Negotiating 101. . .

One of the first rules of negotiation, is that you have to be willing to walk away.

That’s right, fold your tent, pack up your briefcase, and say “No deal”. If you’re not willing to do that, you’re pretty much at the mercy of the other party, you’ll end up taking whatever is offered, simply because, you’re not willing to walk away.

Why am I mentioning this?

Well today, the recruiter called me and asked if more money would change my mind. I thanked him for calling, but that no, money was not the issue. I reiterated that what had interested me in the project was the ability to work it remotely and to play a large role in the redesign.

That they were unwilling to commit to that, and as long as that was true, I was not willing to ‘get on board’.

So, since last Friday, when my rate was going to “leave him awfully thin” once he paid me, he’s offered a plane ticket home every two weeks, and now to pay me even more.

I’ve got to admit, I have re-thought my decision several times. Each time though, the potential downsides, have out weighed everything else.

At the end of our conversation he asked, what will you do if the current contract isn’t extended? What if that happens?

What if indeed… What if:

1. I get on site and they decide they’re paying me too much?
2. it ends up to be a “no end in site” maintenance gig?
3. the working conditions really suck
4. I hate living there
5. Their idea of ‘casual’ is a two piece suit
6. My wife becomes unhappy with me being gone 24 out of 28 days?

I’m much better at the ‘what if’ game I told him, I do ‘what if’ for a living!

I did counter his offer though. I offered to take on a piece of work, on spec, to be done remotely. That if I couldn’t deliver, they’d owe me nothing. If I do, they cover any and all travel expenses for any time they want/need me in CT. If I were a betting man, I’d bet he won’t even mention it to them.

I do want to say one thing here, this recruiter, has worked his butt off trying to make this deal come together, it’s not his fault the client can’t commit to a plan, and a process. I’d love it if he were able to place me as I can’t remember a recruiter who’s ever worked harder.

Also, I’d be a bit remiss if I didn’t mention Andrew McNeill he not only commented on my last couple of posts here, he also gave me a mention at his place and on Microsoft blogs Canada yesterday, and left a couple of links at JobSyntax as well. Thank you Andrew for all the kudos!!

One of the things I love about blogging, is I find that despite feeling like the ‘only one’ this stuff happens to, I’m not. That there are many, many folks out there dealing with these same kinds of decisions every single day. They may not all be contractors, but they have to make career decisions regardless.

I hope that something in all of this helps you the next time you’re struggling with a decision about a job change.

As always, thanks for stopping by… If anything strikes a cord, leave me a comment so I’ll know!

Technorati Tags: FoxPro - Contract programming - Visual FoxPro - Software Development
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Plan?… We don’t need no stinkin plan!…

That’s about the size of it, the answer I got when asking the folks at the potential new gig what the plan was. The plan was, there was no plan.

Now I’m certainly not the highest paid contractor out there, but I’m also not the least expensive option either. When a project falls back on my desk after the company originally went with a lower cost option, two things happen at my end.

First, a red flag goes up. Why? Well, in my experience, often times the original contractor didn’t ‘cut it’ because the company is in a very, very, bad spot, and the person was in way over their head. Back in the day, I lived for those gigs, I loved being able to shine where others hadn’t.

Those days however, are long over.

The other thing that happens is that the project also catches my interest. I know that’s a bit twisted, but it’s true. My interest gets peaked because it’s also possible the company has a very challenging project, one that will not only use all of my skills, but have me learning new ones as well.

So, when this company decided I was the guy they wanted, I started asking questions.

Not extremely difficult questions, or so I thought.

I asked:

• How long will I be required to be on site?
• How many days, weeks, months did they expect me to need to be there, before switching to working remotely (as in from my office in NC)?
• What did they plan to have me doing? What portion of the project?
• Was there a copy of the project plan available?

All reasonable questions, or so I thought.

As it turned out, they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, actually fully answer them.

