Elissa M@ste1 wrote: > CALL VALEN OR ME NOW > > IT’S AN EMERGENCY! > > > > EjM > in the future when you compose an email in all-caps, could you at least do me the small favor of saying what the latest emergency is? i don't know about you, but i really find it hard to manage priorities when screaming is the only input. also, bear in mind that i will need to be paid for work i do on this project. the last thing i heard about my involvement was that i was "over budget." that's fine, as long as i don't have to do any work. but i get the feeling you want me to do some work. let me explain something related to all this: i'm not "over budget" on any of the other projects that vie for my limited attention. one input parameter that bears on my effort is the likelihood of being paid. could you give me a reassurance, by email, that yes i can continue to bill at my modest $30/hr rate? thank you --gus Elissa M@ste1 wrote: > Gus, > > We are having some major issues with our ecommerce site and other. > > We've had a difficult time reaching you. > I've tried many times now to reach out to you regarding our ticket booth > issues, which are still not resolved. > > The issue is you have completely dropped off and have set up a proprietary > system that we do not know how to operate. > > The e-commerce glitches have been a problem and have to be resolved ASAP. > We also have other action items that need to be addressed, and you haven't > returned Valen's or my calls. > > How are we going to rectify this situation? > well, i have a few ideas. you can either pay me to work for you or you can find someone to build you a nice "non-proprietary" system (whatever that is), perhaps at some good rate like minimum wage or free. we can all dream. as far as i know i'm "over budget." - i built all this stuff for what i think was a very reasonable investment on the station's part. the thing is i don't have time to work for free. it's really pretty straight forward. if it's such an emergency i'm sure you can afford to pay me. --gus Elissa M@ste1 wrote: > Well if there are issues with your work, you should fix it. It would be one > thing if we hadn't paid you, but since you are paid up to date, it would be > greatly appreciated if you would fix all the tweaks that aren't working with > your system. > > > > -----Original Message----- just so you know, until i've been given formal clearance to bill for work, i will assume there is no intention to continue paying me, and i will not work on any WXXX-related work. my arrangement with WXXX was to work at an hourly rate. if there is work to be done, i will only do it at that rate. i never arranged to do a certain amount of work at an hourly rate with a provision that one day that would end and my work would then continue for free, whether or not that additional work was considered "tweaks" or "the result of gross incompetence" or however you choose to characterize it. the fact of the matter is, you've gotten an effective system for very little money. you should be delighted. i'm sure the ongoing lesson of raXXXXXXXXX.com is confirming this for you even now. we're all rational people and we have to do what is in our respective best interest. even if i wanted to continue working for you for free, i don't expect my wife would look on such a project very kindly. --gus Subject: Re: PLEASE CALL US ASAP From: gus Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 20:00:37 -0400 To: Gary XXXXXX Gary XXXXXX wrote: > Gus - I have received no value from your work on our e-commerce system -- it > doesn't work!! I am not sure why I would need to pay you to fix something > that never worked. Doesn't seem right to me! I am a reasonable > guy.....please explain to me when my responsibility to pay for this ends. > Thanks > well, if this is the case then surely you intend to keep me in your employ until i finish the job or else hire someone else to do it. for you i am an hourly contractor. that is our arrangement. if the ecommerce site isn't working satisfactorily this implies it needs more contractor work. i will not be doing any more work that i cannot bill for, since that lies outside our initial arrangement. i'm not doing this job as a favor or because i need something on my resume. but i'm fair-minded and if you can point me to where i stated that i would work for a fixed sum of money until i satisfactorily met your specific requirements then i could be convinced to do additional work for free. this whole thing about springing a "you're over budget [what budget?] and we can't pay you but your shit doesn't work so you need to do more for free" doesn't fly. my wife laughed out loud when i told her about it. maybe there are people out there who would bend to such an argument, but you're making the mistake of trying that on someone with too much experience to be one of them. it seems strange to me that you would draw a line in the sand at this point about paying me more money if you aren't convinced that the job is finished, particularly given the rate we negotiated. i suppose i should have been suspicious of a company that initially offered to hire me for $10/hr. --gus Gary XXXXXX wrote: > I find your comments rude and insulting. You definitely need to learn inter-personal skills. > that's cool, i really don't care what you think. i only care about the money in this case. i particularly care about being paid for my work. if it insults you that i require this of you and your company, then i'm left to wonder what kind of companies you are used to dealing