[quote]sam_sneed wrote:
[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
That’s a tough call, as it’s a one-off kinda thing. I think it depends how much time you anticipate that it will take and how generous you really want to be with your time.
If you had a friend that was a contractor, would you expect him to come and install ceramic tile in your kitchen for nothing? What about if you want to put another bathroom in your basement? Should that be free? What if you want to build a garage behind your house? Can he charge you then?
Where is the line here?
My uncle owns a body shop, and he just put a new bumper on my car. Was it wrong of him to charge me time for it?[/quote]
I understand what you’re saying but I’m not questioning whether someone should get paid for a huge job. There is definitely a line where you have to charge. What I’m questioning is why does it matter if you do it for a living? I know a guy who charges his friends labor for minor electrical work (under 3 hours) but he will spend 5 hours helping them move for free. His reasoning is that he’s an electrician and it’s his livelihood. What’s the difference? Time is time.
How long did it take for your uncle to fix your bumper? If it was less than 4 hours, then yes I think it was wrong of him to charge you. Nothing personal against him, but it’s just how I feel. I spent 6 hours doing technical consulting with my friend to get his business started. For free. This is something I’d normally charge $125 an hour for. Why? Because to me he’s family.[/quote]
I agree with you that shouldn’t matter if you do it for a living or not. My question is where do you draw the line between helping a friend and doing work for a friend. Help is free, work isn’t.
Because what you do for a living in some instances took you a lot of time to master and/or money. You should be compensated for that to a degree. Again, it’s not always black & white issue.
For example, I have spent a ton of time studying fitness/nutrition and spent tons of money on college and books/seminars/dvd’s. If a friend or family member needs some quick help, yeah I’d help them out for free. But, if they need help that requires a lot of my time (and sorry you’re “free time” is not free, time is one of the most valuable resources we have), then you should be compensated for it.
At least in my profession it will hold them more accountable as well since they are paying money for it.
oops, “your” not “you’re” pet peeve of mine
[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
I agree with you that shouldn’t matter if you do it for a living or not. My question is where do you draw the line between helping a friend and doing work for a friend. Help is free, work isn’t.[/quote]
If they’re making a profit off my work, then I charge. Ex. A friend who’s billing another client for technology consulting but can’ figure out the problem so he calls me to help him out. He’s billing the client, so I should get paid. It’s tough to draw the line because my friends have done a lot of work for me. Therefore, it wouldn’t be fair for me to charge them. It’s just the way it work between us. Take the earlier example where I helped my friend start his business for 6 hours; he helped me frame my basement this Sunday. So we’re even.
I guess I draw the line at around 1 day of time spent (8 hours) or whether or not you’re directly making profit off of my help. I don’t really see the difference between work and help. Only time spent doing a task.
Keep in mind, I’m assuming very close friends and family. Not just dudes you hang out with once in awhile.
[quote]Stength4life wrote:
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
Beyond that, why would you charge a friend?[/quote]
For money.
I have probably had the following situation happen like ten times. It's around 6-7pm and I get a call from a CLOSE friend; not a stranger, not an aquantance, but a close friend. THey ask if I want to hang out. I accept the invitation and then at the end of the call they will sneak in the question, hey do you have any weed man? It can be a bit uncomfortable, but I always use the same response, "I do if you have money."
I know that it’s different when it comes to things like drugs and alcohol, but the general rule of thumb that I follow is if it’s something that takes money out of your pocket, hell yeah you can charge them. If you are giving them a ride, you have the option to ask for gas money but it’s not always necessary. If it’s a matter of time, like the previous poster said, it depends on how much time you are giving them, and what you are doing. Haha, I just thought about all of the different careers. If you were a doctor, would you charge you closest friend for something? That would be funny if a psychologist was having a deep conversation with a friend and then gave them a bill at the end of the convo. That’s something George Castanza would do.[/quote]
If you don’t know what it feels like to straight up give something to a friend, I’m willing to bet you don’t have any “close” friends, just many aquaintances you see on a regular basis. You got called because they thought you had weed, not because they wanted to hang out.
