During my couple years of work as a PC techy support guy, administrator, company hired developer and freelancer, I’ve finally separated three different types of work: project-base, support and salary.
Project-base
This is a popular way of working in USA and Europe. The client has a task to be performed by an expert. Therefore the employer seeks for an appropriate guru to fulfil the one’s requirement. Simple as that.
What are the major characteristics of project-base work?
- fixed requirements
- usually short-term or medium-term
- fixed price for the whole project or different phases
Focusing on the broader perspective, a freelancer could be hired for a small website or script, but there are big corporate systems developed for tens of manmonths, too. So borders may vary. But requirements are fixed at the beginning, as for the money, too. No surprises during the development process.
Support
Support staff is hired for a preliminary defined schedule. Let’s say every second Monday of the month or for 10 hours for the whole month. This is a capacity being paid at the beginning for doing simple (or important, but not that time wasting) tasks. The client doesn’t need a full time expert, but wants a regular technical guy to be available for consultations or small fixes.
Usually, typical support marks:
- fixed work-time or hours
- fixed month/hour price
Support work could be tricky if you maintain couple of different support projects. But if business case is clear and hours can be easily predicted, than it is a sweet and not that engaging perspective.
Salary
That’s probably the most popular working type in the world. Rules are simple: you have a week amount to fill and… you just have to fill it. Let’s say 40h a week, 9am to 6pm working at the office and that’s all. Irregular overtime, constant availability. Tasks may vary – the employee is available at the work time he is contracted for and can be ‘squeezed’ for different tasks/services.
What’s cool with salary work?
- regular and usually good payment
- some benefits as transportation taxes covered or cell phone bills
- work ands at 18 o’clock and then you’re all free
And what kind of work do you do?