with. > > > You gave us a product that doesn't work. I didn't realize that once this program was launched on my website, that I would need to keep paying you to make the thing work. When the general contractor on my house (who was paid on a time and materials basis) installed a floor that warped, he came back and fixed it AT HIS EXPENSE. I guess software development is different?? in this case i am being paid on an hourly basis. when the site "launched," not all the details of its operations had been fully tested, partly because of limited resources (development for such projects usually involves REAL budgets and larger teams). the full testing and "tweaking" of a site is part of the work that is to be paid for by your company. you can decide to stop paying me at any time you like, but if you choose to do that before the product is to your liking, you get a product that may be, in some ways, unsatisfactory. > > > > The e-commerce program has been a nightmare. Make sure your wife understands that it overbills people (it charged over $4000 to someone for a $45 ticket purchase), it underbills people, it gives out messages about delivering tickets when we do not provide that service, it does not charge a service fee when it should. As they old saying goes, "OTHER THAN THAT MRS. LINCOLN, HOW DID YOU ENJOY THE SHOW"? well, part of the problem is that i have been given an inconsistent set of directions for what is to be made available. sometimes i'm told that we are to permit on call only, and other times im told that we are to provide various other shipping packages. and i've also been blamed for situations where a user selected something he didn't want - not a fault of the ecommerce system. as for the large overcharges, that was a issue with leftover test data that i fixed the moment i heard about it and, i might add, i did not bill you for the fifteen minutes (at my rate, $7.50) of testing this necessitated. > > > > *_How much more time do you ESTIMATE that you need to fix this thing and make it work? _* > i don't know. it depends on what "make it work" means. despite what you've said, it seems to work right now, although some products might need to have their options changed - things doable by your able staff. if there are some development issues i'm guessing less than 500 dollars of work (restricted entirely to the ecommerce part of the site). but at this point i'd be reluctant to take on the work right now since my guess is that you have no intention of actually paying me for any more work. i don't know how smart it was to admit during our meetings together that you owed various other companies money and they needed to be communicated with in certain special ways. i really don't want to be just another WXXX sucker. you should probably know that in addition to its reputation as being all that is woodstock rock, your station isn't exactly known for leaving a good feeling with the people it hires to do its work. and now i wonder, exactly how warped were those floors in your house? more to the point - a project like this is nothing like laying floors in your house. it's a complex system with many moving parts and to get it to work acceptably requires good communications and good feelings on the part of all involved. by thinking you can pull this off with a few thousand dollars (while tacking on other projects we never talked about), send me on my way, only to expect work for free when it isn't perfect, you've made a serious blunder. you've poisoned the well. i'm curious - do you think you'll ever be able to find someone who can do what i just did at the rate i did it? really think about that one. hang some flyers on the lamp posts of woodstock asking around for a minimum wage web developer conversant in php and sql. do you have any idea the opportunity you just squandered? my guess is no - i've heard the stories - you've made this mistake countless times before. --gus Elissa M@ste1 wrote: > Can you let us know how much we paid forMXXXX JXXXX and for WXXX work out of the $3165 we’ve paid you thus far? > > > > EjM > no i can't. it is one lump sum and my records do not break it down. if i were to guess i would say that lots of the work you paid me for, though, is for stuff that has never launched (and probably never will), particularly that calendaring system. pity, huh? Elissa M@ste1 wrote: > Can you let us know how much we paid forMXXXX JXXXX and for WXXX work out of the $3165 we’ve paid you thus far? > > > > EjM > in thinking about it, i'd venture to say that not many of my hours actually went into my work on the ecommerce site, since it was just an integration of an existing system. you might want to talk to brian about how many hours he put into it. i'd say less than ten for me - $300. one more point is that a good fraction of my billable hours were spent in meetings at WXXX, as you'll see from my invoices. it's very nice to have my wednesdays back, btw. Elissa M@ste1 wrote: > Gus, > > All of us are bewildered by your nasty attitude. I really don't get it. > > By asking you what portion of your work went to each project, I'm > determining where we are at. A professional and realistic request. > professionalism in this context is maintaining a business relationship with a professional until that professional is finished with what you have requested for him to do. when you stop paying that professional, his relationship with you comes to an immediate end, i don't care what loose ends remain. news bulletin: this is how it is in an at-will system. that bitterness