what is a day?

[bikeman]

Just declined contract because the agent/client wanted to pay day rate but refused to define how many working hours were in a day. Yeah I know this was probably dumb of me but I felt this was too much in their favour and pushed for an hourly rate.

An ill defined day rate now seems to be the norm. What are your experiences?

[MayContainNuts]

Just declined contract because the agent/client wanted to pay day rate but refused to define how many working hours were in a day. Yeah I know this was probably dumb of me but I felt this was too much in their favour and pushed for an hourly rate.

An ill defined day rate now seems to be the norm. What are your experiences?

Just get the hours written down for the day rate?!!!

[GreenLabel]

An ill defined day rate now seems to be the norm. What are your experiences?

A day rate is the norm, at least as far as I'm aware. Every place I've worked it's always been whatever hours the permanent staff work: 9:00 - 18:00 or thereabouts. Seems pretty unlikely they're going to stiff you by later telling you a day means 16 hours, but then on the other hand they should at least be able to define the expected hours. To be honest unless the client is a right twunt there shouldn't be much to worry about.

[bikeman]

The issue for me was it was a very short duration ie up to 1 week and as I said on my OP they refused specify the hours. The exact words were 'everyones going the extra mile to get the project finished'.
That's fine for the permies with promises/threats/overtme but I think as a contractor there had to be a cap on my labour or a wllingness to pay an hourly rate.
I had visions of 12, 14 hour days.

[eek]

A day rate is the norm, at least as far as I'm aware. Every place I've worked it's always been whatever hours the permanent staff work: 9:00 - 18:00 or thereabouts. Seems pretty unlikely they're going to stiff you by later telling you a day means 16 hours, but then on the other hand they should at least be able to define the expected hours. To be honest unless the client is a right twunt there shouldn't be much to worry about.

But the client may be a right twunt. I've had a professional working day of 7 hours and 1 that was 8.5-9 hours and with no where to escape to that was a 9 hour day.

[MayContainNuts]

But the client may be a right twunt. I've had a professional working day of 7 hours and 1 that was 8.5-9 hours and with no where to escape to that was a 9 hour day.

I had a situation when on clarification from the agent it said the hours were the same as their staff - 8am-6pm with 30 minutes for lunch!!! I told them to take a running jump and had it changed from 9am-5.30pm.

[doodab]

Assume the worst and set your rate accordingly.

[bikeman]

I had a situation when on clarification from the agent it said the hours were the same as their staff - 8am-6pm with 30 minutes for lunch!!! I told them to take a running jump and had it changed from 9am-5.30pm.

I'd love 30 mins for lunch and go home a little earlier. Always annoys me when I'm forced to take an hour when stuck in the middle of a trading estate. I always think they insist on an hour simply cause they know most staff will work some of it because there's nothing else to do.

[GreenLabel]

The issue for me was it was a very short duration ie up to 1 week and as I said on my OP they refused specify the hours. The exact words were 'everyones going the extra mile to get the project finished'.
That's fine for the permies with promises/threats/overtme but I think as a contractor there had to be a cap on my labour or a wllingness to pay an hourly rate.
I had visions of 12, 14 hour days.

Fair enough in that case.