the real question is, if 95% of your target audience uses hardware better than your target of a 500mhz PIII, is it really worth spending a lot of extra time to make it work well (not just work, but work well) on a P90?
First of all, don't underestimate 5%. Apple
has $4B in the bank selling to 5%. Hypothetically
speaking, if your software can let your
P90 customer avoid one upgrade, they might
be willing to pay an extra $100 for it.
What I'm actually talking about is that while
most products fall squarely in the "don't
bother optimizing" class, there are some with
unique market positions that can in fact
afford to do it. The reason they don't have
to is because customers don't demand it, not
because the engineering effort cannot make
business sense (i.e. be cheaper than new
hardware).
There are performance goals that certain features must meet, or it's considered a defect.
The question is on which sort of machines are
these performance goals measured? If you keep
measuring on "current" machines, ignoring the
relation to the actual complexity of the problem,
then you're really relaxing requirements more
and more.
IFF performance is an issue, THEN one takes measurements and optimizes critical areas consuming the majority of time. Beyond that, it just isn't worth it.
This is generally true, but you're neglecting
another factor - the number of copies. The
most obvious case is if you're only going to
run a program once, spending one hour to make
it run 30 minutes faster is silly.
However, imagine if Microsoft charged one dollar
more for every copy of Word to optimize the
product. I don't have numbers, but I wouldn't
be surprised if it'd be a ten million dollar
budget to optimize Word. That can pay for a
lot of developer time, and establish Word as
a much more competitive product even if a rival
should emerge. To the consumer, an extra
dollar is clearly better than having to
upgrade your computer.
Why isn't it working this way, at least for
some products? Because consumers let it. The
math certainly works out. So, along with your
faster processors, the other problem is that
customer demands for high quality software
have either decreased or stayed low all this
time.
35k minus taxes and misc dwinddles down to
$22k. And you have to work for that $22k. Now,
minus rent, food, insurance, and car expenses.
Nothing is left to save.
Who ever said you deserved a particular
lifestyle? If you can't afford a car, take
the bus. If you can't afford chicken breasts,
buy chicken thighs. If you can't afford rent,
get a roommate.
$35K is better than most teachers make, and
they have to deal with whiny children every
day. On some days they have to deal with
children with guns. They also had to go to
college. Want that job instead?
if your organization originally had a 100 IT person department, and now you have 40, doubling will still leave you with a loss of 20% seven years down the road.
You're forgetting about progresses in software.
Software that are more reliable and easier to
configure will require a smaller staff to
maintain. Losing 20% over seven years doesn't
seem like a terrible thing, considering that
seven years ago, Linux is only about to reach
v2.0, and NT is around v4.0.
the "Mac Faithful" DEFEND Apple's weaknesses, allowing Apple to slack off in the processor department.
Apple shipped a 500 MHz G4 tower in September
1999. In July 2000, they shipped a dual 500.
In January 2001, a 733 or dual 533. In July
2001, a 867 or dual 800. In February 2002,
a 933 or dual 1 GHz. In August 2002, dual
1.25 GHz. In February 2003, dual 1.42 GHz.
If you track the dual processor G4 towers
over 18 months, you'll see speed ups of
2.0x (dual 500 to dual 1 GHz), 2.3x (dual
533 to dual 1.25 GHz), 1.8x (dual 800 to
dual 1.42 GHz). Comparing the 1999 500 MHz
to the 2003 dual 1.42 GHz, it's a 5.68x*
improvement in 41 months. This is in the
ballpark of Moore's Law**, which cannot be
achieved by somebody "slacking off".
However, it is true that Apple is
falling behind in raw processor speed. This
is something that is important to a
core group of users, such as desktop audio,
video, and graphics professionals. I just
don't think that your worry is reality,
because I think Apple is well aware of the
problem, even if Jobs has to publicly lie
about the performance gap.
* Yes, yes, I know you can't compare a
dual processor to a uni-processor system.
Discount the multiplier accordingly.
** Yes, yes, I know Moore's Law technically
only predicts transistor counts.
They will get bought out or sucked into a "partnership" where all they believed in is gone
I was addressing the premise of an indie label
losing its beliefs once it gets big. My point
was that you don't need the original beliefs,
just real competition in the market. So, if the
market gets five or ten more big labels (former
indie labels that lost their beliefs), the
consumer will still benefit because they can't
just comfortably sit around anymore. They'll
have to really compete.
