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Am I being played for a sucka?
I have this client, we met over LinkedIn last October, and my business guy (as a nerd, I am not that business savvy) advised me. They paid for a $1000 letter of intent for a task, which we did and they loved, and then a $1500 letter of intent and we performed the work, and now they are working on writing a grant proposal and my business guy, who I respect because he is a former U.S. Marine, 20+ years experience, used to work on the top floors of the TransAmerica Pyramid etc etc., and I've been friends with him for nine years, has been insisting we do pro bono advisory for them on their grant proposal to "build relationship" and he tells me "there will be oh so much money rolling in if they win it."
Me, I am not so sure. As a physicist, I view the future as a complete uncertainty, except for probabilities. There is no 100% guarantee they will win the grant, and as such, I feel it is important to, as a profit-making enterprise, charge money for their use of my Ph.D. education to advise them (it's a grant from the government to work on spacecraft).
So we've been doing this for a couple of months now, and my business guy has not been charging me (he's a contractor to my little LLC) and so of course I've not been charging my client, but just last Friday, the CEO gets on the line for our tag up and brags to me about his new office he's opened up in Titusville, FL. And a further while back I heard from their CTO that they are constrained on budget but before that call, the CEO calls me up and tells me that he just won a $300,000 funding round. I also saw a LinkedIn post about how they just opened up a new mfg facility and the CTO had told me about how they have $92M in pre sales. They are even engaging with a vendor who, I presume, they are paying to help them write the grant. So where is the piece of the action for my company?
My business guy says, "Provide them free services for now to 'build relationship' and 'make them like you' in hopes they will pay later. My thinking is, "They are going to get an inch and then take a mile."
Call me naive, but as a PhD astrophysicist who worshipped Mr. Spock growing up, I am confused. I idolized Mr. Spock because, in my mind, he thought (mostly) that all humans were idiots and emotions were stupid (which I agreed with at 12 years old and my life since then has more or less confirmed). I also thought a bit about logic and thought, Mr. Spock knows what he is talking about. "If p, then q." Makes perfect sense to just think about the universe in terms of logic propositions. So then I get older and I actually do get some therapy and learn more about the emotional spectrum from Green Lantern and realize that human emotions aren't completely stupid, but I still basically have a Kindergarden level understanding of them.
This is where i come from into the business world. Either things make sense, or they do not. Correct me if I am wrong, but if I go into the convenience store, grab a soda out of the fridge, and then walk out the door without paying for it, that's stealing. I doubt the store proprietor is going to give it to me for free to "build relationship with me in hopes that I return someday as a paying customer." No, it's theft, straight up.
So why in the technology consulting world is it even slightly reasonable to give away the experience, knowledge, expertise, and thought leadership I've spent many a grueling year building up and putting up with a lot of crap for, for free? That seems highly illogical, Captain -- as Mr. Spock would say. Yet, my business guy says give them a little bit for free so that they pay later hopefully.
Is my business guy's advice logical? Am I being played by my client? Am I a sap who is just so focused on hugging teddy bears and wanting to make the world a better place that I am being taken advantage of? This weekend, learning about the office pushed me over the edge. So I told my business guy he isn't making any sense, I told the CEO and CTO that our pro bono services will continue until 12:01 AM on Saturday June 8, and then they need to pay for everything -- every task, every deliverable, and every meeting beyond that.
Here I am, waiting for kookaburra over here, and I am all like, "I am a total sucker." Am I correct, to insist on valuable monetary compensation from my client or does my business guy have a point?
Okay....go!
modified 16hrs ago.
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100 years ago your guy might've had a point. Not sure.
But now? Forget it. If you aren't getting paid you're a sucker. The moment there's another sucker willing to work for cheaper (or free) you'll be in the rear-view mirror. Companies are not people. A company is not that one guy you like that works there. A company is a soulless meat grinder designed to sacrifice as many lives to the god of green as possible.
Treat it as such, because no matter how nice you are it will treat you as such.
/2cents
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Hi Brian,
"Note: this is not advice, nor is it Devine guidance. This is only my opinion."
From what you wrote, you have done work for them and gotten paid for it. So they know you and they know the quality of your work. So we are out of the "getting to know you" phase of a business relationship.
It is the nature of businesses to push for as much free stuff as possible. It is no reflection on you or trying to take advantage of you. It is just the nature of business.
