Discussion on:

Six reasons why you might work for free

Are there any other situations under which you would work for free?

I barter my services and will even throw in some extra hardware. Parts and software have to be paid by the end user but my labor could cost you some of the FREE services you have to offer. No money changes hands. Charity is another way of saying FREE but it costs me to get there and back plus I usually make a cash donation too.

Yes, I've done barter before, too. That works out well, because both parties essentially buy services at cost rather than retail (assuming an equal trade).

I've done it too. I had a dentist who I learned from listening to some of his conversations, that he had a classic car rebuilt in trade for dental work.
When I quit my job and started doing contract work, I made a deal for two crowns for me and one for my wife in exchange for setting up a small network in his office (he paid for all the hardware.)
IN the end, we both were happy with the result.

Freinds, family, to gain a new client. Sometimes a freebie for the bigwigs at the companies I contract with. Sometimes for struggling businesses to help them get back on their feet.

It's a Karma thing. Pay it forward.

I?m a new member here and will fill out my biography shortly.

My work in CRM, Databases, Forecasting and Analysis has all had a marketing slant, so I give my time freely to a marketing forum on:

http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/

Despite (!) my sales and marketing background, I have gained a number of database engineering qualifications and a wide experience of MS Office technology. I try to keep to some simple rules for free work.

If it?s for friends or acquaintances, ask them whether they?d be happy inviting their mate who is a plumber to go and spend an evening fixing their lavatory!

For those businesses without the means to pay for a job, I offer some on-line assistance with their situation until they can afford our software or services.

For NFP?s I?ll do what I can, but in my own time and for fun.

I?ve never been a fan of trades unions, but I do feel that every time I do a job on a wrecked laptop for a small business, I?m spending a long time doing a job which badly which a professional engineer could have done correctly, in a short time and earned an appropriate fee. I therefore refer people where appropriate and expect the same in return where my expertise counts.

I have as a customer a small city in the area. Their accountant made some large overspending mistakes and left with the City about 1,000,000 overspent. I sometimes will make a visit free to one of the entitys (Police Department, City Hall, Library) or cut back the hours bid to fix an emergency and include it in the price. They have been a good customer for almost 15 years and if it will help them through this time will probably be a good customer for another 15.

I tend not to want to work for free anymore except for occassions of a Good Cause like the cancer society or something of that sort. There will always be the case where you will need to give a few freebies if you made a mistake and I dont really think of that as working for free. I have even stopped assisting friends unless they are the ones that return the favor otherwise you end up spending all of your time and some of your money driving around town working for free. For clients even like the one you mentioned that is in a financial crunch what I do in this case is if I have worked 10 hours on a project for them I bill them for 10 hrs @ $125 an hour and then show them a goodwill discount of $25 per hour for a total of $250 discount.

... for any total hottie.

The work must be performed under her desk while she sits in her chair (been there..done that before....muahahaha)

She must have a killer pair of legs and everything in between. ;-?

A little help for my friends or family is not begrudged. Help for a number of charities is normal. Some marketing lubrication is not unheard of.
However as was said earlier care must be taken not to undervalue yourself. If you charge nothing without good justification then you will be valued as nothing. I always make it clear, if I am not charging my normal rate, why I am giving a freebie or discount.
One of those reasons is a policy I have of "No Fix, No Fee" The other is if the problem is new to me and I need to learn how, the customer does not pay for my learning time. Another is if I feel that I have taken longer than I should have done to solve a problem, then I suggest that the extra time is at my expense.

I use fixed rates for things like virus removal and OS installs and if I am using their problem to teach myself some thing they still only pay what I normally charge. If I cant fix it they dont pay.

Well, if you are in talks with someone who is interested in hiring you, its more than okay to give them a taste of what the real thing (i.e., your actual work) would be.

(Which, to be honest, might fall in the "marketing" category already mentioned here...)

If someone is about to do something that will make your life hell for an inordinate amount of time, you can often do something like this to save a major cost at a later date - exampe, a client may be about to deploy a product that you know will be incompatible with the stuff you manage. Working with them now ids much more beneficial that just waiting for it to crash an burn later

I can't think of anything myself, not having read the other comments in this thread, I'd have to say that those six you listed are pretty comprehensive as well as being some of the best reasons to work for free.

