A brief story of an outsourcing gone wrong on oDesk.

Background
We’re revamping our site (not only our side actually…) and we needed a fairly simple outsourcing task: converting an existing (and functional) Joomla template in a WordPress theme. Now, given that the css is there and the graphic has been sliced already, I figured 100$ would be a reasonable fee for the task.

So I post the job on oDesk (offering 100$, flat fee and no upfront) and within hours I get 10+ applicants. Believing I’m the smartest ass in the world, the next day I simply pick the guy offering to work for less, he’s asking 90$ but with a 20% upfront, and have a brief email exchange on with him on oDesk:

“[...]Ok, but we don’t work with upfront… we’ve been let down too many times already.  I’ll change the offer“.

The guy (we’ll call him R.) replies:

“Sir,
would you mind if I demand 20%upfront??
Actually I work with upfront when I work on an fixed job.
Please don’t mind.
Thanks
R.”

And then again:

“Please consider my message. It is for my safety. Don’t mind”

(Don't mind?)

To which I respond:

“Dear R,
We hired people already and we paid them afterwards, you can see this in our profile.
Only once we gave an upfront and the consultant didn’t do the job – so, I’m sorry but we don’t give upfront.
Is this ok for you?”

I’m probably assuming too much, but as I asked a question I was then expecting an anwer. The answer didn’t come, but R. instead accepts the counter-offer I made (2$ more than what he offered but no upfront) and  asks me to chat on skype. The conversation on goes as following:

  R.: Hello
  -Me: 
  R.: how are you???
  -Me: not bad, thanks!
  -Me: and you?
  R.: fine thanks

(Following are about 2 mins of tech discussion…then:)

  R.: but i have another issue
  -Me: tell me your issue
  R.: please don't mind
  -Me: ?
  R.: actually I work with upfront when i wirk on fixed project
  -Me: I see
  -Me: but we don't
  R.: it is secured for me
  -Me: I understand
  R.: without upfront it is very unsecured
  -Me: but we do NOT pay upfront
  -Me: I understand 
  -Me: but we have paid the guy before and we'll pay you too
  R.: then i suggest that please hire me as houly which will be secured for both of us
  -Me: R.
  -Me: we're not starting well at all
  -Me: 1) this task is very simple
  -Me: 2) 13 people applied for this job
  -Me: and the fact that you first accept the job and then want to re-negotiate is not cool at all
  R.: if you hire me as hourly then you will be refunded the money if the work will
not completed according to your requirement
  -Me: no
  -Me: clear and simple
  R.: please don't mind
  R.: ok
  -Me: dude
  R.: i will work
  -Me: I have the impression we're wasting time here
  R.: sorry
  R.: I am working
  -Me: I don't want to sound like an asshole
  R.: Don't mind please
  -Me: but this is really a simple job, where 50% of it is done already, and as I said 13
people applied, for the same amount of money that we're offering you

(don't mind????)

At this point, my internet connection goes down, thanks to my cheap-ass router, which I promptly reboot. When I’m again only, after no more than 2mins, I find the following email from oDesk:

Please stop world and let me get off

One second later I catch R. again on skype:

  -Me: hello
  -Me: sorry, I went offline for a second
  -Me: hello?
  R.: yes
  R.: tell
  -Me: ?
  -Me: did you end the contract?
  R.: yes
  -Me: so you don't want to do it?
  R.: i don't want to work with you
  R.: bye
  -Me: ok

I'll hang my jacket first, if it works I'll hang myself straight after

Bottomline: if you don’t who you’re dealing with, don’t expect too much from them or you might be disappointed (as well as get good surprises… but better sticking to the safe side!).

P.S.: thanks to copyright owners of the monkey pics!