There's no point is wishing that a large
company - especially a public company - can
hold on to its founding beliefs.
Of course, one these "indie" labels get big enough, they won't be "indie" anymore.
The main problem with the recording industry
today is that there are so few players, each
with a "big enough" piece of a big pie, that
they have no need to really compete.
Implicitly or explicitly, they have agreed
on a price for a CD, and even how many songs
to put on an album.
If many indie labels become big, the resulting
marketplace will be more competitive, leading
to better label-artist relationships (because
labels now have to compete for the best
artists) and better if not cheaper products
overall.
The computer industry is full of examples of
small companies becoming big ones. If we
exclude the monopolies, you'll see the
benefits of competition. IBM used to be
able to charge pretty much whatever it
wanted to, for example.
where is the golden rule that says music produces/artist have to be millionaires?
Uh, the rule of supply and demand?
I think it's about time the media bubble burst and the 'stars' take their pay cut too!
There's no media bubble. The dot-com bubble
was created by massive investments into
companies that have no hope of actually
recouping those investments. It kept
growing because you could find another sucker
to buy the stocks off you at a higher price,
and burst when people suddenly realized that
there is no next sucker. Musicians are
not overpaid up front, and make significant
amounts of money only after they sell
a boatload of records.
Want CD prices to come down? Stop buying
CDs. The relationship between the label and
the artist leaves much to be desired, to put
it lightly, but the relationship between the
label and the consumer is a classic one.
The price is maintained by demand.
This is a beta test of Slashdot's new Redundant
Array of Imitative Articles, aimed at providing
the highest level of journalistic reliability.
The underlying CS concept is highly technical
and cannot be explained in a simple post, but
the gist is if you repeat something often
enough, it must be true.
At some point you relize somethings need to be redone even if the current setup works well.
Uh, no. You need to understand the stigma that
a rewrite carries to a software engineer. It
means that the old code cannot be fixed up or
optimized. It might mean that it wasn't scalable, or has reached the limits of its originally
designed scalability. It might even mean that
it's barely even readable.
If you understand software engineering, then
you'll understand that a rewrite throws away
not only a lot of code, but also a lot of
valuable testing. It takes resources away
from bugfixing, and it introduces new code and
therefore new risks and bugs. All of these
are costly even for free software, in terms of
human resources and product stability, if not
actual dollars.
In an engineering organization, the only thing
that can lead to a rewrite is if all those
risks and losses can be justified. That
necessarily means that the old one is
sufficiently "broken", and the new one is
going to be sufficiently better. The
justifying gap between the new and the old
is where the old one is not "working well".
Some times there is differant ways of doing something well.
Yes, but rewriting for little or no practical
reason would be childish. I don't think this
team is childish, so the old SMP system must
have significant and fundamental problems to
require a rewrite.
Aren't those the ones with those massively annoying black lines across the picture?
Exaggeration will not help you make a point.
Trinitron tubes have two thin horizontal wires
across the screen, about a third of the way
from the top and bottom. These wires are
much thinner than a pixel, but do show up
against bright graphics.
But they are not "massively annoying", because
many people do manage to ignore them. The
simple proof is that many people who didn't
know about those lines don't even notice them
until they are told.
I went in to Best Buy and CompUSA to get a new monitor, and I looked at every single model in my price range on display at both stores.
That's really not a good way to pick a monitor.
These stores typically have a single computer
hooked up to 20 monitors via splitters. The
results are generally unflattering even on good
monitors.
client recommends you to another client, who obviously does not expect to pay more than the recommending client.
Depends on the nature of the work.
For example, if you do a simple web page for
a client for $500, yes, expect to charge a
similar rate for a referral to do pretty much
the same thing. However, if you did a really
good job, and the client knows that you're a
C programmer as well, you might get referred
to a C programming job on the basis of your
attitude as well. [Web/C are examples, so
substitute as appropriate.]
Most importantly, if you do a mediocre job,
don't expect miracles.
where are consultants conspiring to raise rates?
Try to follow the thread. Someone suggested
earlier that:
There is a market value for consultant work and people have to stick to it, otherwise cheap labor will ruin the industry for all of us.
The person really meant "inherent value" and
not "market value", because the very existence
of "cheap labor" means that the market value
is low. The person is talking about protecting
this "inherent value" and "people have to
stick to it". That's exactly like all the
companies getting together and agreeing not
to hire a web designer for more than $15/hr.
all other employers attempt to get "human resource" at the minimum they can get away with, and always have done.
