>Under NO circumstances did I allow the CLIENT to dictact the days and hours I would work on their project. I WAS NOT THEIR EMPLOYEE. I avoided such misunderstandings or attempts to dictact behavior by having in the contract, they and I had to sign, references to the IRS rules for determining Independent vs corporate employees, and that I will abide by those rules to protect my independent status. My contract also states that I will have other clients under contract and may recieve phone calls from them or be called away for emergencies. I agree that if and when I appear on site it will be during their business hours, except when there are occasions that may require access to equipment and software during NON business hours (Installation, table modifications, or anything else that circumstance bring up). So, the contract covers all these contengencies and requires their signature and agreement, otherwise ... no deal.
>
>You will run into executives who like to dictate, dominate and generally present a 'superior' attitude. You have to decide if you want to work with such people. For me, life is too short to put up with inflating their egos.
>You may, on the average, land only about 1 out of 3 contracts you bid on. But remember, the less they pay for your services the less they will respect you. There are average hourly rates for programmers in your area. Put yourself somewhere in the top 25%, if you think you match up, and be ready to accept some rejections. As I said before... 1,000 hrs at $80/hr is a lot better than 2,000 hours at $40/hr.
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I'm sorry if this moves things off topic, but I would guess that there are a lot of people whohave experienced the same sort of issues...


I understand what you're saying, however diplomatically presenting things like that to a prospective client is something that I'm trying to learn. My lawyer did review and comment on a contract that I use. Since then it's been modified a bit, even more so to my advantage. Like you mentioned, adding a few references to the IRS rules may be beneficial as well.

But that prompts another question: if going through another agency, whether it be a headhunter, another consulting company, whatever, who do you get to sign the contract? The agency? The actual client? Both? (I do need an answer to this actually) :)

Some say don't go through someone else, get work directly. Unfortunately there are times that independents are faced with having to "bite the bullet" if work is scarce. With all your years of experience I'm sure you've had to deal with that at some point, no? I've had to lower my rates a few of times just to get work or modify the contract a bit to make the client more "comfortable". As much as I hate to do it, I need to pay the bills.

On another front, most of the FoxPro work that I've seen posted over the past several months has been for full-time hires only. No one seems to want contract programmers. Then again, I'm still new at this too so I could be looking in the wrong places.

Recently, I've run into people who take the view saying that "FoxPro isn't that popular compared to Access and Visual Basic". I feel like saying "Ok, so what's your point?", but I can't. Trying to convince them that FoxPro is a viable option, let alone probably the best one for what they are trying to do, is getting harder. I'm sure that one of the reasons many want to go to VB/Access or VB/SQL Server is that there are more VB programmers out there and (possibly) cheaper to hire.


- Brian