Don’t you hate the helping out the Wife’s friend’s husband? I did that and won’t again for this guy anyway (story to follow). With my friends, I never ask for payment and neither do they as they know “I owe U or U owe me”.
Now, the wife’s friend. He had a moving company and one of his workers got ill and couldn’t help for an out of town move. Wife asked me on behalf of her best friend if I would help and that he would pay me the guys wages for the move under the table. Sounded OK and an easy $ since I worked as a mover before hence why they asked me. Now this “move” turned out wrong. One other worker bailed (quit) so it was just the two of us to move a 3 bedroom farm house (100+ clicks between destinations). I figured I could get his cut as well and told him we can still do the move and split his cut between us. He agreed. Well fuck me sideways this fucker was lazy… taking breaks every half hour or so. I figured the faster we do this the more profitable it would be for me but no… Then when we loaded the truck and started to head out he said we would stop for lunch on the way. Cool free meal… no! I had to pay for my own. Then when we finished, he got paid cash over $700.00. He gave me $110.00. I told him I thought we would split the other guys cut. He said the guy quit and he gave me the extra 10 for lunch (Lunch cost me around $15.00). The ride home was silent, I was brewing and it was near supper time and he wanted to stop to eat. I told him let’s just keep going and then he offered to buy me supper I guess he felt the coldness. Well I ate around $60.00 worth of food (Told him I would meet him at the truck just before the bill came).
Got home and told the wife the story. Her friend told her he was suppose to pay me $300.00 and meals since he knew the one guy quit and the other guy was ill.
One day he asked me for workout advice and I told him to join a gym. He laughed, I didn’t.
I think one point that nobody brought up is deadline. If a friend asks me a favor like to build a website, design a logo, or teach them something I have no problem doing it for free but it’s going to be on my schedule. If they can’t live with that they’re going to need to pay me because then I might have to reschedule some things or skip doing something I would’ve done in order to do this for them. Faster you want something done the more money it probably is. An old client, not a friend but a client, would pay me $40/hr for design work. He once called me up at 9pm his time which was 1am my time and after apologizing for calling so late said it was an emergency and he needed some work done and would pay me $100/hr if I did it immediately. To me that was perfectly fair and I gladly got out of bed for a quick $200. For a friend I would’ve given discount but same idea.
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
[quote]Stength4life wrote:
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
Beyond that, why would you charge a friend?[/quote]
For money.
I have probably had the following situation happen like ten times. It's around 6-7pm and I get a call from a CLOSE friend; not a stranger, not an aquantance, but a close friend. THey ask if I want to hang out. I accept the invitation and then at the end of the call they will sneak in the question, hey do you have any weed man? It can be a bit uncomfortable, but I always use the same response, "I do if you have money."
I know that it’s different when it comes to things like drugs and alcohol, but the general rule of thumb that I follow is if it’s something that takes money out of your pocket, hell yeah you can charge them. If you are giving them a ride, you have the option to ask for gas money but it’s not always necessary. If it’s a matter of time, like the previous poster said, it depends on how much time you are giving them, and what you are doing. Haha, I just thought about all of the different careers. If you were a doctor, would you charge you closest friend for something? That would be funny if a psychologist was having a deep conversation with a friend and then gave them a bill at the end of the convo. That’s something George Castanza would do.[/quote]
If you don’t know what it feels like to straight up give something to a friend, I’m willing to bet you don’t have any “close” friends, just many aquaintances you see on a regular basis. You got called because they thought you had weed, not because they wanted to hang out.
[/quote]
x 2. I have a very tight circle of friends. Theres a few others that hang out with us alot, but the best analogy I can think of to differentiate between the two is this: I have close friends who dont keep track of who paid for last round, I have friends who keep track of who bought the last round.