There's nothing wrong with that, either.
There's an entire website called pricewatch.com
that lets you compare prices, and potentially
pick the cheapest. You rely on market demand
to maintain a price, and the government to
prevent price-fixing.
Except that there is also nothing wrong with raising prices if you provide a superior service. Your view comes across (at least to me - I may be wrong) that no one should expect to be able to charge more than the average price.
That is not my view at all. Anybody is free
to charge as highly as they can get paid. My
objection is to setting an inherent value to
your work, and not doing your job unless
you're paid that special amount.
My take on this was that the original poster was advocating not doing an *exceptional* job for minimum wages.
That may be, but the specific act in question
is whether to raise an issue about a potentially
wrong way to do things. That's the central job
of a consultant. We're really not talking
about doing exceptionally well.
this comment will make no sense to those out there with the "what ever you get paid is the market rate" mentality.
The truth is, as usual, somewhere in between.
The value of your time is not entirely and not
always defined by a dollar amount that the market
is willing to pay. On the other hand, obsessing
about your old rate in down times, and doing a
poor job because of it, will hurt everybody
involved.
What I'm advocating is to define your job
output as a function of your personal ethics,
and not as a function of pay. Then go that
extra mile for a really good employer who
will make it worth your while somehow.
Yes, advising against poor decisions is part of the job, but no, working on my own time for a client who wants to cut corners, pay me the smallest amount possible, go against my advice despite good reason to the contrary and niggle over every point is not an option.
Agreed. I was never discussing doing more than
your job description for a client who you feel
isn't worth it.
I could say that you're stuck on the antagonistic "you're not worth..." line of thought [...] If a client paid me exorbitant amounts of money over what I'm worth, yes, I'll be suspicious.
No, my point is that you should take it, other
than the usual suspicions on whether the job
is even legal. If somebody offered you $500
legitimate job when you usually charge $100,
take it, you're worth it.
On the other hand, if the best offer you can
get is $30, take that, too, because you need
to eat. Either way, you should do a good job,
because the minimum quality of your job is a
function of your personal work ethic, not a
function of your pay. The "over and above the
call of duty" kind of work you can reserve for
the best employers.
... like introduce you to other clients
Who will also expect you to work for peanuts - these recomendations you don't want.
I fail to see the logic where one "cheap"
client will necessarily refer you to another
"cheap" client. I do see, however, how
doing a lousy job will not get you any
referrals.
Unlike the employers conspiring to pay a smaller amount.
You forget that these employers are in competition
for your talents, which can only go to one
company at a time. Similarly, consultants are
in competition with each other for jobs. Buyers
compete by raising prices, sellers compete by
lowering prices.
Do you have evidence of employers conspiring to
lower labor costs? Over the past few years, we
in fact have seen many employers offer benefits
that literally cost more than the job is worth.
Were you complaining then, or just now when the
same system is tilted to the other side?
if you do first class work, and charge economy fair for it, you *are* "ruining it for all".
We are in utter disagreement here. There's
nothing wrong with lowering prices to become
more competitive.
The market value is what the *market* is willing to pay, not just a particular participant in the market. So if the *market* predominantly pays $X, and you are providing the expected service, you should generally expect $X.
Exactly, so walk away from the low paying job
if you can. The fact that you can't find a
high paying job doesn't excuse you from doing
a good job at low wages.
If the "shut up and accept what's on offer" party get their way all the time, everyone but the board of directors will be on minimum wage
What are you even talking about? I'm saying:
If they don't pay you what you are willing
to accept, walk away.
If you accept the offer, do a good job.
A big part of "doing a good job" as a
consultant involves providing relevant
information at the correct time.
And to think people fought long and hard to abolish slavery!
If I'm going to have to stress myself out arguing with a client, risking losing my position because they don't want me to disagree with their decisions and overall don't respect my expertise enough to pay me what I'm worth
Nobody is talking about stressing yourself
out arguing with a client. You should never
argue with a client. Instead, we're talking
about...
If they plan on implementing something that I feel is inadviseable, I will tell them as much, and I will explain to them why I feel this way.
...where we are in agreement. Remember that
the original post considered this as "extra
mile" work. I consider this part of the job,
if not the main job of a technical consultant.
On the other hand, you're also still stuck on
the inherent value business. You can't set a
price for yourself (say, $100/hr). You're not worth $100/hr until somebody actually pays you
$100/hr. Look at it this way: do you feel
guilt if you were paid $500 an hour when you're
only "worth" $100 an hour? Do you return the
money?