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=233768&messageID=2301347

One situation where I have (and I feel others should as well) worked for free concerns the learning curve. There are a couple of reasons someone hires you to do work - they lack the knowledge, or they lack the time. If you present yourself as one who has the knowledge, they can pay for the time.

However, if there is something you don't know how to do, you re-enter the world of the imformed novice. The customer shouldn't have to pay for a lack of knowledge/skills, especially since, once learned, those skills will be used for other clients to generate additional income for the consultant. Paying a consultant to learn something is like providing a scholarship to a college student without the potential tax benefits.

If a client figures out something you didn't know, or you take so much time to learn and bill them for it, and they balk because in the same amount of time the hired experts took to learn how to do it the client did it and implemented it, then you really have no business flying the banner of expert, and should eat the cost of the learning to preserve your reputation.

Too many consult to try to create dependencies to milk future work from. The standard I follow is that I will complete your project and transfer the knowledge to you sufficient that you can maintain and have a healthy level of knowledge for your solution. What that actually means is more future work from referrals and for future expansions of what has been done. Future expansion = additional knowledge, which means that yoiu can haul in a whole new type of client who isn't looking to do the entry-level thing and who knows that they will need to pay dearly for the ninja-level knowledge they are about to benefit from.

Give a man a fish, and he will have a meal, but teach him to fish, and he'll pay a lot to rent your trawler, because you taught him how to steer the boat...

(assuming free = no money/paycheck)

a) i get free, good homemade food
b) i get free alcohol
c) i get something in trade
d) she is REALLY gorgeous and wants to spend time with the big chic geek

take the "day late and a dollar short" and multiply by about 700.....

I guess I am in a small group here I think what you do will come back to you. If you give a service for free it will help you in the long run.
I have fixed many laptops, computers and networking problems for free and have received great things for doing this. I have never asked for compensation for any work done but the people and companies will give great gifts.
I work full time for a great company and get paid well so I do not need extra money but it would be nice if I received it.
I do this in my spare time and have received gift cards from Best Buy, Sears, Office Depot and others for amounts that were more then the fix.
I like to work on computers and laptops it is what I like to do.

not a bad thing!

I have been doing this for years. I like helping people. I like seeing people happy. I'm a an IT professional. Combine those together and it's a recipe for success.

I've charged "friends" before when they get to asking too much. I've played the "I'm too busy to help" with relatives. It works well to avoid those times when the father-in-law has installed one too many software packages on the laptop and now "it don't work".

I like doing the freebies for groups that have small budgets. It feels good to help those with a cause.

I help out seniors and try not to get paid but usually walk away with something. I've learned it's better to accept $5 or $10 than to keep saying no and insult them.

The amount of food I'm given while "helping out" has added 10 to 20 pounds to my waistline. I guess that could be seen as a negative but I've enjoyed many a good meal and A LOT of chocolate!

EMD

I know what your saying here. I have an aunt that occassionaly(not often) will have a computer problem and give me a call. Anytime she needs computer work done she has my entire family over for a 10 course meal of Turkey Mashed Potato's, Noodles, Dinner Rolls, etc and MORE THAN ENOUGH pie to feed about 20 people. I think that's more than enough compensation for my time.

barter my services for food! Especially homemade cookies

is beer (a joke among mechanics) beer can be substituted for cash for many minor repairs...

hmmmm.... what would a clever term for a bribe for an it professional?

(someone else can probably think of a better one)

"what would a clever term for a bribe for an it professional?"

It doesn't need a clever name, just plenty of it.

The traditional payment for those little bit's of extra work that are done gratis in australia is the slab, a box of 24 cans of beer, usually Victoria bitter or Fourex. This is untraceable, is tax free and somewhat of a courtesy. It occurs a bit less today due to heavy policing of drink driving laws

somethings gotta keep us awake..dont ya think?

WILL WORK FOR HOME COOKING

and everything else which my bills account for.

I have seen far too many professionals who simply take pride in the number of overtime hours they work. What irritates me, however, is the lack of respect often given to those of us who can actually get our work done in the alotted work week.

