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dean-panayotov
Community Member

Client decides I'm not a good fit (hourly job) - what's the best course of action?

We started an hourly project yesterday.  She's concerned about my working speed and tells me to stop working after 4 hours logged. I understand that I'm not the fastest worker, but this is a creative job and if we disregard the deadline I consider my work tempo perfectly fine. We haven't talked about any sort of deadline before I asked her this morning when we already had started the contract. The short deadline was a surprise for me. 

I don't hold any bad feelings for this client - I'm simply not the right fit for this job given the volume of work that needs to be completed by the end of Monday and we should have communicated more before starting our official collaboration. She told me that the work that I've already completed is fine. I've been logging my work with the tracker.  I'm ready to give this client a high rating, based on the pleasant communication we've had and drop a short explanation that we just didn't really match for this job. The contract is still active - she hasn't taken any action in this regard. She told me she'd keep me in mind for future work that is not so urgent and I believe she indeed has some more similar work coming.  What's the best course of action here?

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petra_r
Community Member

Dean, I'd just nicely say Thank You and leave it alone. You'll get paid for the 4 hours and you don't have any "No feedback" or long term inactive contracts. BUT you only have a relatively small number of completed contracts so any one contract can have a pretty significant effect.

 

If no further work appears in the next couple of months (which allow you to build up a safety net) just quietly close the contract.

 

I have a vague feeling the main problem here is budget, rather than (just) the deadline. On an hourly contract someone who works slowly costs significantly more which can blow a tight budget out of the water really quickly.

 

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petra_r
Community Member

Dean, I'd just nicely say Thank You and leave it alone. You'll get paid for the 4 hours and you don't have any "No feedback" or long term inactive contracts. BUT you only have a relatively small number of completed contracts so any one contract can have a pretty significant effect.

 

If no further work appears in the next couple of months (which allow you to build up a safety net) just quietly close the contract.

 

I have a vague feeling the main problem here is budget, rather than (just) the deadline. On an hourly contract someone who works slowly costs significantly more which can blow a tight budget out of the water really quickly.

 

Thanks for the great advice, Petra! That's exactly what I'm going to do.

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