Full-time employees, and not only in the localization industry, often regard freelancers with envy. They imagine that freelancers pad around in their bathrobes and slippers all day, take long naps in the afternoon followed by long bubble baths, then work at a leisurely pace for which they charge exhorbitant rates. "You lucky so-and-so! You make your own hours," people say to freelancers. "No alarm clock, no commute, no suit, no tie, no panty hose, no fixed lunch hours, no dog and pony shows for the clients from out of town ..." In short, the good life with no strings attached.
Ahhh, yes. The good ole days. True, as a freelancer, I could work in the buff, if it moved me. True, I ate when I pleased, walked the dog, took a shower in the middle of the afternoon, shopped and lounged, indulged my urges for an afternoon capuccino without having to check with the boss, that is when time permitted.
When time permitted was usually when I didn't have a contract or contracts to juggle. Ahhhh, there's the rub. When I didn't have a contract, I thought twice, even four times, about indulging the urge for a double capuccino at 3:00. Why?
First, rates. As a freelancer, rates are akin to the holy grail, an elusive magic number that requires one part wizardry and two parts good luck. Often, freelancers negotiate in a vacuum. What will the market bear? What is the competition bidding? Who knows? The trick is offering competitive rates without driving down the fair price for services rendered, a near impossible task since freelancers work in virtual isolation.
Getting back to capuccino, when a freelancer has a contract or, heaven!, end-to-end contracts, a capuccino at 3:00 is an affordable, if not always practical, luxury. Who has time for capuccino when working on deadline? And between contracts?
Consider the overhead assumed by freelancers just to stay in business. Freelancers, unless they work exclusively on-site, must buy and maintain their own equipment, hardware and software, every update that comes down the pike. To land a contract (at least for DTP-ers), a freelancer may purchase hardware, software and fonts worth over half the value of the contract, capital expenditures that may never be exploited again. Such purchases are always a gamble.
Go To Page: 1 2
