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I had some real issues with this buyer. First, the buyer continued to pester me in almost every conversation to change this job (or any future jobs) to a fixed cost basis. As of this writing I'm simply not in a position and have no willingness, but the buyer simply would not take no for an answer regardless of reason. My strategy was telling the buyer that "let’s get through this job before making any commitment,” reminding them of the oDesk commitment worked long enough to get through this job. Second, the work was grossly understated. The buyer stated the number of forms with a follow up that they have done most of the work and only a few forms (5 or 6) needed to be altered with the others checked. Not even close. I needed to alter nearly 100 asp pages with multiple imbedded queries scattered all over the pages, often requiring many lines of code to be rewritten. Out of nearly 40,000 lines of code over 2,000 needed to be changed with the buyer wondering why it was not complete within my estimated time. Third, the buyer advertised this position as to change queries from Access to MS SQL Server. However, the vast majority of the work was ASP Classic work having little to do with queries, a job I am capable of doing but would not have bid for if I have known. Many additional variables need to be added/altered (and in some cases substantial structural changes needed to be made) to get things working. These changes were well, well beyond the original requirement. Forth, the client insisted most of the forms were working before taking the job or making an estimate. I doubt it. I found so many errors and problematic code (Trying it with the code not working or having one issue or another) that I have to question how much of this was working before I came along. I'm sure some was, but I'm also positive much was not.Fifth, the client ended the job before the work was complete - assuming to their advantage - the work must have ended. I did end up putting the extra couple of hours in to insure the application was working (trying as best I can to have a professional conclusion) as intended (code I would never put my name on - because I had no where near enough time to fix clearly long time existing problems). In this job I estimate I put in almost double the hours I billed for because of the amount of work I did off-line. I can go on and on, but you get the idea.The one positive thing I can say is the client was never impolite (the best people who say one thing and do another often are) coming across well. However, in one conversation they were understanding of the issues, then in the next seemed to of forgotten all of what was said just hours ago was odd to say the least. Considering the interest and recall of detail this inconsistency was out of place. The final blow was when I asked to have feedback placed on oDesk (considering all the extra effort I put in, I thought I would at least get that much) followed by a profuse promise of placing some on the site ASAP while, of course, asking me for some additional work (off the clock, of course). As of this writing, never happened. With this client, watch your wallet.
