A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement.
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@stefano back when I was consulting I had two rates, one for going with me first, a higher one for going with someone cheaper and then coming back to me to fix it.
I was very clear and transparent and up front with potential customers on any first sales call. Some came back and paid the rate and turned into great customers, some didn't and I'm happy for both outcomes.
My go-to quote was "If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur." (Red Adair)
@stefano If I was consulting now I would probably look into a special service line that is simply cleaning up slop. Probably a wealth of work there, and sunk cost means they really want it fixed.
Should be a way to up your rate for this work.
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano I usually make the experience that "AI" has the least useful output for situations where I need help most: intricate architectures containing multiple complex components, covering all kinds of use cases, grown over years. It's difficult to untangle something like this, and your favorite chatbot isn't really up to the task either, quite the opposite.
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano when companies realize that AI is nothing more than a party trick, that they lost talent for something that is a predicting machine and that can't fix a problem by making judgement calls to the company best interest - yes because dropping a full database in production to rewrite the tables is a solution in AI eyes - they will be calling. Answer the call, but don't go back for much more than what they already spent on tokens. Because you will go back to clean up the mess AI did first, and then what you were originally doing.
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano Enshittification has entered the workplace
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano "Did my updated terms and conditions not come through with the price adjustment? Saying that any attempt to use my services in relation to GenAI would be a breach of contract with a €1000 penalty? That was the price of shaving my rate."
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@GrundeinkommenAberRichtig @stefano
Not sure this is about "no AI", though. The way I see it, it's about shitty behaviour. -
A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
hahahahahahahaha tipical.
ouch!
that's just stupid. sometimes a human sysadmin is better than chatGPT. +, there are certain things chatGPT (and even claude) just cannot fix in minutes that a human sysadmin can in about 5minutes.
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano Holy shit..
That required some digital balls right there
I do not have the patience you have sir, my respect!
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J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano@bsd.cafe Slowly, more and more of my critical response calls end up tracing their root cause back to some random LLM slop changes that someone working at the client thought they can just shove in important places without them knowing what they're doing. I'm also having to condition my support contracts on not having the client use LLMs in the parts they need my help with, because I really have better things to do with my life than try to understand what a statistical word generator threw up at random hours of the night. I was starting to doubt the market utility of my skills as the LLM hype was growing, but as the it keeps going I find that the fear mongering does not reflect reality at all on the ground, in my consulting experience so far. The popular sentiment is starting to feel more like fanatical faith than a technological reality. Perhaps this the effect of a massive number of people going all-in on a fundamentally shaky bet, with their finances and their reputations, so the more the tech shows signs of falling short of the expectation, the louder those invested in the movement preach of doom and missing out and falling behind and various other woes. As if we all believed hard enough, and prayed hard enough, the machine gods will finally bring forth the new age, in which their risky bets makes them the magical winners. Humans are quite interesting.
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@stefano written in BASH
@oxy in bash? I'm (A)in
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@GrundeinkommenAberRichtig @stefano
Not sure this is about "no AI", though. The way I see it, it's about shitty behaviour.@gnaddrig @GrundeinkommenAberRichtig exactly. This is not an anti AI post. This has always happened: people think they can save money using [$TECH] and getting rid of experienced people. Then something goes wrong. Then they try to contact you to clean up the mess they did.
If you're doing it only for money, you can get a good profit. If you (also) do it for passion, it can be disappointing.
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@stefano@bsd.cafe Slowly, more and more of my critical response calls end up tracing their root cause back to some random LLM slop changes that someone working at the client thought they can just shove in important places without them knowing what they're doing. I'm also having to condition my support contracts on not having the client use LLMs in the parts they need my help with, because I really have better things to do with my life than try to understand what a statistical word generator threw up at random hours of the night. I was starting to doubt the market utility of my skills as the LLM hype was growing, but as the it keeps going I find that the fear mongering does not reflect reality at all on the ground, in my consulting experience so far. The popular sentiment is starting to feel more like fanatical faith than a technological reality. Perhaps this the effect of a massive number of people going all-in on a fundamentally shaky bet, with their finances and their reputations, so the more the tech shows signs of falling short of the expectation, the louder those invested in the movement preach of doom and missing out and falling behind and various other woes. As if we all believed hard enough, and prayed hard enough, the machine gods will finally bring forth the new age, in which their risky bets makes them the magical winners. Humans are quite interesting.
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@FreakyFwoof @stefano Just out of curiosity, what is it you charge for? What's your expertese?
@rooktallon @FreakyFwoof it depends - not a "x per hour" rate. We have an agreement for server management, backups, monitoring, etc.
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@stefano Holy shit..
That required some digital balls right there
I do not have the patience you have sir, my respect!
@stux thanks. Yes, I'm quite patient, but sometimes my patience is not enough
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano I think the price goes up, no?
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
An unbelievable thing for folk to do and certainly would feel like a slap ( slop ) in the face.
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano I learned, way before LLM and spicy auto-complete were "things", to never shave my price without a shaving in scope too.
When I do fee estimates they are very detailed, most in my industry don't share that, but I do.
So if they ask me to "find" $500, I will ask where they want to cut back.
Most times they don't, and hire me anyway. When they don't, its not personal, they just have different priorities.
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@stefano back when I was consulting I had two rates, one for going with me first, a higher one for going with someone cheaper and then coming back to me to fix it.
I was very clear and transparent and up front with potential customers on any first sales call. Some came back and paid the rate and turned into great customers, some didn't and I'm happy for both outcomes.
My go-to quote was "If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur." (Red Adair)
@jaz @stefano Yes, exactly that.
One should now have *three* tiers of rates:
Cheapest: I built the whole system from scratch.
Expensive: I "just finish off" this system that the under-bidder has "nearly completed".
Enough to retire on: I have a look at ANY system which has had ANY AI input (but without any promise that I, or indeed anyone else, can EVER fix it).
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano Not surprised. Every throw money at AI instead of knowledgeable people decision has backfired.
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A few months ago, a client asked me to shave about €200 a month off our agreement. "We’re trying to cut back on expenses", he said, "to boost our cash flow." I was hesitant, but hey, I agreed.
Fast forward to this morning: one of his team members calls me asking for help because - and I quote - "both Claude and ChatGPT are giving me answers that just don't feel right."
I asked for a little context, only to find out they had upgraded to the top-tier plans for both AIs so they could "solve problems on their own without bothering me."
So, I dropped my client a line: we either revert to our original agreement, or we wrap up this collaboration effective immediately.
Asking me for a discount just to throw far more money at AI subscriptions - only to call me anyway when the bots fail - is, to say the least, a slap (or slop?) in the face.
@stefano I think maybe you should take this as a learning experience. When someone asks you to reduce your pay to increase their own profit, but put it in mealy mouthed bullshit framing to manipulate your empathy, you'll recognize it for what it is and nope the fuck out BEFORE getting screwed.
Silver lining.
I probably would have ate that bullshit too. Thanks for sharing your lesson.
