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sydney_wong01
Community Member

Client meetings during paused contract

Hi,

My employer just paused our contract until he feels that we have "fixed our communication issue."

While the contract is paused, we have a scheduled call on Friday for two hours and I did work yesterday as well but I cannot log them.

 

Need advice: He gives me a lot of side assignments and if I do not reply, he finds that to be lacking communication. He has limited my hours to only 8 so I cannot complete the big project at the same time as doing as these side assignments. Should I put my big project aside and log hours for side assignments instead to make this client happy? Should I take this client meeting AFTER he has paused the contract? 

 

I feel like he wants more than 8 hours of work after cutting my hours by 70% due to their budget cuts so I don't know how to tell him I cannot "be available" all the time since it is a one day a week contract now. 

 

Please help

19 REPLIES 19
martina_plaschka
Community Member


Sydney W wrote:

Hi,

My employer just paused our contract until he feels that we have "fixed our communication issue."

While the contract is paused, we have a scheduled call on Friday for two hours and I did work yesterday as well but I cannot log them.

 

Need advice: He gives me a lot of side assignments and if I do not reply, he finds that to be lacking communication. He has limited my hours to only 8 so I cannot complete the big project at the same time as doing as these side assignments. Should I put my big project aside and log hours for side assignments instead to make this client happy? Should I take this client meeting AFTER he has paused the contract? 

 

I feel like he wants more than 8 hours of work after cutting my hours by 70% due to their budget cuts so I don't know how to tell him I cannot "be available" all the time since it is a one day a week contract now. 

 

Please help


It seems the client is already very unhappy with the collaboration, even so that he felt he needed to pause the contract. Now you have 2 possibilities: you either agree with him that the communication is bad, or you feel he treats you unfairly. In the first case you can try to improve things with him, in the second I see no basis for a good relationship. 

If I were you, I would end the contract and look for other jobs. 

Thank you Martina!

 

I tried to reach set up a 15 min call with him to find common ground about his perspective about communication problems. However, instead of accepting the request, he has now requested for a refund on the first week of work!  It is my first project so I didn't see that coming. 

 

I am not sure what happens if I choose to close the project but I haven't received any any payment into my bank account since I started 3 weeks ago.

 

any advice?

 

 

prestonhunter
Community Member

It is actually a violation of Upwork ToS for a client to ask for free work. This client is violating Upwork's rules.

 

If a client pauses the contract, this is a good reason for you to CLOSE the contract.

 

The last time a client paused the contract, yet still wanted to communicate with me and ask me to do things for the project, I closed the contract myself.

re: "I feel like he wants more than 8 hours of work after cutting my hours by 70% due to their budget cuts so I don't know how to tell him I cannot 'be available' all the time since it is a one day a week contract now."

 

Below are some of my thoughts, which I do NOT say to the client, but which any intelligent client should expect me to think, without me saying anything:

 

This is preposterous and unacceptable behavior on the part of the client.

 

I am not your daughter, trying to keep the family business afloat during hard times while mom is in the hospital.

 

I am a freelancer, working because you pay me.

 

Your "budget cuts" are not my problem.

 

If you can not afford my services, that is FINE. There is no dishonor in not being able to afford something. But it DOES mean that you stop purchasing it.

 

If "budget cuts" mean you can no longer afford paying for catered lunch at every Friday's department meeting, then you stop ordering catered lunch.

 

And if "budget cuts" mean that you can't pay me to work on everything you need help with, then you stop asking me to work on everything you need help with.

 

If you want high levels of availability from me, then you absoutely do not cut back my hours. You shouldn't even have an hourly limit.

 

I can't work on all the little side tasks AND the main project, and try to guess which things I'm really supposed to do within the cut-back hours that you allow each week.

 

Now you PAUSE the contract AND want to have a 2-hour meeting with me to discuss my "communication issues"?

Thank you, Preston! I didn't know that actually.

wlyonsatl
Community Member

Or you could tell the client that the new weekly limit he has provided is not sufficient time for you to complete all the tasks he wants you to do, so if he could prioritize for you what needs doing you can tell him hwo much time you will need to complete those specific tasks.

 

I'd recommend taking your next planned phone call and use a few minutes to discuss with him his new priorities and how he wants to move forward.

 

If he wants two hours of your time for that call, tell him you'll be happy to do it after he unpauses the project. (I am surprised how many clients have told me they didn't know I'd charge them for my time talking with them about the project on the phone. But nothing like this really surprises me anymore - the quality of Upwork clients is sometimes very low.)

 

If he can't afford to  pay you for your work, it's time to part ways and let him find a less expensive freelancer to continue with the work you have done.

Excellent comments from Will.

 

As freelancers:

We should always be polite, professional.

Communicate with clients. Don't leave them guessing.

