How Long Before You Decide You've Been Shafted?

I've been working on a reasonably large content contract for a client over the past couple of weeks. So far I've put in around 10 hours on it, and the whole thing should take around 50 hours work.

The work is being submitted and paid in chunks so that neither myself nor the client waste time over extensive rewrites if the finished articles don't perfectly fit the brief. I've already been paid a small amount for some initial samples, and I submitted the first chunk of real work on Saturday by e-mail along with an invoice.

Now, despite a follow up e-mail on Monday to confirm that the client had received the work, I have yet to receive a reply.

Of course, there could be any number of reasons why he hasn't been in touch, but I get very antsy if it goes beyond 48 hours after submitting work and the money hasn't arrived. So, how long would you think I should wait before I conclude that he's not gonna pay up?

 

I still think its too early. I'd give him at least at 4 days. Do you have his phone number?

 

Yeah, I do. You're probably right - it's still a few days before I should start to worry, but I still hate waiting more than a day or two. Especially in this case, as the contract represents a good 1% of my annual income. Imagine seeing getting a 1 point tax increase

 

Keith,

I know where you are coming from. I am the same way; after two days I start to stress...

Give it a couple of days. Have they paid you before on past jobs?

 

This is the first time I've worked for this particular client, but he paid promptly for the samples at the start of the job, and he suggested after seeing them that he had another job he'd like me to do. Since then, though, there's been no contact for about ten days.

With a little luck he's just taken a short holiday or hasn't has access to his e-mail for some inoccuous reason. Still, I'm biting my fingernails

 

Good luck with it! Hopefully everything will work out; it is the season for long vacations!

 

Woohoo! Sat down to watch an episode of Lost, and when I came back I had an e-mail apologising for the delay, asking how much I was owed. That's a load off

 

Aw, awesome Keith. I'm glad things are starting to look up for you. I know you were just a wee bit concerned.

 

Cheers The money just arrived, so it's winging it's way to my bank account. Along with a few smaller projects and a published article in the 'proper' media, this has been a pretty good week. Maybe I'll get a new iPod or something equally wasteful to celebrate

 

Whoo hoo, do you know how long I've wanted an iPod? I just haven't gotten around to it yet, between bills and my mother and everything else in my craaaazy life!

 

Well, that's the beauty of being a young, footloose professional with few bills and a mother with healthy hips I'll just have to make sure she doesn't fall down much or it could all change. I love her, but I don't want her recuperating at my place while I sleep on the couch and wait on her hand and foot

I'll probably end up getting an iRiver. A few friends have them and they seem to be a little better than iPods, on the whole. I'll never use it, though. Whenever I leave the house I drive (I'm so lazy) and I already have a decent mp3 player in the car. It's more a pointless purchase to revel in my success

 

Wow, far too many smileys. I have to learn how to do others.

 

Eh, smileys are rad. However, I think you did overkill the smileys... just a bit

Heh, my mother didn't even fall down and mess up her hip, it was a degenerative disease that essentially destroyed it. If she falls down NOW, however... she could mess up the new one!

 

Awesome; you were worried about nothin!!

 

I'd tend to worry too, to be perfectly honest with you. Luckily, I haven't had that problem arise yet, and hopefully never will!

 

Yup. I should really learn to relax

Wow, I didn't think people said 'rad' any more! I don't think I could pull it off with my British accent. I'd sound like a 40-something dad trying to act cool in front of his daughter's friends.

 

Heh, I don't think most people do. Then again, I've never been most people... I'm just weird like that.

Dude, I totally want to hear your accent -- I dig British accents, but I've said that before in various threads, lol.

 

I've got a pretty odd accent. My mum was born in Manchester (home of Oasis, Coronation Street and so on) so her family sound a little Northern working class. My dad, however, was a posh boarding school boy from the South, so the accent is a little muddled.

Most people say I sound like my old man, though, so I guess it'd be a little like Hugh Grant with the upper class edges smoothed off. No way for me to know, though, because I can't hear my own accent

 

I think it'd be totally nifty if we could hear our own accents the way they sounded to other people. Okay, so that's not ever going to be possible but a girl can dream can't she?

 

I don't want to hear mine. Have you ever heard your voice on tape? Eeuch. It always sounds annoyingly high-pitched because you get used to hearing your voice through your bones. No thanks.