or imaturity might follow is neither here nor there, since the professional relationship is over at that point. also, bear in mind that i have nothing to lose by mocking your little operation and its notorious habit of nickle & diming. these days i'm getting fat paychecks from multinational megacorporations. i don't like fattening the wallets of The Man but it's worth it if he's fattening mine and not throwing stunts like "You're over budget." i hadn't realized i'd only been paid $3165 for all the work i'd done for WXXX. that's not even a month of a good salary. some thanks are in order: thanks (most especially to gary) for all the delightful emails not quite telling me i wouldn't be paid, which i've enjoyed forwarding to my friends and colleagues for their entertainment. "life in the catskills" i say, and they say they've been chuckling like lumberjacks. i know gary is actually a lot cooler than an avatar for "the man" but it's been fun sticking it to him anyway. my question for you is more personal: why do you persist in working at WXXX when you could just as easily commute to a much better job in manhattan? it seems you have the skills to excel in a genuine work environment, not one run by a self-sabotagingly tight-fisted guy with a hint of a napoleon complex. big fish: your pond there is small, and it contains a crocodile. --gus Brian WF Tobin wrote: > Friends, > >> From my perspective, everything is getting a bit > > overblown. If the VIP section of the website isnt > sorry to butt in, since i don't work here anymore, but i need to clarify something: i didnt get mad because of an email in all-caps. such an email would have been acceptable, if not desirable. what i got mad about was the fact that i was being asked to do more work and yet i'd been told i would no longer be paid for any future work i did. i do not like working for free. slavery was abolished in the 1860s. brian, take heed: WXXX is famous for not paying that last invoice. luckily, i figured out what they were up to before they pulled this stunt on me. none of this is intended as a criticism of anyone on our team, all of whom i genuinely like and enjoyed working with. --gus Subject: Re: Budget forMXXXX JXXXX & WXXX From: gus Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:20:17 -0400 To: Elissa M@ste1 Elissa M@ste1 wrote: > No one is saying that you aren't getting paid, but the concerns are the > following - everything i've done can be found in the root of the WXXXvip.com web server, where you have access to the latest copy of all the php files and also a mysql install script. if you'd like i can burn you a CD for a nominal pre-paid cost of $5. any work beyond that on my part will be billed at a rate of $50/hr. have a professional day. --gus Elissa M@ste1 wrote: > > Your lack of professionalism and accusations make no sense. I don't think > anyone on this team deserves what you've been doling out in emails. > i haven't accused you, elissa, of anything. i've just pointed out that i'd been told i wouldn't be paid any more money for more work that needed to be done - both by you and by gary. i did accuse gary of being a self-sabotagingly tight-fisted and not paying all his bills, but that latter accusation is something he has casually confirmed to us all in meetings. and i've also heard stories, since i live in the area and am privy to some great informal channels. hearsay i know, but there's no smoke without a fire. > All we wanted was for you to fix your mistakes and complete the projects we > were working on. > "mistakes" is a perjorative word. that site was still in development when the financial plug was pulled on it. if you or gary wanted it completely debugged, it would have made more sense to wait until after it had been finished before telling me i would no longer be paid. someone who understands web development and the limited resources at our disposal would recognize that we would have to debug that ecommerce monster live, and it would take work that someone would have to pay for. had i wanted to launch a completely bug-free ecommerce site, it would have taken me many hours of careful testing, and it would have cost thousands more before the launch. bear that in mind. anyway, have fun finding a new developer. brian, i could probably get you some work if this doesn't pan out for you. --gus Elissa M@ste1 wrote: > Gus, > > > > About how much time and cost would you need to allocate to completing the job you were doing for us? > > > > Since the system you created is entirely proprietary, it would be of interest to us to have you finish what you started. > > > > Please advise. > > > > EjM > not to quibble, but you're actually wrong about that; the entire WXXX site, including the ecommerce component, is not even slightly proprietary. it's based on open standards like php and mysql and the code itself is well documented. as for the ecommerce component itself, it is an open-source ecommerce package called oscommerce which has extensive online documentation: http://www.oscommerce.info/ i'm sure any developer conversant in php and mysql (there aren't too many frontend/backend developers in the world, but the majority of them will know these technologies) will be able to help you pick up where i left off when WXXX told me i had exceeded what apparently was only a $3100 budget. of course, they'll have to become familiar with WXXX and get up to speed on the oscommerce package, and my guess is they'll be charging somewhat more than $30/hr. good luck, you're going to need it. --gus