I spoke at length many times with the recruiter, attempting to explain to him that I was not about to travel 600 miles to jump into a project with no scope, no plan, with no idea what I’d be doing, or how long I’d be expected to be there.

One of the answers I did get, sort of, had to do with the length of the contract, as in 3 months, 6 months, a year, longer? The answer was, “This is forever” – That concerned me as well… red flag… what kind of project brings people on board, contractually, with no idea for what length of time they expect to need them?

The more I talked with the recruiter, the more it became clear that he just didn’t seem to understand that I’ve been exactly here, many, many times before. In each and every case, everyone involved all assured me it would all get ‘worked out’ once I was there, and in every case, it never did get worked out.

There were impossible deadlines, long hours and no appreciation for the effort, just demands for more, and more, production.

There were attempts today to explain that the new project had only been granted budget approval in the past couple of weeks, that there hadn’t been ‘time’ to develop a scope, or requirements, document.

That simply raised another question… how does a public company, grant budgetary approval, or properly allocate funds, to a project with no formal specification? Once again, a red flag… a huge, waving, red flag.

In the end, at about 4:30 this afternoon, I simply took my name out of the game.

Too many questions, and not enough answers for me to seriously consider taking the project on.

I write quite a bit about why I like contracting, it’s probably time for me to talk some about the down sides.

Often, a company will start looking for contract help, when their project is in trouble. Hoping that if they just throw some bodies at the problem it will go away, and, if it doesn’t they can always blame the contractor(s) in the short run.

Many times, they’re looking to bring in a ‘rain maker’, a contractor with a track record of success in hopes he, or she, will just put their head down and make it happen. There was a time when I would have done that. Jumped in with both feet and done whatever it took to get the project done, on time, and on budget. Not any more.

I’ve seen far too many poorly planned projects, too many managers who felt the existing application was well enough known that no formal requirements needed to be drawn up, and too many failed projects (and failed companies) to want to go down that road again.

For those of you who’ve never been involved with building a new version of an existing product it’s a bit like building a new house. Except you need to live in the existing house, and the new one is being built around, and over it!

The old application is generally full of problems, things that were discovered after the application had been started, and were never fully addressed. Usually this is addressed using what I call the ‘code around’ method. It involves wrapping enough code, around the problem(s) to mask, and or get them out of the way.

In addition, there are also many ‘had to have’ features, that are no longer needed, and several new features that many of the users know are sorely needed, but that IS/IT has never been informed of, at least in any formal way.

In short, if you’re building this new house, and there’s a problem with the existing plumbing, from and to the street, you need to get that into the project plan early, not allow the builders to think they’ll be using the existing lines!!

I am strangely disappointed though… this gig sounded so good during the initial interviews and technical discussions; I was genuinely excited about the possibilities. The company is a major player in the financial marketplace, doing a booming business, and has little or no real competition in the areas it serves.

Fortunately, I wasn’t banking on this gig to pay the bills!! I know in my heart, that had I needed the gig to put food on the table, I’d be packing, regardless of the red flags. I’m feeling fortunate today to have the gig I have, and also very rededicated to my efforts on the current gig. In fact, with all of this going on today I made real progress on the testing of the VFP 9.0 conversion.

I have all the menus modifications done, and several of the front line form changes tested out and regression tested as well.

I hope your day was a little less ‘involved’ than mine!


Technorati Tags: FoxPro - Contract programming - Visual FoxPro - Software Development
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Oh yeah… this is a blog about contracting. . .

I got a call late on Friday, that a Visual FoxPro gig I interviewed for over a month ago and had all but written off, is suddenly a reality.

That’s right, after hiring a couple of folks who turned out not to be up to the task, the company has decided they’d like to bring me in.

Well, now the money discussion starts, and for the first time, the rate I’ve told them I want, is a bit of an issue.

There are several issues actually.