If they want a $100/hr consultant for $30/hr, they're in for dissapointment.
Here's how free market capitalism works. You
do not inherently deserve $100 an hour, no
matter how well trained you are, and no matter
how many $100 an hour gigs you've landed before.
You only deserve $100 an hour if somebody is willing to pay at least that, right now. If
the only job offer you can find pays $30 an
hour, you're worth $30 an hour. Obsessing
about your vaporized $100 rate, or worse, doing
a sub-par job because of it, will serve no one
well.
If you bend over backwards for a poorly-paying job, then the client will expect everyone to bend over for peanuts
Or you might bump into somebody who recognizes
your effort, and reward you in some other way,
like introduce you to other potential clients.
Don't be shortsighted.
if you don't do it, they'll find someone dumber to do it.
Then that's their loss, isn't it? You're
already charging Economy fare for First Class
service, and these guys still don't get it?
There is a market value for consultant work and people have to stick to it, otherwise cheap labor will ruin the industry for all of us.
I don't think you understand what "market
value" means. The market value of a product
or service is the price at which somebody is
willing to sell, and somebody else is willing
to buy at. Collectively conspiring to charge
a particular high amount is exactly what
anti-trust laws guard against.
Someone who is a pain in the arse, doesn't implement any recommendations that I put forward and fucks me around on the bill, if they ask for me next time, either is going to get turned down or I am not going to put my neck out for them.
But this is not the case we're talking about.
The situation in question is whether the client
should be provided vital information. I still
maintain that it is your responsibility - your
side of the deal - to provide the information
and advice. The decision to accept or reject
your suggestion is up to the client, but you
may not withhold it.
Read the original post again. The person
classified "to show which judgement would be
best and why" as extra work.
if a client is paying cheaply [...], they deserve the minimum information and just get what they ask for.
If a client pays well [...], they deserve that extra time taken to show which judgement would be best and why.
Your performance should not be tied to the
amount you are paid. If they pay too little
for your expertise, don't accept the job.
This is unethical if you did not inform your
"cheap" employer that this is what they're
getting before signing. They read your
resume, offered you money for the knowledge
that resume represents, and you took the
money.
Instead, how much you say should be
determined by how receptive the client is
to your ideas, not by how much they pay.
Just make sure that you don't give them so much information that they feel they no longer need your services, as that could also be a dangerous move.
This is also unethical. A consultant's job
is to teach at the pace the students learn,
not at the pace you can find a next gig.
No amount of air traffic will ever require an intersection. It's a three-dimensional world out there.
Mentally picture a thousand flying cars arriving
from various "air roads" at a sporting stadium.
They will have to slow down or stop while they
merge to park. The agility offered by modern
aircraft, even with the freedom of the third
dimension, does not live up to the flying car
envisioned in sci-fi.
Unfortunately with our "winner take all" system, it is possible [...] to lose ANY voice in that arena of government until the next election.
Worse, you may never have had a voice. For
example, most states are written off during
a presidential election as either Democrat or
Republican, and nothing that either candidate
does will change those minds. This results in
a disproportional attention on the "swing
states". Politically, a Republican president
doesn't have to care about California's energy
crisis, unemployment, or budget deficit, even
if it means pissing off Republican
Californians, because he's not going to win
the state anyway.
Basically, as the federal government becomes
more and more powerful relative to the state,
America needs a more direct way of electing
federal leaders so that various minorities can
be heard. Obviously, that's not really on
anybody's agenda.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, don't underestimate 5%. Apple has $4B in the bank selling to 5%. Hypothetically speaking, if your software can let your P90 customer avoid one upgrade, they might be willing to pay an extra $100 for it.
What I'm actually talking about is that while most products fall squarely in the "don't bother optimizing" class, there are some with unique market positions that can in fact afford to do it. The reason they don't have to is because customers don't demand it, not because the engineering effort cannot make business sense (i.e. be cheaper than new hardware).
The question is on which sort of machines are these performance goals measured? If you keep measuring on "current" machines, ignoring the relation to the actual complexity of the problem, then you're really relaxing requirements more and more.
Actually, I was referring to the financial costs they incur for their education, relative to their salaries.
Popquiz hotshot: what's the easiest department at almost any university?
You're not suggesting that a harder course entitles you to more pay, right?
