Subj : Re: LINUX the Cross Roads
To   : SNIPER
From : MARK FIRESTONE
Date : Fri Feb 18 2005 09:59 pm


>--- SNIPER wrote ---
> Yeap... I had a call from one of my "A$$hole" clients today that just
> totally pissed me off.  Over a $650 dollar bill.  Orginally, his bill
> was $1300, and I knew it was going to be a major deal, so, I gave him
> reduced price... <half> and that son of a (R%(*&^) is complaining about
> amount... I did a bunch of work for this scumbag too, took alot of time
> for some bullcrap... I have a meeting with him tomorrow... I'm going to
> demand payment, and then I'm going to fire him.  Yeap, fire a client.

Sounds like the last consulting job I had in the states.  Some company 
that did apartment credit reports had a junky program "written" in VB 3 (I 
hate VB, but do it anyway) that downloaded credit reports from TRW and 
(illegally I might add) transcribed them onto their own format report.

They wanted all the reports redesigned.  Did I mention that we aren't 
talking crystal reports here, but handwritten reports in VB.  

I rewrote all their sodding reports.  I even fixed about 20 bugs in this 
garbage program, for free.  I showed it to them, and it worked.  The 
runtime errors when you selected a menu that had never been connected to 
anything were even fixed.  We'll pay your bill, they said. 

Then, the next day, TRW changed the format of the incoming data, probably 
to prevent what they were doing (having the computer reprint the reports 
in a different format -- a violation with their contract with TRW, at the 
least...) ...

They refused to pay me.  It was my fault that TRW did what they did, even 
though the customer knew about it in advance and didn't tell me.  I 
refused to do any more work until I got paid for what I had already done, 
as TRW had changed things so it would be a nightmare to parse the data 
they wanted.  

They threatened to sue me.  I left the country.  Fuck them.  

I don't do side programing work anymore.  I almost did a system for this 
place my wife was managing, but she got forced out.  I quit before then, 
as it was clear I'd never get paid.  I'm sick of dead beats.



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