There are several ways to be paid as a contactor, the two most popular are W-2 and 1099. You may recall I’ve been on a W-2 plan since last October, with partially paid health coverage, 20+ paid days off a year and full withholding. I can certainly “do” 1099, which is what the recruiter would prefer, but as a 1099 (independent) contractor, I’d lose the health plan, the PTO, as well as company paid FICA.

FICA for those of you who don’t know is a two part tax. As an employee, you pay half and your employer pays the other half. Once you’re self-employed (1099 is normally considered self-employed), you become responsible for the entire amount. The last ime I checked that was between 13 and 14% of the gross wage.

Those lost benefits translate into dollars, about a multiplier of 1.17, so when I ran the numbers and told him what I’d need, things got pretty tense. We’ve been playing phone tag ever since, ostensibly to ‘work out’ the numbers, but in my mind there’s nothing to work out.

Initially, during the interview process, it was inferred to me that I’d be able to work this project remotely. That there’d be a short period at the onset where I’d be on site (the company is about 800 miles from here) and that once I was up to speed, I’d be able to work for them from home.

Now, the ‘initial period’ is of indeterminate length, and, the recruiter wants me to ‘work that out’ once I’m on the job.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been through way to many, “we’ll work it out” projects where, after I was working the gig, none of my needs were ever “worked out”. I’ve come to the conclusion, that if it’s important to you, it has to be in the initial contract.

So while there are a couple of real ‘got me’ points with this gig, namely the opportunity to re-architect a major financial application, as well as the chance to be able to work from home (where, in all honesty, I’m about 40% more productive than I am in an ‘office’). There’s this downside as well.

I have no real interest in a long term ‘relo’ to a site 800 miles away for the duration of the gig, or, maybe more importantly, to move there permanently. I got the sense, during that last conversation that the company is really looking to bring in a ‘rain maker’ to clean up existing issues quickly and then “ride herd” on the continuing development effort while completing the design of the “re-platform” of the application. They want this person to be in their house, and available daily.

The recruiter called again yesterday in an attempt to ‘wrap things up’, but I think I raised more questions than he was prepared for. All of which I’d raised before, and he’d dismissed with a we’ll work that out once they express interest. It looks like the money will work out, but the sticking point remains where I’ll be required to work, on-site or remotely.

I’d expect that with a project of this size and scope, a certain amount of on site, face-to-face time will be required. It would be much faster for example to get up to speed if I have access to the existing developers to get any questions I have answered. Once that’s done though I see no real reason I’d need to be physically there.

So, he’s trying to set up a phone call on Monday between myself and the development manager to see what her take on things is. When I interviewed with her a month or so ago, she seemed to be fine with me working remotely when we talked then, but subsequent conversations with others have not given me the same feeling.

So, I need to confirm that after an initial onsite period, of say 30, to maybe 90 days, I’ll be able to work from North Carolina.

This project could be 2, maybe 3, years or longer in duration… a great contract by nearly anyone’s standards, but, I find myself strangely filled with reservations about it.

I guess I’ll know, by Monday, if I can work out an acceptable contract. Acceptable to me anyway, what the company is willing to accept remains to be seen.

It’s more than a little amusing to me though, as little as 10 years ago, I would have gone anywhere, at anytime, as long as the money was right. Sometime I the past decade I’ve gotten a bit more selective. I still have the “Have Fox… Will Travel” slogan on my business cards, and I am willing to travel, long term relocation however, is a bit different in my mind.

You see, if I was to relocate, I’m pretty sure I’d want to go back to Central NY, and the North Bay area. With a remote work contract, I could definitely do that, should Maryan and I decide that was right for us. Setting up shop 800 miles away, just doesn’t seem all that attractive, right now.

So, there ya have it folks, one more of the decisions you’d face as a contract programmer. Yes the money is better than the average full time employee would earn, but there’s the constant negotiations over gigs, and those negotiations are usually with three parties, each with their own, needs, and agenda.

The company wants the best talent, for the least money. The recruiter wants to close the deal and get me earning for them. Me, I want to earn as much as possible, doing what I love, at the smallest possible cost to me, on the longest contract term possible.

