Tag Archives: Freelance

This are the why

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A lot request came in, asking for price below my budget but wanting to negotiate or discount. All they need is a “simple” website. Which equal to, a full functional website with WordPress built in and some hacks work and all, oh, don’t forget about the JQuery slider, with specific needs. I cannot really work on it nor giving any discount, simply because…

Time

One simple website require more than 100 hours of work. From brainstorming, getting the concept and idea to fulfill the requirement. I need to then design, getting approval, waiting email reply, do some revision or so, then I will need to develop, validate the code, browsers testing and all. With all those time, I think it is more than 100 hours. Not to forget, I’m putting on many caps of being project manager + designer + developer + accountant.

I can’t do it for RMX.XX per hour.

Payment

Imagine, you are getting a wedding photography package, say, RM5000. You paid a deposit (Like me too), then you wait for the session to start, the wedding agency, started to get your gown ready, make up artist ready, photographer ready. You came in, they shoot, keep shooting. Then let you select the photos and amount according to your choosen package. You paid the balance, get the photo album (Like me too) then come your wedding day where they do the makeup & all. I don’t think it is normal for people to negotiate package pricing with wedding agency, not to mention pay later after they’re done with their job.

I can’t do it without any payment.

Promises

Ok, there come those tricky part. “I will have a lot more project coming in for you!”, let’s just say, you walked into 7-11, you get a pack of instant noddle, walked to the cashier and tell the cashier, “I will come back for more, but could you give me like RM1 less?”. Do you do that? You don’t! Because we work on what we have now.

I can’t do it with a promises.

Story

Say you go to super market, you get a tin of milk. Then when you’re about to made payment, you tell the cashier, “I’m the only one making income for my family, can you like giving me a discount for that? I probably fall inside the poverty income group”, you don’t do that. The same when one says, “You know, I’m a small business owner. I work alone.”, well buddy, either we work alone or we work in pack, we all need to survive with payment, no?

I can’t do it for your background.

Well, student may take the job with lower pay. But one thing they don’t notice yet, like I did before. In the end of the day, it will not only ruin the whole market, it will ruin the student’s life too afterwards :P

Working at home, fun? Maybe no

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July, isn’t a great month for me, yet, as I took the wrong challenge. Anyway, it’s coming to an end, which is great. I can process to some other top priority stuff myself, do some green shopping, watch some movie and spend quality time at home. I spend less time with my laptop this month. It’s a surprise I manage to get away from laptop for such a long time and still comfortable with it :)

Calendar

There are still some pending job to do, and I am here trying to relax a bit. See! Being a web designer and working at home is just not as they have imagined.

I got so much distraction working at home, I may some times, become a driver and drive them around, because they thought I am free sitting at home, waiting for money to fly in. After all, at this digital age, games is the top priority for computer.

Target

Every end of the month, we both would check all our balance, to see if we reach our sales target, or perhaps, can we survive next month for the money collected this month. Though it is easy to survive over here with its low-cost living style, but saving for next move is always our priority too. That is the stress I get most of the time – Target!

Living and working together

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It’s been 4 months we work together, live together, sleep together and eat together. It is like going back to college or something like that.

Both of us started off with working environment, but time and location were the only obstacle for us, so we decided to see if there is any way to jump over the wall. Almost everything now become 2 :)

However, to maintain this lifestyle, communication is the only key.

Workstation

Very often we caught up with working stuff when we’re relaxing on bed before sleep. This is a bad band sign, as it pressure us into talking about work related only. That is when Amazon books came in, we bought some books and ended up discuss about the content and some life related for tomorrow.

Books

I for one, like to handle everything from head to toe, that way, I can tell where it goes wrong. But my wife prefer to work on specific tasks so she won’t get connfused. Yes, confused. Working with lots of different task is a big hassle and may ended up more task. That my friend, is a helping hand :)

From time to time, we tried to come up with something different while working. Something that is fun to chat about. Since we working with each other, there is absolutely no other network to go for. The only way is to chat like we are… Colleague :?

I work at home

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That does not mean I am free 24/7. Simple as that. At the moment, I work at home, as a designer, I really don’t want to continue elaborate it, but some people don’t understand.

Freelance (work at home) is not free

Expect to pay me if you want to use my services. Friend-price or whatever is still fine, but it will be me who tell you the price, and not you to tell me how much to charge you. Foochow people has this bad habit, they want to be your accountant. They will count how much time and space and even material you’ll be use, and they’ll then set the price themselves for you. I work at home, imagine what they are saying/telling. Stop that ok? I’m making a living here.

Freelance don’t have all the free time on hand

Time
Like everyone else do everyday. Encounter deadline and being hectic and tire in the job. I do work also and sitting in my house without an air-conditional like you do in office. I don’t have those employee-benefit thingy, so I need to work extra to handle those. The worst thing is, I don’t even have a proper table and chair on my work station now.

Work alone doesn’t mean I’m rich

Money
I’m struggling with deadline also, each project can’t really feed me for a month long. Yes, I don’t have to drive and I don’t have to waste money buying shirt for office or anything office related, but I still have to buy underwear like you, pay motorhome insurance like you, feed my parent like you and etc. Even if I have a little bit more spare than you, it means I work longer hour to get those “spare”.

Work at home is working

Laptop
Stop giving me the look, like I’m some kind of jerk sitting at home playing Dota or Farmville. I play hard work hard also. In fact I have been struggling to have a little fun online nowadays.

I’m off to work now… Hopefully I can have more deadline coming… Amen!