The New World
I ran into an old client today at the grocery store (sounds like a song by Dan Fogelberg ?).
He works in IT for the Hospital Authority in our city. Years ago I used Access to do some conversions for them from an old HR system into a new and they have a similar need again.
A funny thing came to mind when the idea of working for him came up. Should I charge his company a premium BECAUSE they are in town as opposed to out of town?
Huh?
You see, for the past couple of years I have been doing nearly all my work remotely for clients in Toronto, London, England, Newfoundland,Northern Labrador, Seattle and Florida using WebEx, LiveMeeting, Webconference, VPN’s, WTS and Citrix. I work for days and days in my underwear at home (at least I could if I wanted to that is J) ……. If I do have to visit a client it involves an interesting plane trip to a different city or country at their expense and I bill them a whole lot for my time.
On the other hand, If I work for these guys, I’d have to shower and shave and then drive the whole 10 minutes to their office to work and then pay for parking (and we all know how expensive gas is these days) to work on-site. Back and forth every day at my expense and bother. That doesn't sound like progress to me.
The world has definitely changed.
Dick