Life Spugs because...

[Noisybast]

I know the feeling, Colin - the same thing happened to me last summer. Try to look at it this way: even if you don't get something sorted in time, there are worse times of year to be out of work.

I know it won't feel like it now, but I look back on my fortnight of unemployment as a nice holiday wasted in front of my PC, filling in forms. Manage your time wisely!

[DrJomster]

Sorry to hear that Colin. Tough times. All the best for getting things sorted.

In tough times I've found the prog really comes into it's own in helping cheer things up. Luckily I notice you are a keen reader so all covered from that angle! 

[Gavin_Leahy_Block]

Terrible news, Colin. Hope you find something soon.

[TordelBack]

Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh.  Rendered inarticulate with work frustration.  

A senior local authority client just called me up and told me that my most recent quote was "taking the piss" (that's a quote), and further that he couldn't agree to some of the LEGALLY REQUIRED caveats on my proposal but that "we could talk about them later".  He informed me that the going rate for the work I was quoting was half of my rate, and was less again in some quotes he had received.  A quick calculation revealed that even the higher of those figures would be minimum wage plus a max of €5 a day for 'profit' (and that's without taking into account overheads, insurance, materials, phone calls etc. etc.).  

Or to put it another way, my professionally-qualified degree-holding decade-or-more-of-field-experience staff, who have just had a 25% paycut in an apparently-vain effort to remain competitive, would be costing me €20 a day each to do that job, never mind covering all those general business expenses that the law requires.  

In case it should appear that I'm some deluded eejit making up figures to please myself, the rates I was submitting were 10% lower than we'd used on the first phase of the same project that we had just completed for the same client.

This is, I'm afraid, The Last Straw.

[The Legendary Shark]

Sorry to hear that, Tordel, such things genuinely upset me. A perfectly good business, perfectly good people, struggling through no fault of their own.

Things really do have to change.

[Emperor]

TB, it seems rather odd that he'd phone you back about this if he has had so much lower quotes. Why do I get the suspicion he has been told to play hardball and try and bring the price down? Clearly the only way you can match the price he was after is by employing people without skills or experience or outsourcing it to the Developing World. Either those other bids don't exist or that is exactly what someone is doing, which suggest the results could be of a low standard or not what they were after (a bit like them outsourcing call centres until the complaints rolled in, my sister-in-law, who is in HR once said "we are insourcing all the warm voicing but outsourcing the back-end" to general amusement ).

All you can do is stand your ground, state your case and hope reason prevails (that or his bluff is called ).

[TordelBack]

TB, it seems rather odd that he'd phone you back about this if he has had so much lower quotes. Why do I get the suspicion he has been told to play hardball and try and bring the price down? Clearly the only way you can match the price he was after is by employing people without skills or experience or outsourcing it to the Developing World.

Unfortunately with >90% unemployment in our profession, you could probably get a 20-year man with doctorates in each pocket for minimum wage (in fact if I was able to pay myself minimum wage at moment I wouldn't know what to do with all the cash).  My business 'partner' has long been of the view that we should fire all staff and re-hire at minimum wage, which in the absence of a functioning union would be easy enough to do, but he'd have to run it himself then, which isn't going to happen.   

But you are right - he's trying to play hardball.  We're currently on the project, and thus ready to start immediately, and anyone else would need a lead-in time of at least a few weeks, but he has been a good guardian of the public purse and gone out and got alternate quotes for silly money and now feels like a fool for paying us borderline decent fees up to now.  The fact that any number of those supposedly-cheap operators would skin him alive with variations and delays (whereas we always play it straight and up-front) never seems to register with local authority types. 

I'm going to make a minor concession, but nothing like what's he asking, insist that all legal requirements are agreed in advance, and tell him that's my final offer.  The real problem for me is that if this is the reality of the current market (and it certainly seems that it is), then there is no future: we're against the wall as it is with arrears and creditors, not to mention insolvent and aged debtors, and there's no room for further cuts if we are to keep everyone paid.  I also recently spent my 40th birthday filling out redundancy forms for two of my best longest-standing folk, and things like that tend to take the heart out you.  We just seem to have been lurching in and out of one dire crisis after another for 4 years now, and I almost hope that this is the end, despite the loans I have foolishly guaranteed.

Happily this is just Work and Money.  Everything else in my life is ace.

[vzzbux]

Sorry to hear your predicament TB. If you do decide to call it a day make it damn sure that the said client helped in the downfall of your business. These bastards know they have the small man by the balls and have no qualms on fucking us over. Just remember every dog has its day and even the mighty fall.
Chin up and I hope all goes well for you, try not to let the bastards get you down.




V

[Kerrin]

Happily this is just Work and Money.  Everything else in my life is ace.

The indomitable spirit of Tordelback! You're a fucking legend man.

[Banners]

Just realised a fault in the spreadsheet supplied by our accountant means we've paid too little tax this year. Oops!

[paddykafka]

Hi Tordel!

Sorry to hear about your recent work hassle. I just hope that things work out the best for you soon. Fingers crossed for you, mate!

Cheers and kind regards!

[Gavin_Leahy_Block]

Hope things start improving TB.

[I, Cosh]

aye. Bad shit Tordel. Hope something better happens soon.

[TordelBack]

Thanks for the thoughts all, but it really is just work so I'm starting to feel bad at even entering it on the Spuggery thread where so many truly spugsome things lurk - more at home in the Minor Impediments.  FWIW my compromise proposal went down like a lead balloon for various nefarious reasons that I'm too tired to itemise, and some other spodes were awarded the contract.  Righteous anger has turned to realistic resignation, and the 'orrible bitter process of a rapid wind-down begins in earnest, which a saner person would have started about two years ago.  The dangers of optimism!

[Kerrin]

Good luck TB!

Sad to hear that it's the end for the business but I can't believe a man of your calibre won't bounce back.