Yes, I once worked for a company that did tax software. During the ramp up for release just prior to tax season there was almost a competition between programmers over who worked the most overtime hours. We'd regularly put in 80-100 hours a week. But you know, running on afterburners for months at a time actually saps productivity. Not to mention destroying the rest of your life.

and the show-offs don't realize that if they work that many hours for free, they are actually LOWERING the worth of their work if they are on salary.

Yes, I've been there. Working for free, when it comes to friends and family, is typically worth it. I figure that "it will come back to you" in greater measure.

Dennis
WirelessJobs.com

Technically, all your labor applied toward your basic survival is barter. (hopefully) it's an equal exchange, and with the high division of labor in the modern world, currencies smooth out that exchange. My boss does not grow all the food I need, nor can he fix my car...

Now, most of the work I have done over the last 6 years has been for "free," though as others have stated, "it comes back around." Just the way I am. I haven't had a "position" in over 8 years.

Seeing as how pursuit of happiness (property) is an unalienable right, the exchange of your labor-for-anything by way of 'remuneration' is an untaxable activity. i.e. there is no "income tax" on wages or barter receipts as these are the equal exchange of your labor in pursuit of survival.

You do NOT have "income." That is defined as what's left after a profit/loss statement is prepared. When was the last time you were allowed to do that?

I pointed this out to the US supreme court and they agreed with me.

well i worked almost 2 years when i started working; just for the sack of gaining (Live) knowledge and work experience. Even today if somebody offers me to work or install a technology when i m not used to, well i will do it free of cost.

If a friend asks for help then I'll help them, if they ask too often I explain that I can't do it for nothing and when I get the customary sigh and question about how much I'll charge I simply ask them to pay me what they think the help was worth to them.

I don't expect them to really stump up much (Sometimes they give nothing!) but they usually buy a few beers or perhaps a meal out and then everyone's happy.
It also has the bonus that it usually makes them think hard before asking for more help but doesn't make me feel like I'm overcharging a friend.

In the past I did a lot of free work for charities, friends and family. What I eventually found is that by doing free work you are stealing from yourself and your loved ones. Unless we are sitting on our million dollar yacht cruising around the world at our leisure there is no such thing as free time in our lives. Every hour we give to strangers is an hour we can???t spend with our life partners/kids/family/friends and an hour we are not earning money to improve our lives. Based on all the time I gave to good causes my karma cup should have been running over but alas in the real world life doesn???t care how much karma you have stored up because money makes the world turn. Until you are sitting on the yacht rather invest in yourself and the ones you love because life does not reward good works only hard work.

I've been donating my time to help a couple nonprofits with IT issues. It has resulted in making friendships and referrals for jobs that pay money. Furthermore, I get the good feelings associated with helping out causes I believe in. It is possible to be leaned on too heavily, and you need to put the brakes on if that occurs. Fortunately, most people respect your time and value your help.

I am with Mike here. I have had the opportunity to help out a few nonprofits in my area with some spare time. I have a wife and 3 kids (all 3 are involved in sports) and my spare time is scarce. Being able to help out companies that otherwise couldn't afford my services never feels like I am stealing from my family. I never let the projects get too out of hand and I let them know up front that I am doing this on my time and it has never once become an issue. We both benefit from the relationship and some of my "free" work has turned into payed work and actually led to one of my previous positions.

Thanks for reminding me that I need to get out the door to diagnose a network wiring problem at my church.

I have no problem in helping out clients with a quick 10 minute fix while onsite for free. Heck - I'll even call in when passing to help them out.

Family is kinda given. Nearly always helping out - although now I live 5000 miles away from them, I get fewer requests.

Friends, I dont mind helping out. Especially when they have a truck and I am moving in the near future.

The thing that does make me a little more hesitant is when you are invited to 'a friend - of a friend' to hang out or , only to walk through the door and be greeted with "Hi, So my computer's broken. It's over here" and promptly be seated in a dark corner, while the 'friends' and host go back to the pool/bar/garden/.

A little negative for a Monday morning but I have been here since 5am...