We all know that many people are losing jobs, finding it harder to find jobs and earning money for a living. But is it stupid to not accept payments for services that you know that can earn a bit of amount? My example is that I promised a co-faculty to give her a christmas present when she returns for her vacation. The gift was a CISS for her printer with the waste ink tank. I installed it on her printer before she returned, but when she got back, she asked me how much i would be charging her. I told her it was a gift, but she insisted to pay me for the labor and the parts. I rejected her payment because it was a gift. But in the long-run, i accepted a free meal which was like less than a US dollar, or 40 pesos here, after she insisted that she will just pay for the meal, even if it was for 1-time only. I even overheard her telling another co-faculty of ours, that she will insist buying me lunch for the entire week. So the question here is,Does the world really expects you to receive payments for services you do even if you call it as a gift? Or just being nice?
Not everyone is that nice and thankful, but for the most part people do want to look good themselves so a small fee is not a problem.
Yeah, I just accepted the meal cause i don't want her to get mad and might give me back the CISS... But at least she was happy with my gift. I only paid like 20 bucks for the entire kit including 4 -100ml bottles of ink for the Epson. The stores cost like from the range of 40-70 USD to install the CISS and without the waste ink tank. Maybe you are right. She said we should have a mutual relationship, which I told her, it was a mutual relationship. She lets me use her printer, and I supplied the ink. But when she offered me payments, I feel like its not anymore mutual. Its just the way with me, that why I asked the question if it was stupid not to accept payments for services.
as the guy who knows more things about computer than most of my neighbors i am usually ask to fix some problems in there computer and i feel awkward when they pay me thinking about should i get it or not
Same here bud, I also feel awkward to accept payments, but if you look for practically in these days, almost everyone is getting paid top bucks for services we do. But my problem is that I learned to fix things for free, so why should i get payment for something that i didn't spend a dime on? But for example that I paid to learn to become a doctor and spent almost a million on it, I think i deserve to earn back what I spent, right?
No, because when you "pay to learn to become a doctor", you are investing in yourself to obtain and/or improve the skills you need to do your job. However, if you do a crappy job, you don't deserve to earn your "investment" back. I think you are trying to think along the lines of, "if the task I have done has cost me money from my pocket, then I should be reimbursed for my costs." In which, yes, you should, given that you supply the receipts.
Am I the only one who has a big fear of giving a large sum of money to people physically? Like me physically holding the 100$ note. But I'm not afraid of spending 200$ online, via a credit card or something similar.
I don't personally see anything wrong with it... though I agree with the OP about the gift thing. I believe that if the person asks me to do it and I don't get anything out of it, I think they should pay me... there are exceptions of course: if my grandmother asks me to get in some wood for her (she has used a wood stove for nearly all her life, and though she does have a monitor heater, she likes to burn wood as well) I wouldn't dream of charging her anything, because on top of helping my grandmother with something (she's done a lot for me over the years, so it's more than a fair trade) I also get a bit of exercise (carrying large logs of wood over 200 yards or so to her woodpile. if, on the other hand, a random neighbor decides they want me to fix their computer, you'd better be damned that I'm charging them, especially if it's something they did to it themselves. I was my neighborhood's "computer guy" for about six months before I started charging... went from 4-5 calls a week to 4-5 calls a month. and I didn't charge an arm and a leg, just enough to make it worth my while to get there and back, and maybe enough to pick up a drink on the way home... I make about 400 dollars off of ~20 people put together. I started charging mostly out of frustration (6 calls in a week by the same person for the same problem after i'd fixed it twice already and showed him how to do it himself twice (related to some obscure internet site he'd found, it installed a toolbar that kept popping up porn sites and he called me every time it popped up, even though I'd told him not to install anything and to stop going to that site... it wasn't even a porn site, it was a video site, like youtube. I charged him on the fourth time I went over there and he never called me again about it.)) it may come off a bit selfish of me, but gas costs money and food ain't free. I won't charge ridiculous prices, but I will get something usually. -jason
