Hmmmm...
July ended with two people owing me money. I know they will pay eventually - in fact, one of them paid me today, just like he said he would.
But the trouble is that August starts with the mortgage, the gas bill, the electricity bill, the Internet bill and the water rates ALL going out on the same day. In fact, every month starts like that! So this month has got off to a particularly precarious financial start...
I do make it clear that I expect payment on the day for a lesson. I encourage people to pay in advance by giving very generous discounts for blocks of lessons. And the great majority of them do pay "on the nail".
But on odd occasions....well, it usually goes like this:
Someone phones up and asks me to help him set up a computer. Having checked that he has got the broadband equipment, I fix a date to set it up.
I go round to the house intending to set up the router, set up an email client (I HATE webmail!), install some antivirus for him (either the one that PCWorld persuaded him to buy or AVG Free), make sure he's got a useful homepage (like Google), clear the start menu of all the clutter and make sure he can find 'Internet' and 'Mail' easily.
After an hour and a half - job done - one happy client who now is keen to have some lessons. At least, that's my fervent hope and desire!
What happens on these odd occasions is that I get there to find he has a 'Netbook'/he's opted for some ISP and their phone service/he's opted for some ISP and is still trying to change his phone service....
Whatever the reason, the setup isn't going to work. In case you're wondering why I mentioned Netbooks, it's because I have found out that Netbooks are so small that they don't have room for a disc drive. So how do I play the setup CD?
So I spend two hours there, a good proportion of that spent on the phone to the ISP trying to find out exactly what has or has not been going on. Client doesn't understand about discs, filters, passwords, dots, underscores etc. etc. so I end up apologising on behalf of the ISP, myself, the telephone company, myself, the world-wide web, myself and the whole monstrous regiment of geeks everywhere.
But mainly on behalf of myself! So I retreat, promising to return and set it up again. And I haven't the heart to ask for payment! At least, not until I've done the job to my satisfaction.
I know - I should be harder.
I'm not paid by results, I'm paid for my time.
And although 90% of my setups have gone without a hitch and although most people recognise that 'time is money', one or two of the remainder have left me out of pocket. They do pay me next time, when I succeed in setting it up....
The worst case I've had is where a client had been using a spreadsheet to keep business records. He phoned me up asking if I could help him with this spreadsheet, because it didn't work. On arriving there, I find it's a complete mess with no structure to it. He knows what it means and what the headings are of course but because he's just been adding formulae to it "on the fly" (as we geeks say) he's ended up with so many bad references and general inconsistencies that the poor spreadsheet has turned its toes up and said "I just can't go on like this!"
I spent over an hour with him, then took it home for further analysis and spent at least two hours that night, reconstructing one of the sheets completely so that it worked, with clear 'frozen' headings so that it scrolled efficiently etc. etc. Then I took it back and went through the problems with him for another hour.
"Oh well, I've always done it like this..." he said.
Well yes, I thought, but wasn't that why he called me in the first place?
Then suddenly he was called away, so I said "I'll submit an invoice....bye....."
That was three weeks and two invoices ago...
Gosh, what a long post. And no pictures! But then I'd have to blank out the faces!!!
Have you any stories of reluctant payers?
Oh...I now carry a USB CD/DVD Drive everywhere I go on business!
Colin
