How should I handle this situation with a freelance customer while I'm working a FT job? Should we break up?
I've been trying to do a freelance project and unfortunately for various reasons(I'll list them later) I really haven't been able to make much progress on. This has been going on for about 2 years now(I'll talk about this as well).
There is a business owner in my town that is running is business on an Access Application. Thankfully the database is running in sql server. It's an old app and it is causing issues for the business.
A former colleague works at a company that provides IT services for the business. The colleague had an fb post about anyone looking for freelance work. I replied and that is how I came into the picture.
I met up with the colleague's boss(CB) and the business owner(BO) and discussed their needs. I also reviewed the application and came up with some suggestions. A few months later a meeting is setup to discuss my findings/proposal. My suggestion was a web app. The BO also invited another guy(AG) that used to work for CB. At the meeting AG thought my documentation was light and had his ideas for the overall of the access app.
4 months pass and AG ends up coming back with basically nothing and says my original work was good and we should use it. He offers to work with the business and myself to fill in the gaps.
The next meeting goes well and the green light is given to start work. Unfortunately, I have to wait about a month for CB to get me access to Azure. I start to get to work on converting the app, at times things would go well. There were a few issues that came up.
Anytime I reached out to AG, he would take forever to reply and was pretty much too busy to contribute.
The Access application was on a VM and I was connecting to it via a RDP product. Unfortunately, there were a lot of issues with the VM being down and a delay in time from CB restarting it. I need the VM to see the Access application and to compare functionality.
Between burnout of dealing with AG and CB and the issues with the VM being down, I focused on other things instead of the project.
Unfortunately around this time the FT job needed more of my attention. Along with the FT job, I was dealing with depression. I'd prefer to not go into details about that.
Eventually, I reach out and apologize to BO and say I'm not going to be ready by the end of 2018. He is understanding and mentions the current Access app seems to be holding up.
Due to brevity, I'll keep 2019 short. Unfortunately, it became a similar shit show like 2018. AG has basically fallen off the planet. I had more issues with getting access to view the Access app and had the similar delays in getting CB to fix it. I've had to put in more time into the FT job than I had expected.
A week ago, CB emailed me told me he was meeting with BO and asked if I'd be done. I had told him a few months and suggested having some parts done and other items still being done in Access. At that time he seemed cool with it.
I never heard back from CB or BO about that meeting. I'm thinking I need to follow. If their reply is shitty, I should probably just walk away.
Sorry for the long wall of text but I'm open to suggestions.
Edit: I should have mentioned that me working like crazy on their project to complete an arbitrary deadline while working a FT job isn't an option. I need the insurance/401k/etc from the FT job. In theory I could hit the deadline, but what if no one is participating in reviewing/testing or the issues they bring up are petty and becomes a scope creep.
[link] [comments][Collection]webdev
No comments: