Dealing with money like it matters...

[alexpgp]

During our morning coffee, Mike brought up a deal that he had become involved with, involving a customer that wanted some pretty expensive flooring to be shipped to Sweden (talk about sending coals to Newcastle!).

The more he described the deal, the "itchier" I got, until finally I couldn't take it any more and Googled some of the salient points of the transaction, which revealed that the whole thing is... a scam.

In other news, I just sent an email response to a client who now says work originally assigned for noon Friday is due tomorrow morning (at the end client's insistence).

Heck, about half of today is gone, y'know?

So, basically, I withdrew from the assignment. Part of my email reads:

The deadline and range of materials to be handled (30 MB of reference documents, a 12K word source file, a file with "pretranslated segments," a second file with more translated segments) will not allow me, in my opinion, to provide a quality product in the time available.

Seeing as how I've been in a dry spell the past couple of weeks, the conventional wisdom would say "take any and all work," and I did actually make a concession in this job with regard to the percentage of "pretranslated" segments therein (I try to keep them to no more than 10% of the job).

However, if there's one thing chess has taught me, it has been to carefully consider the unconventional, which in this case translates into potentially losing a job if I feel uncomfortable doing it, no matter how much my wallet doth protest.

The client has called (which I sort of expected). Back to work.

Cheers...

UPDATE (10:41 am): The job has been canceled. In the end, I think this is for the best.

Comments

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

Better to turn down a job than to do it poorly and ruin your reputation!

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Well, to go by past history, the result would not be so much a poorly done job as one that requires a lot of work and midnight oil, as well as fraying of the nerve endings. Between us, the last file they sent pretty much tipped the balance over into the "neverland" side of the job.

Cheers...