When I think of it, it’s amazing that anyone ever closes one of these deals!!

Technorati Tags: FoxPro - Contract programming - Visual FoxPro - Software Development
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Firefighting is a dangerous game. . .

I know I’ve waxed poetic about firefighting in the past here, but I got a call today that reminded me, that despite the love, support and camaraderie I so fondly remember, there was real danger underneath it all.

I was checking my cell phone this morning (for an entirely different reason) and noticed I had a voicemail. I clicked to check, and, to my surprise, it was Greg Campbell. Long time readers may remember Greg as I wrote about he and I sitting around, and reminiscing over beers, while I was back in the area last summer.

This was not a “what’s up” call though.

It seems that last Wednesday the Cleveland Fire department was on the scene of a house fire, had ventilated the house and was looking for the source of the remaining smoke. From everything I've learned this was not a serious fire, mostly smoke and they'd just issued the 'drop mask' order as there was so little smoke remaining. They continued to look though and eventually, they found it. In a crawl space under the house, as the crew moved in to extinguish this ‘dinner plate’ sized fire, and began to address it with the nozzle, suddenly, the entire first floor exploded.

Thirteen firefighters were injured, one was treated at the scene, the other twelve ended up going to local area hospitals for treatment.

Fortunately, no one was killed, and as of today everyone has been released from the hospital and is home again.

After Greg and I hung up, I called Jack Cottet to see how he was doing. You may remember Jack, if you don’t, click the link and refresh your memory. As I suspected he was taking it pretty hard. He was the Chief on scene, and as such felt the safety of these folks was his responsibility.

That sense of responsibility, is one of the many reasons I always was glad to see Jack on the scene. The only thing he took more seriously, than the fire itself, was our safety. He was always pushing for better gear, more training and better leaders. He was, and is relentless, both about fire fighting, and about keeping the crews safe.

We talked some, mostly I listened, and as we were wrapping up our conversation the one thought I left him with was this.

An incident like this just shows that despite all the best preparation, firefighting is still, at the core, a very dangerous job. That despite having more experience than many leaders, not even he can control everything. I suggested that rather than focusing on the injuries, he might want to think how much worse things might have been had he not led the charge decades back for more, and better protective gear, more training and inter company cooperation.

I know he wasn’t really listening; things are still to close in. Hopefully, in the days, and weeks ahead, as the injuries heal (and as I understand it no one is permanently injured either) and the event gets discussed and the stories told, he’ll be able to see that in the end, this too is a triumph, not a defeat.

One other thing Jack and I talked about was the extended ‘family’ that is volunteer firefighting. I know I’ve talked about it before, but what Jack told me today, drove the point home.

Since Wednesday, there’s been a truck, and a crew, in his firehouse, standing by to answer any and all calls. Not just one truck, from one neighbor, but a different truck, different crew, 24/7, Sandy Creek, Redfield… from 30 miles and more away. They heard about the situation, and just showed up to help.

That’s the fire service folks, one big family, and like any family, they may bicker at times, but when there’s a problem all of that gets set aside, and everyone pitches in to help.

Once again I’m reminded of how much I miss those days, those men, and that family.

If you’d like to read a little about the event, you can go here.

Firefighters injured in house explosion

Camaraderie contagious at explosion site

Lightning strike leads to house explosion

I also realized, that regardless of the time, or the distance, the bond from those days, is still very much with me, and I still feel like they’re my family!!

I don’t think, the average person has any idea what a bargain they get in volunteer firefighters, or paid departments for that matter. It takes a special person to run into a burning building, not everyone can, or should do it.

The ones that do, paid or not, don’t do it for the money. I’m sure it’s something else. I recall running for the entry into more than one building thinking “There must be something wrong with me; most people would be going the other way!” But it never stopped me, or any of the other initial attack crew, we just went in and did our jobs.

