I was a freelancer working for an advertising company in Spain. They wanted everything fast. Specs were unclear all time, they used to change their mind and make changes involving architecture and structure hardcore refactorings. I remember countless nights working so they could see progress at 9am in the next day.
Phone meetings were horrible. Like a group of predators yelling at me, complaining all the time. Some (like a lot) spanish companies have the concept that pushing you to the limits will make you work faster and better. Even more on the advertising world. Some really low skill junior devs in the company started to treat me like shit, trying to argue with every line of code I was delivering. Making my life hard was their mantra.
I was holing myself not to run because I needed the money for big plans!
I actually did a very good job after all, clean code and good architecture but I was late, like 15 days late. After 3 months of a nightmare, the project was released and their client was already using the app. It was done 100%. Then I asked them to pay me. PM told me they were not going to pay me at all because "I had caused them irreparable damage and a problem with their client".
So I called a friend who is a lawyer and started to discuss how could I fix this situation, but I had to travel (actually I had plans to move from Spain to Brasil) and needed the money urgently.
I went to the bank and guess what: they sent me the money by mistake!!! The administrative girl in the company had an schedule and she forgot about my particular case so she sent me the money. I got the money finally and I moved to Brasil where all my stress ended suddenly =)
So here´s the best part of the story. The PM called me when I was right at the beach having a coconut drink and told me to give the money back to them, and that it was a mistake. I don´t remember laughing so hard in my life. I just told her where I was and that if she wanted the money better come to get it. Long "bla bla (I´ll sue you) bla bla" and bye bye my dear.
ps: I actually learnt how not to do things, how to reject a project when specs are not clear enough and how to trust myself on avoiding conflicting people.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
I was a freelancer working for an advertising company in Spain. They wanted everything fast. Specs were unclear all time, they used to change their mind and make changes involving architecture and structure hardcore refactorings. I remember countless nights working so they could see progress at 9am in the next day.
Phone meetings were horrible. Like a group of predators yelling at me, complaining all the time. Some (like a lot) spanish companies have the concept that pushing you to the limits will make you work faster and better. Even more on the advertising world. Some really low skill junior devs in the company started to treat me like shit, trying to argue with every line of code I was delivering. Making my life hard was their mantra.
I was holing myself not to run because I needed the money for big plans!
I actually did a very good job after all, clean code and good architecture but I was late, like 15 days late. After 3 months of a nightmare, the project was released and their client was already using the app. It was done 100%. Then I asked them to pay me. PM told me they were not going to pay me at all because "I had caused them irreparable damage and a problem with their client".
So I called a friend who is a lawyer and started to discuss how could I fix this situation, but I had to travel (actually I had plans to move from Spain to Brasil) and needed the money urgently.
I went to the bank and guess what: they sent me the money by mistake!!! The administrative girl in the company had an schedule and she forgot about my particular case so she sent me the money. I got the money finally and I moved to Brasil where all my stress ended suddenly =)
So here´s the best part of the story. The PM called me when I was right at the beach having a coconut drink and told me to give the money back to them, and that it was a mistake. I don´t remember laughing so hard in my life. I just told her where I was and that if she wanted the money better come to get it. Long "bla bla (I´ll sue you) bla bla" and bye bye my dear.
ps: I actually learnt how not to do things, how to reject a project when specs are not clear enough and how to trust myself on avoiding conflicting people.