Re: The Worst Thing About Contracting

["LRMB Assoc." <writingcontact -at- USA -dot- NET>]

At 09:37 AM 4/10/99 -0400, Chris Hamilton wrote:
>Wally Glassett wrote:
>>
>> Let me, then, ask if you believe that staff personnel (AKA "captives")
>> should reimburse their employers when they spend time "farting" while on
the
>> job? Or talking about the weather, news, sports, lunch, spouses, children,
>> and all the other non-productive, off task things that use time at work.
>
>I disagree with the assessment of this time as non-productive.
<clip>
>
>Chris
>--
>Chris Hamilton
>Technical Writer
>Tampa, FL
>caxdj -at- earthlink -dot- net

While certainly some things are not billable, my ethic is that some
intangibles are billable. For instance, if I am making extensive use of my
PC on a client's project, and in the middle of it I have to reboot, run
scandisk and defrag to keep things purring I find it reasonable to charge a
least a portion of that time to the client project.  Now, normally, I would
not bill a client for my computers upkeep--that is my overhead, but during
a particular project, it is expected that there will be a certain amount of
organizational maintenance included in the contract.  How much to bill?
Hard to say as a rule, but for me I think 50% of the time is fair because
way I look at it, that defrag will benefit the project 50% (by a smoother
and faster running machine thus less project time billed) and the other 50%
I chalk up to overhead.

As for reading the sports, lunch, spouses, and children--unless they are
bringing me something directly useable for the client work, it is all
overhead (or not applicable in work at all).

Other things I might bill partially would be hours I dream at night how I
am going to refine that thing I have been working on the previous day.
Sure, I am lying in bed, but as a freelancer, creativity is one of the most
valuable resources to sell and if that creativity happens to come at
midnight in bed, I'll bill it.
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