8

If any of you have been following my last few rants, you'll know I've been working on a project with a particularly difficult client, trying to meet wholly unrealistic deadlines with only one other developer.

The situation has reached the climax. The client had a call with our project manager and boss on Monday to discuss things. Despite them still not having paid a single bill since October, they've demanded the release date be moved to the 6th April. Apparently we'd agreed to release on this date, despite making no such promises, the (optimistic) deadline we were working towards has always been, since it was set about 2 weeks ago, the 16th April.

Apparently AWS migration won't take as long as we think it will, because the designers that do the CSS for this project say so, despite knowing nothing about the architecture of the requirements of the system once live (like if backups are required and what of).

The bottom line is that client is ending development with us the day after the project goes live to give it to their own in-house team. If they want us to work more after the date, they have to buy blocks of days.

To make things better, a large part of new functionality relies on an external API we can't even begin to do learning tests with, let alone integrate due to back-office errors on their end. They've had since Friday to give us our token, yet here we are.

Something tells me my holidays booked for for the first week of April are going by the wayside.

Comments
  • 0
    I would think they need to pay before you push the code to the production server.
  • 2
    I would hand over to the in house team immediately. Wait a couple of weeks & I'm sure they will be on the blower again wanting support - and give it at a price.

    Only then might the conversation be a bit more practical because responsibility for implementation is with them.

    Renegotiate terms before the 6th otherwise you'll have no leverage. And being the programmers, you two will be even more fucked than you are now.
  • 0
    @MadHatrix I would also have thought. Apparently half the bill was paid the day after, the remainder to be paid when an investor comes through.
    Sounds like a good deal, right?
  • 0
    @kunashe I don't think there's room for negotiation as to when we stop or hand it over. We have a large piece of work, and whatever else needs done to finish by the 6th.
    From then on it's not our business, unless they come back and pay for support.
Add Comment