Situation: A painting contractor friend of mine just had hip replacement surgery, so I am taking over a few of his accounts while he recuperates. One of his clients owns about forty rental houses, and he charges her an hourly rate. I have three to do in the next week, and a helper and I did the first one in half the time that he & HIS helper does one. (Same good quality clean job. We’re just faster.)
I have never ever “padded” my hours when billing clients hourly. However, I don’t want to make my friend look bad by charging roughly half what he does for these properties. I am leaning towards charging what he does, but I did agree on the hourly rate with the client, and I don’t want her catching on if we “overcharge.”
You can of course do the work more slowly, then you don’t have to “pad” the bill. That’s always one of the ironies of being paid by the hour. In fact, in the long run, maybe it’s better to charge by area.
Well, normally I don’t work by the hour. I usually just give straight bids on work. But this is what fred has set up with her. True, I don’t owe him anything, but he is an old friend, we often do big jobs together, and so there is a certain consideration.
I don’t like the idea of working slower. Maybe I’ll just spend some time goofing off & making phone calls & writing estimates while my trusty helper works like the dickens! I would like to get to the end of my life saying “I have NEVER padded hours.” I tended bar for a number of years, and never stole so much as one penny or one drink, and I glad I can say that.
Yeesh. Maybe I’m making too much of this. I could justify it by saying that since we’re faster, we’re worth more, and for nine years she’s been happy with what she’s been paying…anyhow. I guess I have to go paint stuff now, I’ll check back later!
If your friend wasn’t recouperating from the hip replacement surgery and had a chance to compete fairly with you, I would say go for it. But you agreed to take over his business until he recovers, and unless he agrees to different rates you are pretty much obligated to maintain the status quo.
After he recovers and is back in charge, wait a bit then jump in.
I understand how you feel about your friend, but I think that you should pretty much work at your regular speed and do things as usual. Working slower, IMHO, isn’t that far removed from padding hours. What happens between the client and your friend ultimately isn’t up to you.
Usually when I do jobs by the hour, I give an estimate of the number of hours as well. This way I always charge that number of hours, and the customer won’t get suspicious. It’s like doing it for a flat fee. I’ll spend the extra time re-checking my work, or researching something relevant. Of course most of the work is done from my house so they have no way of knowing how long it took. There might not be much you can do to fill time when the painting is done. Maybe you could blow on the walls to help it dry?
Anyway, I wouldn’t make up extra hours for the ones you already did. Just try to fill the whole time on the next bunch of jobs (work slower, do extra stuff, etc.).
I don’t think you should pad, or slow down, or charge more. I don’t think you should lower the bar for your own professional standards, even out of friendship. I think you can best serve your own honesty, and your customer, with the straight truth, served without apology.
Don’t say anything, if nothing is asked. No reason to kill yourself working fast in the future, but no reason to intentionally slow down either. If the customer asks simply say, “Well, the job went really easily. We got done fast. You win.” You don’t need to imply or say that you just work faster than your friend, only that the hours you worked are what you expect to be paid for, and nothing else.
If your friend objects, you have a choice. Flatter the incredible quality of his work, and pass it off as the willingness of modern customers to accept less attention to detail in favor of faster, cheaper. Or, shrug your shoulders and say, “It took nine hours. It takes you 13 hours. I charged for what it took me, and Friday to do the job.” If he is your friend, your honesty is part of what he respects you for.
I see your dilemma. I appreciate others suggestions to take the completely honest path and damn the consequences to the relationship between you and your friend. However, this may amount to the type of brutal honesty that is just more tactful to avoid. Your friend could end up losing this lucrative account when the client sees how much faster you can get the job done. This would most likely have a negative impact on your friendship.
While you are not responsible for your friend’s inability to complete the job as quickly as you can, you may have to worry about possible damage to your friendship if you “steal away” his client.
I would also have a hard time padding hours, though.
Perhaps your best bet is to discuss the matter with your friend.
Well, in a way I sorta agree with Coldfire, though this is a tricky situation! I did talk to Fred, and bless his heart, he told me just to bill for the hours worked, so that is what I’m going to do.
c_goat Blowing on the walls? Never thought of that!
BTW, I would NEVER steal a job away from someone I knew well & had worked with, especially when he’s recovering from a major operation. If I didn’t know him as a friend, all bets would be off, of course!
As a quick addendum to this, perhaps you could tell the client that you brought on extra people for this job, because it was unexpected, so the work went a little faster than normal?