Aber  Tabbles ist ja nicht nur taggen, sondern auch noch ein Virtual Folder System. Und als wenn das nicht reicht, verbindet es diese beiden Dinge auch noch. Die tags sind virtuelle Ordner, und aus einem tag und einem bubble wird ein Tabble. Also tabblen wir. Moment, da fehlt doch noch der Dreh für die weiche Aussprache: Wir tabbeln. Das ist wie googeln auf Google.

ich tabble
du tabbelst
er/sie/es tabbelt
wir tabbeln
…

HELLO WORLD – first cloud tagging solution in the galaxy

I promised exciting news a while ago, and now here I am: since yesterday we’re partnering with PowerFolder (a kick-ass bunch of guys who know the Cloud better than their own pockets – and their Cloud storage services kicks ass consequently) to offer the first Cloud tagging solution in the galaxy.  You can download a bundled installer (currently in Beta) of PowerFolder and Tabbles that will also give you a license valid until 31 dec. 2010.

Cool, but how does it work?

• Install the package (download here).
• Start sharing folders (among your own PCs or with other people) with PowerFolder. It will configure Tabbles so that the tagging gets sync’ed too.
• Now you can start tagging files with Tabbles (watch videos)! More info here.

Tabbles + PowerFolder -> Tag'n'Sync

Naaa… it sounds too easy, it can’t work!

You’ll be surprised!

No network setup, no server installation, no maintenance. Plug and play -> Tag’n'share. We told you, you’ll be surprised

Ok, but what will it cost me?

The installer comes with a license valid until 31 dec. 2010. We’ll soon come out with a pricelist… and we promise it’s gonna be a very competitive one.

I wanna know more!

Check out the wiki page on PowerFolder.com. You’re also very welcome to contact us (or twitter) or the PowerFolder guys, via email or twitter

Ok, you got me, now I just want to download it!!!

Here you go:

Peace from the Tabbles team (and our friends at PowerFolder)!

for some reason, we somehow didn’t realize that our search box wasn’t always behaving as expected: if you had opened a tabble or a folder already, it would filter the files based on what you typed, but if you were in the Workspace it wouldn’t return anything. Well, it was a one line fix that gave Tabbles a real (and ultra-shaggadelic) search box!

• It now it searches in realtime among all the files you (or your colleagues!) have tagged in Tabbles.
• Of course it outputs a list of files among with their combineable tabbles.
• It supports logical AND and logical NOT: e.g.: find all the files whose name contains the words “logo” AND “tabbles” -> “logo, tabbles”; Now find all the files whose name contains “logo” but not “tabbles” -> “logo, -tabbles”.
• The shortcut to activate it is the good’ol CTRL + F.
• If you you press CTRL + Enter it will instead search for tabble names instead that file names.

This is what it looks like:

Tabbles search box: closer to a real desktop search tool

Peace and love

Andrea

this will be  a lazy update… the reason is that the last days were particularly hectic. Let me try and sum it up:

• On Friday we were featured on GOTD.
• Re-installed (read: fought with) phpbb, but now it works fine and has a lot of cool new things, including the much needed open-id mod (which now works like a charm!). I’m planning a blog post about phpbb: I’m not an expert but for sure there is a lot I know that is worth sharing
• Just released the 1.5.9 including Polish (and I just received the Hungarian translation too…will be in the next update).
• Quite a few things fixed/improved in the tabble sharing features
• We sold the first Corporate licenses! Yes – it came as a surprise to us too!!! (The Corporate license will include the tabble sharing features…which is not there yet!)
• Something REALLY cool: Don Syme (the man behind F#) wrote a blog post about Tabbles!

Well, as I’m here, let me share some more visual stuff:

 

 

 

Ok, now look at our GOTD peak here:

look at our peak on the giveawayoftheday promotion!

 

 

 

Look at how sexy is our yahoo pipe (subscribe to RSS)

 

 

 

And finally, I just sketched this:

Tabbles new tag-line...or something. You like it?

GOOD NIGHT WORLD.

 

P.S.: on a sad note, I’m stuck with the error 0×80004005 whil trying to let people browse  shared folder on my Windows Server 2008 (sp2). Looks like there is no way out… anyone? :-O