got myself in to a really bad contract

[kerchu]

Hello forum!

Basically i agreed to a  fixed low price project without knowing full details,  and its second half turned out to be much more time consuming. (2/4 milestones done atm)

Client  tells things like, lets speak when its done,  which wont help me to pull trough working one week almost for free. 

Whats the best way to approach this? How much will canceling this project hurt my ability to get future work?

[nahidrajbd]

First of all this is unprofessional. You should discuss all the details about work and for massive tasks you should try to take a test job with a smaller part. Though you can ask your client nicely to increase the payment of more work. Yes it will hurt you and make a scratch on your profile if clientget's angry with you.

[resultsassoc]

The only professional thing to do is to do the work, and make a new mistake next time.

Years ago I estimated, based on client's information, 40 hours to complete the process flow to automate a philanthropic foundation's gant approval. The client was a solo consultant I was mentoring. After submitting my price she sent me the document the foundation wanted to automate.

I've dealt with incredibly complex documents in the past from production strategy for an oil emirate to the US SIOP (Single Integrated Operations Plan, the master plan for an all-out war.) This document was an order of magnitude more complex than anything I had ever seen. It included dependencies on information contained only in the other two sister foundations, and the calculations involved massive amounts of historical data in more than five hundred databases outside the foundation.

i told the consultant it was impossible to complete in 40 hours, or even 400 hours. It would take a minimum of 1,600 hours if  could access the other two foundations' information, assuming it was in better shape than the requesting foundation's. I would complete it at the price quoted, but it would take two to three years to deliver.

Unacceptable. "Just do it quickly and simply." I learned that she had collected half of the project's price at the outset and couln't afford to wait for two years, let alone return the deposit because it had been spent. I withdrew my proposal, and later saw her post the job on another board for $5/hour. She had a responses from a Sri Lankan college freshman and a Nigerian accountant. We have not spoken snce.

This is your error. Work for free for a wweek if it's necessary.

[reinierb]

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@Bill H wrote:

The only professional thing to do is to do the work, and make a new mistake next time.

Years ago I estimated, based on client's information, 40 hours to complete the process flow to automate a philanthropic foundation's gant approval. The client was a solo consultant I was mentoring. After submitting my price she sent me the document the foundation wanted to automate.

I've dealt with incredibly complex documents in the past from production strategy for an oil emirate to the US SIOP (Single Integrated Operations Plan, the master plan for an all-out war.) This document was an order of magnitude more complex than anything I had ever seen. It included dependencies on information contained only in the other two sister foundations, and the calculations involved massive amounts of historical data in more than five hundred databases outside the foundation.

i told the consultant it was impossible to complete in 40 hours, or even 400 hours. It would take a minimum of 1,600 hours if  could access the other two foundations' information, assuming it was in better shape than the requesting foundation's. I would complete it at the price quoted, but it would take two to three years to deliver.

Unacceptable. "Just do it quickly and simply." I learned that she had collected half of the project's price at the outset and couln't afford to wait for two years, let alone return the deposit because it had been spent. I withdrew my proposal, and later saw her post the job on another board for $5/hour. She had a responses from a Sri Lankan college freshman and a Nigerian accountant. We have not spoken snce.

This is your error. Work for free for a wweek if it's necessary.

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 Bill, I don't think I can quite beat the situation you describe here, but this comes close- 

I was once invited to develop a Matlab script to sort at least 8 billion astronomical data points obtained by a radio telescope in Russia. Once that was done, I was to cross reference all the data in the Matlab script with the SIMBAD astronomical database, which contains at least 100 billion data points. The project duration was estimated (by the client) to be about one week and the budget was to be discussed upon my acceptance of the job. 

However, unlike the OP, I turned the job down, since I did not feel like working for free that particular week. 

[mtngigi]

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@Sergey S wrote:

Hello forum!

Basically i agreed to a  fixed low price project without knowing full details,  and its second half turned out to be much more time consuming. (2/4 milestones done atm)

Client  tells things like, lets speak when its done,  which wont help me to pull trough working one week almost for free. 

Whats the best way to approach this? How much will canceling this project hurt my ability to get future work?

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This points up something new people have a hard time understanding or believing - that working with cheap clients just to get work is never (hardly ever) worth it. They can be the worse.

You've got other jobs going - fire this client and move on. You're top-rated, so you'll be able to remove any nasty public comments using that top-rated feature. Think about upping your rates and you'll get better clientele to work with.

[3ctechnologies]

Cancelling would have an impact on your JS score but i suggest you move on rather than wasting time with this contract if thats how it looks like.JS can be improved on future jobs:)