This is generally true, but you're neglecting another factor - the number of copies. The most obvious case is if you're only going to run a program once, spending one hour to make it run 30 minutes faster is silly.
However, imagine if Microsoft charged one dollar more for every copy of Word to optimize the product. I don't have numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if it'd be a ten million dollar budget to optimize Word. That can pay for a lot of developer time, and establish Word as a much more competitive product even if a rival should emerge. To the consumer, an extra dollar is clearly better than having to upgrade your computer.
Why isn't it working this way, at least for some products? Because consumers let it. The math certainly works out. So, along with your faster processors, the other problem is that customer demands for high quality software have either decreased or stayed low all this time.
Who ever said you deserved a particular lifestyle? If you can't afford a car, take the bus. If you can't afford chicken breasts, buy chicken thighs. If you can't afford rent, get a roommate.
$35K is better than most teachers make, and they have to deal with whiny children every day. On some days they have to deal with children with guns. They also had to go to college. Want that job instead?
You're forgetting about progresses in software. Software that are more reliable and easier to configure will require a smaller staff to maintain. Losing 20% over seven years doesn't seem like a terrible thing, considering that seven years ago, Linux is only about to reach v2.0, and NT is around v4.0.
Apple shipped a 500 MHz G4 tower in September 1999. In July 2000, they shipped a dual 500. In January 2001, a 733 or dual 533. In July 2001, a 867 or dual 800. In February 2002, a 933 or dual 1 GHz. In August 2002, dual 1.25 GHz. In February 2003, dual 1.42 GHz.
If you track the dual processor G4 towers over 18 months, you'll see speed ups of 2.0x (dual 500 to dual 1 GHz), 2.3x (dual 533 to dual 1.25 GHz), 1.8x (dual 800 to dual 1.42 GHz). Comparing the 1999 500 MHz to the 2003 dual 1.42 GHz, it's a 5.68x* improvement in 41 months. This is in the ballpark of Moore's Law**, which cannot be achieved by somebody "slacking off".
However, it is true that Apple is falling behind in raw processor speed. This is something that is important to a core group of users, such as desktop audio, video, and graphics professionals. I just don't think that your worry is reality, because I think Apple is well aware of the problem, even if Jobs has to publicly lie about the performance gap.
* Yes, yes, I know you can't compare a dual processor to a uni-processor system. Discount the multiplier accordingly.
** Yes, yes, I know Moore's Law technically only predicts transistor counts.
I was addressing the premise of an indie label losing its beliefs once it gets big. My point was that you don't need the original beliefs, just real competition in the market. So, if the market gets five or ten more big labels (former indie labels that lost their beliefs), the consumer will still benefit because they can't just comfortably sit around anymore. They'll have to really compete.
There's no point is wishing that a large company - especially a public company - can hold on to its founding beliefs.
The main problem with the recording industry today is that there are so few players, each with a "big enough" piece of a big pie, that they have no need to really compete. Implicitly or explicitly, they have agreed on a price for a CD, and even how many songs to put on an album.
If many indie labels become big, the resulting marketplace will be more competitive, leading to better label-artist relationships (because labels now have to compete for the best artists) and better if not cheaper products overall.
The computer industry is full of examples of small companies becoming big ones. If we exclude the monopolies, you'll see the benefits of competition. IBM used to be able to charge pretty much whatever it wanted to, for example.
Uh, the rule of supply and demand?
I think it's about time the media bubble burst and the 'stars' take their pay cut too!
There's no media bubble. The dot-com bubble was created by massive investments into companies that have no hope of actually recouping those investments. It kept growing because you could find another sucker to buy the stocks off you at a higher price, and burst when people suddenly realized that there is no next sucker. Musicians are not overpaid up front, and make significant amounts of money only after they sell a boatload of records.
Want CD prices to come down? Stop buying CDs. The relationship between the label and the artist leaves much to be desired, to put it lightly, but the relationship between the label and the consumer is a classic one. The price is maintained by demand.
This is a beta test of Slashdot's new Redundant Array of Imitative Articles, aimed at providing the highest level of journalistic reliability. The underlying CS concept is highly technical and cannot be explained in a simple post, but the gist is if you repeat something often enough, it must be true.
Uh, no. You need to understand the stigma that a rewrite carries to a software engineer. It means that the old code cannot be fixed up or optimized. It might mean that it wasn't scalable, or has reached the limits of its originally designed scalability. It might even mean that it's barely even readable.
