at least one of these things into my contracts, but it can be dicey and I may not if I think it might be a deal breaker and I know I either need the job or really want to work with the client or in the subject area.

  2. Owldaughter Post author

    I’m not at that stage yet, no. I’m still developing my relationship with them, and as the project is still fluid I’m accepting this first deadline, but I intend to be firm about the deadline for the last half of it.

    It’s a bit murky as there’s no concrete target, just “reduce as much as possible”, to be done within the time frame. So I can’t really point out that I need more time, as there’s no defined goal. Also, we’re using their contract, not my contract; mine says things about delays and client-altered deadlines and project changes and such things that cover me and the work I’ve done/need to do. If we were using my contract I could have pointed out to them that they had me on retainer for two weeks and owed me something for it. :)

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