Escalating costs or Upfront honesty?
I am lucky that around me I have a number of people that I can count on when I need help.
I can pick up the phone and talk things through, not necessarily for hours on end but for a short period of time, to clarify a situation, to run an idea, to check that I have an impression right, to make sure that I have things in the correct order or just to rant or rave about something.
This week I had a job to do, which in good faith I thought I could do but when it came down to doing it I found that I didn;t appear to be able to achieve the result I wanted. So after spending far too much time on it I gave in and picked up the phone, asked the question of a fairly new friend and colleague who I consider to be very experienced in many areas.
I got a very honest response. I had the skills but what I was trying to achieve it with wasn’t going to get me the result I wanted. I needed to find an alternative graphic.
Now, whilst I was gutted that I wouldn’t get the result I wanted from the graphic I wanted. I was also pleased that my skills, although not great were not wrong; also that I wasn’t losing the plot but most importantly that this colleague had the honestly to tell me that upfront neither he nor I would achieve the desired result because of the originating image.
This is very refreshing these days. I find there are many companies that will take the work off of you, at a set hourly rate, give you an estimate of time and then under-estimate or come back to you and tell you at some later point that they cannot achieve your desired end result. This really aggravates me.
What are your thoughts on this subject? Have you been caught like this?
