So, I'm currently happily engaged in a full time contract which involves me staying away. Have plenty of time on my hands of an evening.
Was approached by an agency on behalf of a second consultancy client to do ad hoc support work, totally remotely, using my own equipment for £50 an hour billed as needed.
Looked at it as an opportunity to potentially have a long term source of ad hoc work which whilst not making one rich, would protect the war chest during down time.
Established during the interview the SLA's were to respond initially in 8 hours and fix within 27 for a P2/P3 ticket. I said I was going to be sitting around just waiting for tickets to arrive etc and they concurred.
Quite happy with that. Emails come into my phone. Lunch times I look at anything that came in during the morning, evenings I pick up anything that arrived in the afternoon.
In general, tickets are extremely simple, master data and user help type issues, nothing taxing. Everything seemed to be going ok until Thursday afternoon when an urgent follow up to something I'd fixed came in at 15:10 - except I was driving and didn't pick it up until 17:50 - by which time I had a stropanote from client manager asking me to confirm my availability to service their customers as it was apparent I was not available during office hours.
I replied back basically saying the above and that I batched them together at lunch time and evenings as it was more efficient use of time and that I wasn't sitting around waiting on their emails (not at that rate).
Client now wants to discuss with the agency which is fine and if they want to terminate no skin of my nose it was a gamble that didn't work out. However, is it reasonable to be paying an hour rate for when working on tickets but expect the consultant to respond within 90 minutes when not paying for stand by.
Was approached by an agency on behalf of a second consultancy client to do ad hoc support work, totally remotely, using my own equipment for £50 an hour billed as needed.
Looked at it as an opportunity to potentially have a long term source of ad hoc work which whilst not making one rich, would protect the war chest during down time.
Established during the interview the SLA's were to respond initially in 8 hours and fix within 27 for a P2/P3 ticket. I said I was going to be sitting around just waiting for tickets to arrive etc and they concurred.
Quite happy with that. Emails come into my phone. Lunch times I look at anything that came in during the morning, evenings I pick up anything that arrived in the afternoon.
In general, tickets are extremely simple, master data and user help type issues, nothing taxing. Everything seemed to be going ok until Thursday afternoon when an urgent follow up to something I'd fixed came in at 15:10 - except I was driving and didn't pick it up until 17:50 - by which time I had a stropanote from client manager asking me to confirm my availability to service their customers as it was apparent I was not available during office hours.
I replied back basically saying the above and that I batched them together at lunch time and evenings as it was more efficient use of time and that I wasn't sitting around waiting on their emails (not at that rate).
Client now wants to discuss with the agency which is fine and if they want to terminate no skin of my nose it was a gamble that didn't work out. However, is it reasonable to be paying an hour rate for when working on tickets but expect the consultant to respond within 90 minutes when not paying for stand by.
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