Ajax Kill Switch

Various medium-sized businesses, for whom I performed contractual web design duties, decided to withhold payment on completed projects.

Having exhausted all usual negotiation avenues in a previously trustworthy arrangement, I needed a bargaining chip. The demonstrated kill switch approach has proven itself invaluable.

This was my only option due to the arrangement. The work in question had to be delivered before any transfer of money was considered. There is very little a freelancer can do to enforce payment at this point. To be honest, I should have solidified the terms of the deal, lesson learnt!

While I was eventually paid, extending projects beyond the initial discussed requirements was a trick often used to delay proceedings.

Functionality and layout changes. ‘Not quite what we had in mind, from the description it seems quite obvious what we required.’
Sweeping design changes. ‘We now require a new style for (whatever!) page.’
When the work was eventually accepted, payment was delayed through bureacracy.
‘The managing director has to approve that invoice’. ‘I'm sorry, that invoice seems to have got lost in accounts’ and so on…

I also had the opportunity to work directly with some ridiculously demanding clients via these small businesses. Draft designs had to match perfectly (to the pixel!), must look identical in IE6 (not simply work!) etc.

Once those specs were met, they changed. A complete waste of time and money.

While some of you may have been lucky, I have had too many opportunities to experience the frustration described above. Inevitably ‘standard business practice’ and the associated characters get in the way.

I eventually bored of being taken advantage of, hence the resulting Ajax Kill Switch approach.

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AJAX Kill Switch

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