If you understand software engineering, then you'll understand that a rewrite throws away not only a lot of code, but also a lot of valuable testing. It takes resources away from bugfixing, and it introduces new code and therefore new risks and bugs. All of these are costly even for free software, in terms of human resources and product stability, if not actual dollars.
In an engineering organization, the only thing that can lead to a rewrite is if all those risks and losses can be justified. That necessarily means that the old one is sufficiently "broken", and the new one is going to be sufficiently better. The justifying gap between the new and the old is where the old one is not "working well".
Some times there is differant ways of doing something well.
Yes, but rewriting for little or no practical reason would be childish. I don't think this team is childish, so the old SMP system must have significant and fundamental problems to require a rewrite.
Freebsd does SMP quit well. They have/are redoing the whole SMP system.
If it works quite well, why does it need to be entirely redone?
When finished Freebsd will have and extremely good SMP, if not the best.
So advertise when it's finished.
Exaggeration will not help you make a point.
Trinitron tubes have two thin horizontal wires across the screen, about a third of the way from the top and bottom. These wires are much thinner than a pixel, but do show up against bright graphics.
But they are not "massively annoying", because many people do manage to ignore them. The simple proof is that many people who didn't know about those lines don't even notice them until they are told.
That's really not a good way to pick a monitor. These stores typically have a single computer hooked up to 20 monitors via splitters. The results are generally unflattering even on good monitors.
I do like ViewSonic, though.
Depends on the nature of the work.
For example, if you do a simple web page for a client for $500, yes, expect to charge a similar rate for a referral to do pretty much the same thing. However, if you did a really good job, and the client knows that you're a C programmer as well, you might get referred to a C programming job on the basis of your attitude as well. [Web/C are examples, so substitute as appropriate.]
Most importantly, if you do a mediocre job, don't expect miracles.
where are consultants conspiring to raise rates?
Try to follow the thread. Someone suggested earlier that:
The person really meant "inherent value" and not "market value", because the very existence of "cheap labor" means that the market value is low. The person is talking about protecting this "inherent value" and "people have to stick to it". That's exactly like all the companies getting together and agreeing not to hire a web designer for more than $15/hr.
all other employers attempt to get "human resource" at the minimum they can get away with, and always have done.
There's nothing wrong with that, either. There's an entire website called pricewatch.com that lets you compare prices, and potentially pick the cheapest. You rely on market demand to maintain a price, and the government to prevent price-fixing.
Except that there is also nothing wrong with raising prices if you provide a superior service. Your view comes across (at least to me - I may be wrong) that no one should expect to be able to charge more than the average price.
That is not my view at all. Anybody is free to charge as highly as they can get paid. My objection is to setting an inherent value to your work, and not doing your job unless you're paid that special amount.
My take on this was that the original poster was advocating not doing an *exceptional* job for minimum wages.
That may be, but the specific act in question is whether to raise an issue about a potentially wrong way to do things. That's the central job of a consultant. We're really not talking about doing exceptionally well.
this comment will make no sense to those out there with the "what ever you get paid is the market rate" mentality.
The truth is, as usual, somewhere in between. The value of your time is not entirely and not always defined by a dollar amount that the market is willing to pay. On the other hand, obsessing about your old rate in down times, and doing a poor job because of it, will hurt everybody involved.
What I'm advocating is to define your job output as a function of your personal ethics, and not as a function of pay. Then go that extra mile for a really good employer who will make it worth your while somehow.
Agreed. I was never discussing doing more than your job description for a client who you feel isn't worth it.
I could say that you're stuck on the antagonistic "you're not worth..." line of thought [...] If a client paid me exorbitant amounts of money over what I'm worth, yes, I'll be suspicious.
No, my point is that you should take it, other than the usual suspicions on whether the job is even legal. If somebody offered you $500 legitimate job when you usually charge $100, take it, you're worth it.
On the other hand, if the best offer you can get is $30, take that, too, because you need to eat. Either way, you should do a good job, because the minimum quality of your job is a function of your personal work ethic, not a function of your pay. The "over and above the call of duty" kind of work you can reserve for the best employers.
I fail to see the logic where one "cheap" client will necessarily refer you to another "cheap" client. I do see, however, how doing a lousy job will not get you any referrals.
Unlike the employers conspiring to pay a smaller amount.
You forget that these employers are in competition for your talents, which can only go to one company at a time. Similarly, consultants are in competition with each other for jobs. Buyers compete by raising prices, sellers compete by lowering prices.