It is a business decision on your part if you want to give something away. My rule of thumb is if the question can be answered in a sentence or maybe a "yes" or "no" then sure it is a free chat giveaway. But if the answer requires significant, specialized knowledge then the proper answer is "I would be thrilled to assist you in this new venture. I feel that I can play a significant part in helping you to succeed. I'll shoot a contract over to you and we can get started as soon as I get the approval back."
If they balk then you were not going to get the business anyway.
Again, only my humble opinion and not sage advice.
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Brian C Hart wrote: My business guy says, "Provide them free services for now to 'build relationship' and 'make them like you' in hopes they will pay later.
This is often never-ending.
Many years ago, i was in a company where our team was 'building credibility' in the first year. This continued in the second year also, and so on, for three more years. In the end, am not sure whether we had built 'enough credibility' at all. Meanwhile, i moved to a different team.
modified 13hrs ago.
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Last week I watched an Adam Savage post which touched on that.
The conclusion is generally -- ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) U, pay me!
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Brian C Hart wrote: Am I being played for a sucka?
I'm afraid your client is taking advantage of your good nature and acting in an unprofessional manner. It may be time for polite but firm communication from you (or better yet from your business guy) stating they will now be required to pay for services rendered.
Brian C Hart wrote: My business guy says, "Provide them free services for now to 'build relationship' and 'make them like you' in hopes they will pay later.
If your business guy is relying on hope, IMHO he's inexperienced, not qualified for the job or both. Sorry, but that's not how business is done. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I've worked at enough successful early stage companies to appreciate bending over backwards for your early and first marquee customers without giving away the kitchen sink.
/ravi
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A thing I learned years ago; never work for free. Let's say you are the other company, and you get used to getting free consultancy/services from you. At what point would you think, "hey, let's start paying these guys now"? The chances are that you never would, after all if someone is a sucker enough to do work for free, why would you think that you should start paying?
Your friend is being very naive in this approach. Businesses very rarely award business to others based on them liking you. They award business because you provide a service that they need and which they don't currently have.
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Musicians fight this all the time. "Play in my club! I can't/won't pay you, but the exposure will help you get future gigs!"
There are no solutions, only trade-offs. - Thomas Sowell
A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)
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Allowing precedents to be set can cut both ways. I understand trying to build up a business relation, but what's a business relation anyway if it doesn't involve the exchange of money?
If you show you're willing to do some valuable work for them for free, at what point are you allowed to say ok, that's enough, now you need to compensate me for that work...?
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I used QCAD software designed my drawings and export it into PDF file.
but when I give it to print shop, they ask for .cdr format since they use CorelDraw software. (I bought my license to get this .cdr format).
So I wonder how this .cdr format is used to print out my drawings?
I have several more drawings to print out, so try to get understanding of this printing process in print shop in large scale print work.
Thanks a million.
diligent hands rule....
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First thoughts are that a print shop that can't work directly with PDF files is not worthy of being called a print shop. If a print shop told me they needed a .cdr file, I'd ask if that was their only alternative, or if they can accept other formats. Your best bet is to talk to the print shop, and not a bunch of programmers who know nothing about their printing process.
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there is a chance that millions of programmers in CP can have all kinds of brilliant ideas![Rose | [Rose]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
diligent hands rule....
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There is very little chance that one of these programmers has experience dealing with your print shop. If you want the input of anyone who might, you should give the name and location of that print shop.
I have very little printing experience, but everywhere I've printed has wanted and used flattened PDF files. The fact that your printer doesn't seem to doesn't speak very highly of them. Your best bet will still be to talk to the printer and ask them about your options as to what they can accept, and why the PDF you submitted is unacceptable.
Have you talked to them about using a flattened PDF?
> So I wonder how this .cdr format is used to print out my drawings?
Obviously, they open it in CorelDraw and print from there. No great mystery.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera.
The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf?
Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd.
Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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charlieg wrote: The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf?
Searching on Amazon for "NUU A23Plus Basic Cell Phone" returns quite a few less than $200. That search string is for a specific one.
charlieg wrote: completely happy with a flip phone
Pretty sure they have issued some new flip phones. Calls and text. Although my first flip phone only did calls.
