[geeks] Consulting rates [was Re: Backup habits of users (Was: Apple and backup habits of users (Was: Windows backup...))]

[Mouse]

> That's the rate I occasionally quote, even today. When folks ask "How
> much do you charge?"  I can honestly reply "Up to $37,500 an hour,
> but usually less."  [...story...]

That's pretty awesome.

I have a story which is substantially less awesome, but along the same
lines; I suppose I could claim $400-$600 per hour on similar grounds.

Someone had an X program in which he found a particular call returning
BadRequest and was offering $100 to explain what to do about it.  But
when I looked at the code, it turned out the routine was one of the
many that conceptually doesn't return anything and really should be
declared to return void (and are in my X tree, which is how I caught it
so easily).  The usual implementation returns 1, which is the usual
value of BadRequest, but it would have been just as semantically
sensible to ask why it was returning GrayScale or NotifyVirtual (two
other manifest constants, conceptually entirely distinct, which are
also usually defined as 1).

I spent some 10-15 minutes writing up an explanation, and the person
insisted on sending me the $100.  Hence, $400-$600 per hour. :)

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