Joe_McChristian__Jr
·
Aug 06, 2004
In Response to Jeremy's Feedback towards us:
In an effort to set the record straight, I have posted an exact copy (contact information removed) of the job description for this project to http://www.mcchristian.com/project_instructions.htm so that anyone interested in working with us has the facts regarding this project available to them. These instructions included a detailed and accurate description of what needed to be done as well as the completed layout provided to him in a .fla file.
Description of the Problem
The project was to create a slideshow that was automatically populated with database information and was able to expand or contract to accomodate a varying number of entries without needing to be manually updated in Flash as was made clear in the project description. To simulate the database driven slideshow information we agreed to work with a text file of sample fictional data that included 9 items.
When Jeremy delivered the finished .fla file to us everything seemed to work correctly. Based on this we awarded Jeremy a 5 star feedback rating and Jeremy awarded us a 5 star rating as well.
The invoice for $525 we received from Jeremy was 5% greater than the maximum that had been agreed. The project instructions stated "Work on this project shall be done on an hourly basis at the rate of $75/hour. The maximum cost for this project as described shall be $500. In the event that it takes more than 6.67 ($500/$75) hours of time to complete the project, the project shall be completed at no additional cost." When questioned, Jeremy stated that the additional $25 was to cover the fees he had to pay to Guru.com. We paid the extra amount without dispute, although we felt Jeremy should have indicated in advance that he would add those fees on top of the charge for his services.
When we launched the completed file we discovered that it could not accomodate more than 11 items in the slideshow. As soon as a 12th item was added Jeremy's file slowed to a crawl and ceased working. I explained to Jeremy that the file was not working correctly and that I could not show it to the ultimate client for approval until it worked correctly as described in the project definition.
Jeremy's response was that he had built the file based on having 9 items since there were 9 items in the fictitios sample data. He said it would take him an additional 5 hours to fix the file and that if I wanted to pay him for another 5 hours he would go ahead and fix it. I explained to him that while the sample data happened to have 9 items it was made clear from the very beginning that the final product needed to support a varying number of items and requested that he correct the problems under the original terms of the agreement. At this time Jeremy reluctantly made the corrections to his work and changed his feedback rating and comments on us from a five star rating with complimentary feedback to the one star rating and comments you now see.
Conclusions:
It is very unfortunate that this project, which went very smoothly up until the very end, ended poorly due to Jeremy's inability to adhere to the project specifications. While I remain very impressed with Jeremy's technical abilities in Flash, I am severely dissapointed in Jeremy's professionalism and reliability. I would strongly discourage anyone from hiring Jeremy on anything other than a fixed price basis with payment upon completion and final client review.
for
Dynamic Flash Slideshow