Do you have evidence of employers conspiring to lower labor costs? Over the past few years, we in fact have seen many employers offer benefits that literally cost more than the job is worth. Were you complaining then, or just now when the same system is tilted to the other side?
if you do first class work, and charge economy fair for it, you *are* "ruining it for all".
We are in utter disagreement here. There's nothing wrong with lowering prices to become more competitive.
The market value is what the *market* is willing to pay, not just a particular participant in the market. So if the *market* predominantly pays $X, and you are providing the expected service, you should generally expect $X.
Exactly, so walk away from the low paying job if you can. The fact that you can't find a high paying job doesn't excuse you from doing a good job at low wages.
If the "shut up and accept what's on offer" party get their way all the time, everyone but the board of directors will be on minimum wage
What are you even talking about? I'm saying:
- If they don't pay you what you are willing
to accept, walk away.
- If you accept the offer, do a good job.
- A big part of "doing a good job" as a
consultant involves providing relevant
information at the correct time.
And to think people fought long and hard to abolish slavery!Which part of what I said sounds like slavery?
Nobody is talking about stressing yourself out arguing with a client. You should never argue with a client. Instead, we're talking about...
If they plan on implementing something that I feel is inadviseable, I will tell them as much, and I will explain to them why I feel this way.
On the other hand, you're also still stuck on the inherent value business. You can't set a price for yourself (say, $100/hr). You're not worth $100/hr until somebody actually pays you $100/hr. Look at it this way: do you feel guilt if you were paid $500 an hour when you're only "worth" $100 an hour? Do you return the money?
Here's how free market capitalism works. You do not inherently deserve $100 an hour, no matter how well trained you are, and no matter how many $100 an hour gigs you've landed before. You only deserve $100 an hour if somebody is willing to pay at least that, right now. If the only job offer you can find pays $30 an hour, you're worth $30 an hour. Obsessing about your vaporized $100 rate, or worse, doing a sub-par job because of it, will serve no one well.
Or you might bump into somebody who recognizes your effort, and reward you in some other way, like introduce you to other potential clients. Don't be shortsighted.
if you don't do it, they'll find someone dumber to do it.
Then that's their loss, isn't it? You're already charging Economy fare for First Class service, and these guys still don't get it?
There is a market value for consultant work and people have to stick to it, otherwise cheap labor will ruin the industry for all of us.
I don't think you understand what "market value" means. The market value of a product or service is the price at which somebody is willing to sell, and somebody else is willing to buy at. Collectively conspiring to charge a particular high amount is exactly what anti-trust laws guard against.
But this is not the case we're talking about. The situation in question is whether the client should be provided vital information. I still maintain that it is your responsibility - your side of the deal - to provide the information and advice. The decision to accept or reject your suggestion is up to the client, but you may not withhold it.
Read the original post again. The person classified "to show which judgement would be best and why" as extra work.
No, you said:
if a client is paying cheaply [...], they deserve the minimum information and just get what they ask for.
If a client pays well [...], they deserve that extra time taken to show which judgement would be best and why.
Your performance should not be tied to the amount you are paid. If they pay too little for your expertise, don't accept the job. This is unethical if you did not inform your "cheap" employer that this is what they're getting before signing. They read your resume, offered you money for the knowledge that resume represents, and you took the money.
Instead, how much you say should be determined by how receptive the client is to your ideas, not by how much they pay.
Just make sure that you don't give them so much information that they feel they no longer need your services, as that could also be a dangerous move.
This is also unethical. A consultant's job is to teach at the pace the students learn, not at the pace you can find a next gig.
Mentally picture a thousand flying cars arriving from various "air roads" at a sporting stadium. They will have to slow down or stop while they merge to park. The agility offered by modern aircraft, even with the freedom of the third dimension, does not live up to the flying car envisioned in sci-fi.
Worse, you may never have had a voice. For example, most states are written off during a presidential election as either Democrat or Republican, and nothing that either candidate does will change those minds. This results in a disproportional attention on the "swing states". Politically, a Republican president doesn't have to care about California's energy crisis, unemployment, or budget deficit, even if it means pissing off Republican Californians, because he's not going to win the state anyway.
Basically, as the federal government becomes more and more powerful relative to the state, America needs a more direct way of electing federal leaders so that various minorities can be heard. Obviously, that's not really on anybody's agenda.