House / Werk / Web stuff

The movers arrived today, sans Pop (he's still finalizing the paperwork for closing and so on). I directed them to his new place and got everything unpacked. Pop will sort out the stuff once he arrives which will most likely be next week. The whole thing tired me out so I slept this afternoon for a few hours hence the reason I'm still up now.

On my file server I was doing some housecleaning and I hit the folder called "web" that contains web site projects and so on. I noticed a lot of web site material I did in the past for friends in there. Most of the sites are down. Why? Because they don't have a clue how to run them without me.

I'm going to toot my own horn here for a moment.

It's painfully obvious that most friends of mine (the ones who want or have web sites that I made for them) simply don't understand the value of a good web site. I put a LOT of effort into them - and they work. When I leave, they crumble - fast.

I made a vow to myself never to do another free site again - and I won't. It doesn't matter how much "potential" there is to make money from one. I absolutely will not do it unless cash is provided first.

SPEAKING of which... (I can say this now since enough time has passed) I encountered welch #2 in Maine. There was this guy who was advertising a webmaster job thing. The description listed all the things I could do. I contacted him. At first he was all for it and said he was going to pay for me to do his site project. He also said I was the only guy who "knew what he was talking about". That's right, I do. I'm not some high school idiot with a Mac.

Then the truth rears it's ugly head.

(Note before continuing: His project required research, i.e. consulting because he wanted a whole lot of things done)

I quoted him $250 for consulting to do the research, which is a FIRE SALE price considering everyone else charges $2500 or more.

Him: Uh, is there any way you can charge half now and then I'll pay you the rest when done?

Me (thinking): Oh crap here we go again. The typical "half price" trick.

Me: No. Consulting requires all up front first. I'm giving you a humongous discount.

Him: Hmm.. ok. I'll.. I'll have to call you back. Is Monday okay?

Me: Monday is fine. I'll talk to you then.

That was last week. A week has passed. Of course, no call ever happens. I didn't bother chasing the guy down because I knew about half way thru our first conversation he was a welch. Whenever you hear someone do that "half now / half when finished" b.s. it means "I'll give you half and when done I'll mysteriously vanish off the face of the Earth." Uh, no. Not gonna happen.

Granted, there are some situations where you have to do that half now / half when finished crap. In those instances I purposely engineer the project to be non-functional until the final payment is actually made. It sucks you have to do that, but people are cheap and will rape you for every cent you're worth. You have to protect yourself.

So anyway, I'm reminding myself again: No more freebies. Ever. No web sites. No graphics. No media. No free crap. I'm tired of doing things for free and not seeing a dime from it. As of this point forward I am ceasing maintenance on any sites that aren't mine. If anyone wants work done, it's $2000 in advance and that's still cheap as dirt. No "payments", no "half now", none of that. Put up or shut up.

I'm just sick of doing freebies.