I have lost time and money not to mention potential references, after I have accepted to do some very cool hacking projects for nothing. One was a university Open Source project; the project lead could have easily got me a budget, not to mention an office, but the prospect of working with a top-tier university and "potentially" breaking into a very sexy part of computing (bio hacking) made me volunteer to do it for free. I became lead, they hired juniors and the employees got flown out to the research center and conferences while I had to scrape by staying late at night at a local university, Xeroxing research papers and catching up with a fast moving industry with no one by my side, and on my own dime.
You could be curing AIDS in your basement, and unless you're affiliated with an institution, no academic jerkwad will answer your questions, I found out. Even bio grad students would ask me who I was with and what I was doing, but quickly became annoyed when I said I was an amateur volunteer .. regardless of how much knowledge I have displayed.
I blew that one up, big time.
If you love something and want to became better at it, don't hesitate to get paid for it as well. Sometimes a pay check stub makes all the difference between whether someone takes your experience in this seriously or not.
I could tell you some fun stories about charitably translating Japanese to English.
(We know the "document" isn't quite ready and is mostly actually handwritten in the margins -- feel free to rewrite the parts that don't flow right. Oh, and despite the fact that its on a technical field you're not expert in, we don't have time to answer your questions about the intricacies of steel smelting. But we need it done tomorrow, at the latest.)
I have never, ever had that sort of problem when somebody was paying $100 an hour for the work.
That's the reason why I do not do freebies anymore, unless they're very small, for companies that I do other work for as well, and I see them as part of the service.
As soon as someone wants more than 2 hours of my work the meter is running. It helps to separate the real customers from the 'users', and I don't mean 'users' as in end users, I mean it in the sense of people using other people.
Don't know how many fans of Mad Men are here, but a recent episode had Don Draper going to see Conrad Hilton, and Hilton ends up pushing Draper to to do some freebie ad work right there.
Draper clearly wants to do business with Hilton, but tells him, "I think you wouldn't be in the Presidential Suite if you worked for free."
Comments
My lesson: Price even the jobs you love.
I have lost time and money not to mention potential references, after I have accepted to do some very cool hacking projects for nothing. One was a university Open Source project; the project lead could have easily got me a budget, not to mention an office, but the prospect of working with a top-tier university and "potentially" breaking into a very sexy part of computing (bio hacking) made me volunteer to do it for free. I became lead, they hired juniors and the employees got flown out to the research center and conferences while I had to scrape by staying late at night at a local university, Xeroxing research papers and catching up with a fast moving industry with no one by my side, and on my own dime.
You could be curing AIDS in your basement, and unless you're affiliated with an institution, no academic jerkwad will answer your questions, I found out. Even bio grad students would ask me who I was with and what I was doing, but quickly became annoyed when I said I was an amateur volunteer .. regardless of how much knowledge I have displayed.
I blew that one up, big time.
If you love something and want to became better at it, don't hesitate to get paid for it as well. Sometimes a pay check stub makes all the difference between whether someone takes your experience in this seriously or not.
Price communicates value.
I could tell you some fun stories about charitably translating Japanese to English.
(We know the "document" isn't quite ready and is mostly actually handwritten in the margins -- feel free to rewrite the parts that don't flow right. Oh, and despite the fact that its on a technical field you're not expert in, we don't have time to answer your questions about the intricacies of steel smelting. But we need it done tomorrow, at the latest.)
I have never, ever had that sort of problem when somebody was paying $100 an hour for the work.
That's the reason why I do not do freebies anymore, unless they're very small, for companies that I do other work for as well, and I see them as part of the service.
As soon as someone wants more than 2 hours of my work the meter is running. It helps to separate the real customers from the 'users', and I don't mean 'users' as in end users, I mean it in the sense of people using other people.
Don't know how many fans of Mad Men are here, but a recent episode had Don Draper going to see Conrad Hilton, and Hilton ends up pushing Draper to to do some freebie ad work right there.
Draper clearly wants to do business with Hilton, but tells him, "I think you wouldn't be in the Presidential Suite if you worked for free."