[TriLUG] How much could a penguin make...

[Tarus Balog]

Stephen Schaefer said:

> A *very* broad rule of thumb goes like this: take the
> salary of someone doing the same work at the same
> level of experience, and express it as an hourly rate.
>  So, $60k a year is $30 an hour.  A consultant doing
> the same work should charge at least four times that,
> or $120/hr.

It is really not four times as much, but more like twice. That $60K a year
guy also gets about $40K in benefits and extras: the company pays
unemployment tax, plus their share of social security and medicare, plus
medical insurance, workman's comp, etc.

> If the client seems shocked, remind them of the costs
> and risks that they're transferring to you: they're
> not going to have to hire someone long-term, with
> everything that entails, and if you screw up, they
> probably won't pay you.

And they also probably won't pay you for at least a month after the job is
completed. While I always try for Net 15, most of the time it is more like
Net 30, and 50%, even with the good clients, you end up making a call
asking about that check.

> And I'll throw in some more advice: spend some of that
> probably-non-billable time putting together an
> iron-clad statement of work.  You don't want to show
> up to do a database install, find out that their piece
> of crap video card has buggy support, and then have
> them not pay you because "the OS doesn't work", even
> though the database works fine.  Can you hear
> experience talking?

This is truly sage advice. It can be a pain, but most clients will
understand it if you explain that the best way to maintain a good
relationship is to correctly set expectations.

Case in point. Years ago I worked in telecommunications, and we were
performing a month long test at a customer's site. We told them we would
need a place to work and four test lines. We showed up to find an empty
room and four pieces of "silver satin" cable coming out of the walls. No
phones, no tables, no chairs.