I found this company hiring a part time web developer on CL. I replied and was hired over the phone, then I came into the office on Thursday for an introduction. I told Mark, the manager, that I was a student and I was only able to work on certain days during the week, a total of about 25 hrs/week.
I worked on friday and finished a project that he wanted to be done on Monday during the weekend. That project took me about 12 hrs in total and he release the work to the client and they were satisfied. I came in again and worked for another 9 hrs on a script for a website they were developing. On Wednesday I worked for another hour remotely on my third project because I could not come into the office due to class, which I repeatedly told them. I called them on Thursday, and they told me why I did not come in on Wednesday and I repeated to them again that I had class and I could not come in on that day.
From then on, I discovered that they didnt want me to come in again, and I was ok with that, they seemed to be on their own schdeuales and it conflicted with my scheduale. They seemed to be nice people, and I assumed that I would get paid for the projects that I completed for them. As I continued to call them over abd over about my compensation, they habitually gave me the run around. They told me things were tight in their company and told me to call me again in 1 month after their 'financial meeting' they were going to have. I called after a month since I wanted to be polite and patient, same deal.
I was totally shocked because they seemed like such nice people at first, then they turned out to be Dr. Jeckyl/Mr. Hyde to me.
In the end, I did not get payed for my ~25 hrs of time, and I discovered that I was not actually employed by them, but I was hired as an independent contractor, which in California is not as protected as employees. It was kind of my fault as well because I could have easily called the clients that I did work for but I did not record the companies and contact people of those companies, and finally I was unable to track them down.
Just a word of caution! Protect your interests at all time.
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