Power cut, sent home.

[mudskipper]

I'm with the "suck it up" brigade. Think of it as an IR35 get out of jail free card.

What happened to the employees? Did they have to take half a day's holiday?

[Contreras]

Difficult one.... All those saying no work no pay though - would you be pleased if you drove 200 miles turned up at the door and client said sorry no work today?

If that bothers you then negotiate terms as £XX for site attendance + £YY per hour/day. It's also an incentive for the client to allow WFH.

[SussexSeagull]

Paying for the half-day sounds fair enough to me.

Sounds fair enough to me.

[FatLazyContractor]

@PC - What does your 'No win, No fee' lawyer say?

[d000hg]

Accept that the client won't pay for your good faith effort. Explain to the client, "Oh well, fair enough, I'm a contractor. No work, no pay".

Store that little gem away for future reference, then, sometime later when the client has a decent-sized fire that needs putting out sometime in the start/middle of the afternoon you simply loudly declare that you don't fancy invoicing for this afternoon and that you're off home.

As the client is frantically trying to find resource to put out the fire and convince you to stay and help, you remind them that "no work, no pay" is the same as "no pay, no work" and say "See how that works?" as you stride out of the door whilst the fire rages on.

Yes, and then they say "according to your contract, we can give you notice and provide no work. Bye".

[psychocandy]

Seriously? We can argue the exact details of a PWD but not a chance in hell anyone will believe a PWD is turning up on site and going home. That's just stupid.

Is it any wonder you don't get on with your clients if you turn up at the door and expect to be paid for the day. You are completely missing the point about signed timesheets as well. No client is going to sign for a full day when you weren't there.

Never happened to me.....

[northernladuk]

Never happened to me.....

We will know when it does I am sure.

[Willapp]

Surprised there's any debate about this, I'd say it's pretty simple: we don't get paid for our availability to work, we get paid for actually doing work. No work = no pay.

Sounds like the OP got paid for the half day they worked which seems like exactly the correct outcome. I can see it being a little frustrating but in that situation I'd be happy to go home and put my feet up for an impromptu afternoon off.

[Pollypanda]

The other day there was a power outage at ClientCo that facilities could not fix in a timely manner and I was sent home early.

ClientCo would not approve a working day as I had not worked it, but I had attended in good faith and subsequently lost half a days money.

Is this correct? I did attend, started work but there was nothing I could do without power. WFH not an option here.

You were paid half a day for the half day you worked / were on site, I think that's fair. I know that the circumstances were out of your control, but your contract will just state that you're paid for work, there won't be any exception clauses unless the client is unusually generous.

If they do then please say who so we can all contact them

[MrMarkyMark]

Agree with all of this, i.e. the now work, no pay.

The only exception to this, is what is stipulated on the contract, mine says a full day is anything over 5 hours worked.
Any less is worked out on a ratio, but is less than half a day, even if you do 4 hours.