NYCPHP Meetup

[Marc Antony Vose]

>Mark Lassoff wrote:
>>  How come when this comes up many of us find it appropriate to be
>  > pleasant and polite.


I have experienced this in the past, and have been working as a 
contractor for 10+ years.  In one case, I had a very large client who 
refused to pay money on a job even after something was delivered in 
full.  The president of the company wanted, at that point, some 
changes made to the project (for free) which would have effectively 
meant ripping it apart and reworking not only programming, but also 
design.

And this was on a site that had already been very well received by the public.

I was young and impetuous and I just ripped down the content 
management tools after getting in a heated, expletive-riddled 
argument with him, figuring that it wasn't impacting the customer's 
view of everything, only the client's ability to keep his information 
current.

Needless to say, this got some results, but it also almost got my 
team in a lot of trouble (i.e., sued).  Since this was a large 
client, they actually hired a consultant to come in and mediate the 
dispute and figure out what went wrong.  By that time, I was not 
willing to continue work on the job, so we ended up parting ways, and 
we got paid some (but not all) of what we were owed.  So my strategy 
got me something, but not everything.  Is there a way that could have 
gotten me everything?  Probably, yes.

I think now that I am older...it would take me longer before I 
declared war on a client.  I don't know what the status of the 
original poster's project and relationship are, but it may not yet be 
time to get to that point, and until you get to that point, you 
should always be pleasant and polite.  (Actually, I'd argue that 
pleasant and polite is even a good policy AFTER you're at the point 
of contemplating lawsuits and dog killing.)

I've also been on the other end, by the way. I've had contractors 
that I hired not deliver me things, and even just disappear -- 
without even responding to emails.  This is exacerbating, but it 
happens...they don't have something done, they vastly underestimated 
effort, they think they can't do it or maybe they got a better gig, 
so rather than have that discussion with me, they just avoid the 
conflict and ignore me.

Whether you are the consultant or the client, then, I think the same 
rules apply.

Think this way: the only way to get someone to give you what you want 
is to make them want to give it to you.

So I would exhaust every 'nice' avenue there was in an effort to get 
the money before I went postal, because once you getting nasty is a 
bridge that collapses after you cross it, and it's extremely 
difficult to ever get back to the 'nice' side of the river once 
you're on the other side.

But, if those attempts all fail...invoking a collection agency or 
lawyer might be the only way, and I guess the decision to do that 
depends on how much money it is and how important that sum is to you.

Cheers,

-- 
Marc Antony Vose
http://www.suzerain.com/

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in 
higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
-- Nietzsche