Most of those fires are memories now, some I’ve related here, some I haven’t taken the time to write up. This event, like all of those in my mind will become a memory for those folks as well, the story told, and retold over coffee, or maybe an adult beverage or two, getting better with each telling.

What won’t get lost though, is the message. That you can never relax, fire is always dangerous, it’s a war, and it will kill you if it can. The other thing that will be remembered is the camaraderie… the other departments pitching in, the other members of the department helping out the families of those injured, everyone working to ‘fill in the gaps’… it’s something I never experienced, before, or after my time in the fire service.

The next time you get a chance, thank a firefighter, for all that they do!


Technorati Tags: Firefighting - Emergency - Fire Service - Life
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Visual FoxPro is in 14th this month. . .

It's time for the monthly update.

The Tiobe index came out today…and VFP dropped one from last month to 14th.

Some folks who know me might think I find that a bit disappointing after it’s rapid climb to a peak of 12th this year. The truth is though, I remain very optimistic.

First, VFP is still up 7 places from last July and as long as we’re improving on the previous year I’m happy!

Yes I still do some things in .Net, and remain very excited about that product as well. Visual FoxPro though is a “data guy’s” dream language. I thought that 20 years ago,and I still think so today.

I know VFP doesn’t have the ‘cool’ factor of some of the other, newer, languages. Java seems to hold the ‘cool’ slot these days, and is enjoying a nice ride in 1st as well. However, for those of us who’ve continued to stay current with FoxPro may be discovering, as I am, that demand for our skills is returning.

The best part is, because so many of the other FoxPro developers have abandoned it, there are fewer of us competing for those new openings. As a result, the rates are going up as well.

Let’s talk a little bit about my 20 year love affair with VFP, or probably more correctly, what we used to call “xBase”.

I can still remember that first dBase gig. I’d been primarily a mainframe guy up until then, had decent COBOL, RPG and 360 Assembler chops, but this was a whole new world.

I’d learned BASIC, first on Apples, then a Commodore and actually wrote an entire academic registration system for a local school in BASIC. Like the mainframe languages, BASIC was a capable tool, but it didn’t really shine when it came to handling data. Especially large amounts of data.

dBase on the other hand, was, for the time, extremely capable at data handling. It made everything else available an ‘also ran’.

In addition, it had all the string manipulation tools most BASIC guys had come to love.

I can clearly remember thinking as I was developing that first dBase application, that if dBase was a compiled language, I’d never want to write in anything else.

Like a number of the original ‘killer apps’ from the early days, the dBase folks (Ashton-Tate) started taking their number one position for granted. Along came Fox software, and their new ‘clone’ FoxBASE+… and the guys from Nantucket with their ‘Clipper’ product. Fox had an interpreted product, Nantucket, well they’d upped the ante a bit and their product was compiled. Now, suddenly, the xbase (we called it all xBase as they all copied the original dBase, and added new features as well) folks were starting to be taken seriously.

Now we skip forward a decade or so, and while there are still several competitors, Microsoft Visual FoxPro is the standard. It’s also the only one included in the category in the Tiobe index.

It would be interesting to see where the combination of all the various ‘flavors’ of xBase would sit if they were all combined, like say Java, COBOL or “C” are.

Me, I’m just glad to see my favorite tool with an “A” rating. That it’s still in front of VB.Net, which also lags in the ‘cool’ factor by the way, although no one I’ve talked to can give me any defensible arguments as to why they’d use C#.Net instead of VB.Net.

I got a call today, on that contract I mentioned in June… seems the two guys they initially brought in just couldn’t get the job done… and now they want to talk to me again. I’ll admit I’m having mixed feelings about even considering the gig at this point, but, the recruiter has worked so hard on this that I need to at least take the call.

I’ll keep you posted as to the outcome.

Also, and old friend has taken over the reigns at www.PCTechGuide.com and has asked me to possibly write an article or two for the site. I’m pretty excited about that! He and I have talked, on a number of occasions, about doing something together; this might be a chance for us to do just that! If you get a chance, surf on over and check the site out.


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