Weekend work - charge or not?

[psychocandy]

OK. Before anyone gives me grief saying, your business, make a decision, why are you asking people on a forum etc.

I've been out of contracting a while before this contract and things have changed a lot it seems, so I'm just interested in the OPINION of people who've got more recent experience of these things.

Anyway, client asked if I was willing to be available to help with something important this weekend if the need arose. I said yeh OK and said if it didnt take long no worries, but would it be acceptable to bill if it was substantial. Client agreed in email that yes I could book time.

Anyway, spent about 3 hours this weekend speaking to people, logged in from home etc. Did have to make some changes to other plans I had to fit this in.

OK, so question is what would you do?

1. Bill for half a day (Trouble is not sure if my contract allows for 1/2 day billing)
2. Do it for free as goodwill gesture and maybe take a few hours off one day when needed.

[malvolio]

If you're on a hourly rate, bill three hours. If you're on a day rate, bill a day; that's what a day rate means.

[craig1]

Work = billing. Permies work for free.

So... you have two choices, both involve discussing it with the client:

1. Bill the time. Most clients realise that working on a Saturday is a premium and will not mind you billing half a day as a full day. Others will just tell you to bill half a day, up to you to fix it with the agency.
2. Take the time off later while still billing the full day. Get it booked in your calendar immediately though, don't leave it as a "I'll take it sometime" thing.

Discuss this in advance next time! Retrospective agreements are never neat and tidy.

[Support Monkey]

depends on you position at the moment, 3 hours is not going to make you rich so i would think about doing it has a goodwill gesture just make sure their aware that this is what it is and your not in the habit of doing this, or you could say i will carry it over and add to the next time you have to do some weekend work, this could come in usefull further down the line when renegotiating

or just bill them for half/full day, most agencies can deal with .5 on a timesheet

[psychocandy]

FYI I'm on a daily rate.

Yes, client agreed in advance that I could bill time worked. I also passed this via agency too.

Not sure if I'm comfortable billing a whole day though for this (even though, in effect, I was 'on call' for free over the weekend).

[psychocandy]

depends on you position at the moment, 3 hours is not going to make you rich so i would think about doing it has a goodwill gesture just make sure their aware that this is what it is and your not in the habit of doing this, or you could say i will carry it over and add to the next time you have to do some weekend work, this could come in usefull further down the line when renegotiating

or just bill them for half/full day, most agencies can deal with .5 on a timesheet

Yeh. Client is pretty good to be honest and it looks like a contract that's going to run and run. Close to home, decent rate.

BUT, like someone said, free is for permies and I've been bitten on the arse by this once or twice as a permie and well aware that, even more so in contractor world, once you've fulfilled your usefulness no matter how much extra work you've done in the past, you're out of the door...

[FiveTimes]

If the client agreed to pay you for your time then you shouldn't feel guilty about billing a full day. Like you said you were 'on call' for no extra cost so the extra 'half' day you have billed should go some way to cover this.

But if you feel guilty just tell the client that you will be billing for the full day.

[psychocandy]

If the client agreed to pay you for your time then you shouldn't feel guilty about billing a full day. Like you said you were 'on call' for no extra cost so the extra 'half' day you have billed should go some way to cover this.

But if you feel guilty just tell the client that you will be billing for the full day.

Maybe I'm too soft then :-)

Yeh it was sortta on-call but not on call in the true sense. At one point, someone called me and I told them I was out and would give them a ring in two hours. Not something you can normally do if its proper on call.

[northernladuk]

Jeez, are you going to put a post on every single time you have to make a decision by yourself through the rest of your contracting career?

I guess this is going to be another long protracted post where you discuss everyone's opinion instead of making a decision and dealing with it. By the time you discussed everyone elses opinion and still not been able to make your own decision you will have wasted most of today on the issue.

Give the client the time this time, don't bother wasting all day today on the issue and move on to the next impossible decision for you IMO.

[psychocandy]

Jeez, are you going to put a post on every single time you have to make a decision by yourself through the rest of your contracting career?

I guess this is going to be another long protracted post where you discuss everyone's opinion instead of making a decision and dealing with it. By the time you discussed everyone elses opinion and still not been able to make your own decision you will have wasted most of today on the issue.

Give the client the time this time, don't bother wasting all day today on the issue and move on to the next impossible decision for you IMO.

NLUK - I bet I dont spend as long on it as you do on this forum every day being negative, having a go at people, and generally acting like a miserable git. :-)

(But I do love you really !)