 

Clients:

If you limit hours:

MAYBE a freelancer will communicate with you about her frustrastions. MAYBE she won't.

A client who values the work being done by a freelancer is only hurting themself if he limits that freelancer's time in an unreasonable way.

 

If you don't like a freelancer's work, don't pause their contract. CLOSE the contract. Don't continue working with freelancers who are not providing top-quality work. ONLY work with the BEST members of your team.

 

...And ONLY work with the freelancers whose work styles best fit your own project needs. Sometimes the most talented members of your team need to be fired from the team - not due to a lack of ability on their part - but due to scheduling or other reasons. Sometimes a great team member simply lives in the wrong time zone. Or is too busy with other projects.

And, if at all possible, I'd recommend letting/encouraging the client close a project under these circumstances, if it comes to that.

 

There is no upside for the freelancer if the client to be able to tell themselves that the freelancer closed the project and so it's all the freelancer's fault.

If I close a project without receiving any payment since the start, I am afraid i would lose the payments prior. I reached out to Upwork support to double check as well. 


Will L wrote:

And, if at all possible, I'd recommend letting/encouraging the client close a project under these circumstances, if it comes to that.

 

There is no upside for the freelancer if the client to be able to tell themselves that the freelancer closed the project and so it's all the freelancer's fault.


On the other hand, if the client is the one to close the project, it is guaranteed that he will leave feedback, which is likely to be quite negative. If the freelancr closes the project, there's at least a change that the client won't come back to leave feedback.


Will L wrote:

 

[...]

I am surprised how many clients have told me they didn't know I'd charge them for my time talking with them about the project on the phone. But nothing like this really surprises me anymore - the quality of Upwork clients is sometimes very low.

[...]


This. Some clients want to talk a few times a week and discuss stuff via lengthy emails. Apparently all in my copious spare time... 

re: "Some clients want to talk a few times a week and discuss stuff via lengthy emails. Apparently all in my copious spare time... "

 

I'm happy to oblige. I'll talk all day long about the project if that's what the client wants. On the phone. Via email. Doesn't matter.

 

I'm billing for all the time, so it doesn't matter if I'm getting paid for working on the project on my own... or getting paid for talking to the client about the project. The pay rate is the same.

 

Obviously what is NOT OKAY is talking WITHOUT getting paid.

 

I don't doubt that there are unprofessional clients out there. I've encountered them as well. But MOST of the clients I meet EXPECT to pay me for time on the phone or communicating in other ways. I have plent of clients who insist that a contract be in place so that we can talk beginning from the very first conversation that we have.

I agree! This is exactly how I feel! 

This is very good advice. After reading the replies from this community, I did reach out to set up a 15 min call with him to find common ground about his perspective about communication problems. (It is at the same time as the 2 hour call so I know he is available.)  However, instead of accepting the request, he has now requested for a refund on the first week of work!  It is my first project so I didn't see that coming. 

 

I am not sure what happens if I choose to close the project but I haven't received any any payment into my bank account since I started 3 weeks ago.

 

any advice?

 

 

tlbp
Community Member

I think the question you need to ask yourself is, "Why do I want to work for this client?" It sounds like you aren't being paid for much of what you do and the client is attempting to get even more free work. The upside to closing the contract for you is that you are free to find work with a legitimate client who has the money to pay you. 

Thanks for your reply, Tonya.

 

I guess it is my first time using Upwork and this is my very first project. I wanted to get a good rating to have more interesting projects with better rates. I thought getting that first one under your belt was really important for Upwork. 

 

I just didn't see this coming with the pausing of the contract, immediate refund dispute, and not receiving payments yet. I thought Upwork was going to be different. 

 

Overall this experience and this community's suggestions are really eye opening. 

tlsanders
Community Member

The best advice I can give you is to get away from this client as quickly as possible.

 

Currently, he is requiring free work of you, since the contract is paused but he is scheduling meetings with you. That's a TOS violation. And Upwork clearly says not to work when a contract is paused. 

 

There is not one thing in your story that suggests there is any upside to continuing to work with this client. 

Thanks for your reply Tiffany. 

 

 

I tried to reach set up a 15 min call with him to find common ground about his perspective about communication problems. However, instead of accepting the request, he has now requested for a refund on the first week of work!  It is my first project so I didn't see that coming.  And now I am in a dispute situation and not sure what my options are. 

 

It is starting to feel like a threat. I just wanted to hand in my work but I cannot log my hours for this week for completing that work. 

 

Any advice you have would be immensely appreciated.

Sydney - is this an hourly contract or a fixed price contract? For hourly contracts you are paid for the hours you worked. A client is billed automatically.  Hopefully, you used the Tracker to record your hours and wrote notes on the screen shots it took. If so the only thing they can dispute are hours that were entered in manually. screen shots that show hours that you were doing something else (or not working at all), and unusually low or high keystroke activity. 

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