Nickle and Dime

For the last few days I've been trying to get work with a company that's known for being very "thrifty". We'll the call the company cheapCo. At the begining of the year I did some work doing a breakdown on a script , went to various meetings and thought I had work. CheapCo kept telling me to show up to followup meetings.

In the end CheapCo went with another company (we'll call Buddy). The thing that made me a little pissed off was that I didn't find out through CheapCo that I wasn't working. I found out through Buddy who in the end used my breakdown to do the work. Did I get paid for the breakdown? No. Unfortunately that's how our business works. We have to do a breakdown in order to figure out how much work is involved so we can give an accurate quote.

So why am I trying to get work from this company? To be honest, they have work to give, I'm not working on anything else, and strategically it helps a friend (at least it helps in his mind) who does work that relates to the work I do. He gets work, we get work and vice versa. It's a small gig and might last a week or so. So why not? I did a break down.

That was a big ass mistake. I got back comments like "What! you want how much?", "We can't afford that.", and my personal favorite "How about if you do it for 20% less and deliver it in half the time? Then in the end you'll be making more money by the hour." Perhaps if I padded the heck out of the quote it might have been a viable solution. But I didn't. Mental note for next time: Pad the quote. Especially for cheap bastards.

I understand the mentality of a manager type "We must get as much work as we can for a little money as possible.". There are those that are good at haggling over price. I'm not one of them. Going into a job I will determine the cost of doing the job based on a number of things.
1) how have my dealings with the company in the past been
2) how badly do I need work
3) difficulty (is this new stuff that needs researching or can I do the job blindfolded)
4) how badly do I want to work for them (the company hiring)
5) work load (number of hours required)

Usually if the first rule is not up to standards I make a decision incorporating rule two, unless of course the company is so repulsive then that superceeds everything else and I try to avoid them like the plague.

I'm fed up with dealing with compnaies like CheapCo. I told them I wasn't dropping my fees. It's not like my landlord charges less rent if I'm not at home. (That said my landlord is great). CheapCo said they'd get back to me.