Searching on Amazon with following produced even cheaper deals than prior one: "Senior Flip Phone Unlocked"
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I got an old S4 Galaxy from son, years ago, had a broken screen that cost me $165 to have fixed and had it until they no longer supported it.
Funny story I went to Wally World to get a protector for it and I asked the associate if they had any. He asked what I had and when I told him he called to the other associate in the store and said; "look you ever seen one of these". 
So I upgraded to a S19 that I bought used online for $200, not sure exact price. I had it for about 4 years and then Verizon offered a free upgrade to an S23, that ended up costing $100 but was a good upgrade. I'll keep it until I die or they stop supporting it.
I'm like you I rarely use the thing, so it doesn't pay for me to spend a bunch of money on one. It was different when I ran my own business, but the S4 served me fine for many years.
If you can't find time to do it right the first time, how are you going to find time to do it again?
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.4.0 (Many new features) JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: EventAggregator
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Samsung Galaxy A20e. < $50. Prepayed, no abo. I use it 99% only as an alarm clock  
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Samsung Galaxy J2 Core (2020)[^]
I like it because it's small and light and it runs a not too old (as of yet) version of Android. (I'm a Win/Android C# developer).
/ravi
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I'm not really an old white guy, but I am phone averse.
I got a little $40 e-moto on prepaid and I liked it fine until updates slowed it down to the point of being unusable after a few years. It was indestructible though.
I now have a $100 Samsung Galaxy A25. I like it okay. Samsung's android extensions can be a bit annoying, like it notifies you a bit more than I'd like, but other than that, the phone is snappy, the camera is nice. It feels well constructed, all of that.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Probably going against the tide here but I'm an old white guy with an iPhone 12. Got it 4 years ago and I'm quite happy with it. I use computers for complicated, work related stuff so I want a phone that, as much as possible, just works: makes phone calls that are sufficiently clear, receives texts and email and takes a few pictures when I'm out in the field. I don't want/care to root my phone, get to alternate stores compile stuff or what not. I still have the old fashioned concept that a phone is (mostly) for phoning.
In the interest of complete disclosure, I also have a Apple family plan that I share with kids. In return they let me play with grand-kids  . If you are going to call me an Apple fanboy, I'm going to say that I also have a Microsoft 365 subscription (also shared with family) so at least I'm not partial to only one big tech company 
Mircea
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Old guy in UK here. I had an ancient Samsung Young (oh the irony) that I purchased from the O2 store for £9.99 about 12 years ago. On pay-as-you-go, spent about £10 every two months. But it was on Android4 and eventually didn't support security protocols that almost any website used (via WiFi).
So last year reluctantly bought a Pixel 7a from Tesco. £12/month for two years for the phone, plus £12/month for data (10gb/month) and very happy with it. Use it as much as the laptop now, and good camera.
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Motorola One. After having two Motorola Droids prior.
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iPhone 15, free upgrade, business account. Mostly, I get free hand-me-downs. I stick with iPhones because my hearing aids have all been MFI (made for iPhone) for many years. Many HA's now work with Android.
I am (sort of) brand agnostic. I have an old (very old) StinkPad, and almost as old (2014) MacBookPro, an iPad (hearing aids again) and my main system runs Debian with Windows and Linux virtual machines for the little development I still do.
Got a second Dell workstation running ESXi, mirroring a clients set up and hosting surveillance cameras (NVR). A third, really old Dell Workstation running TrueNAS (only powered on for backups).
Most of it works better than I do. I get a small discount on Apple stuff and think they make great hardware if you can get past the price. I use the iPad to VPN into the client's network and I can manage the ESXi system and the cameras from afar.
Not to mention a drawer full of Pi's.
Mostly, on the phone, I get superfluous texts from grandchildren and spam calls forwarded from Google vice (that I don't answer). I do use it to check cameras via VPN. I like it to keep in touch with children/grand children.
Oops, make that Google Voice. I am too old for Vice.
>64
It’s weird being the same age as old people. Live every day like it is your last; one day, it will be.
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I'm on my third Samsung. J-something then A20 now A22.
Phone calls, text, camera.
A few apps, mostly related to my role as an emergency service volunteer, no "socials".
If I want to interact with anything on the web, I'll typically use it as a hotspot for a lappie or tablet.
A heap of music to Bluetooth to my car.
That's about it.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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