Small projects; Huge problems.

I have had nasty experiences with small, side projects, you know the kind you do for a quick buck. First, you find that your potential customer, knows absolutely zero about systems; And expects that the system you are going to build, will be the silver bullet, do away with all earthly problems.

One time, someone opened Adobe Photoshop, called a graphic designer who did a few tricks with a photo, and then asked me to write a "program" that will do something similar for an automatic bulk line card printer. Good thing we are not allowed to carry guns.

When you finally get to convincing a guy that 98.5% of what he/she is talking about is bullshit (of course, you use very nice language), the guy now tells you that he can only pay you 5000. Yeah right. At this point, I usually walk out. The "business" partner [this is usually the linkman to the customer], who is also responsible for the hare-brained idea of the system in the first place, usually kicks into high gear at this point. He knows that I cannot as much as face the direction of the customer at that price (programmer attitude). Time to ante-up things. The "linkman" calls the customer aside, does the fast talk, conjuring stories and lies, and manages to get the price to something like 30,000. Fair enough. So, my terms are, a deposit now before we start. The customer says he needs a demo. I need money.

The linkm(a /e)n, having many wiles, bribes me with a couple of beers. Sometimes, a beautiful woman is invited for company as we mull over very important matters. (Am I stupid or what?). Trick always works. I am a sucker for booze. Anyway, I bang up a demo program real quick in anticipation of some real money.

The customer, invariably throws a tantrum when he sees the product. Proposes a truckload of changes. At this point I have written code. I refuse to budge until I see money. Of course, the customer does not know this. So, a desperate linkman, might cough a bit, like 3000.

So I develop like to 80% completion, add a few backdoors and time bombs for the good of the world and head to install the product. Disaster usually starts here. At one time, I found a guy running 16MB RAM PCs X486, Windows 98 PCs. I have a product that uses MSDE , MDAC 2.8.
and ADO.Net. So I cut my losses, lose the linkman. Happy with the booze I have consumed on account of the project.

And so it happens everytime.
Different day, different kind of people, same results.