The lowest quote came from a Pakistani fellow. His credentials and portfolio looked decent, so I thought - "What the heck!?", lets try this out. My specs were very detailed, the whole India -Pakistan hostility would not matter in a simple one page project, right?
As this Pakistani dev started working on the project, I tried to encourage him more than I normally would at the start of the project. He responded saying - he would get this small work done in a few HOURS. I was impressed with his confidence.
The next DAY he sent in his first draft. It had more mistakes than I could make even if I was trying deliberately. I was pissed off as I copied lines from the specs pointing out the problems. As I wrote down the feedback I thought - I could have written the code for this in the same time I am spending giving the feedback. I wanted to cancel the project.
However, strangely, a part of me made me feel like I am leading the Indo-Pak peace talks and saying or doing anything negative will be bad for the greater good of humanity. My friends laughed at me as over the next couple of days I spent an hour each day teaching this guy basic things like Validation, filters, avoiding SQL injection and more.
At the end of it all I gave him a small bonus, I wanted to end the relationship on a good note. It seems crazy to me now, but I felt I needed to compensate him for the extra time he spent(Which was his fault).
Today I just went back to this free lancing site to look at this guys history out of curiosity. I saw that I was the only positive rating he got out of the 5 projects he completed.
hmmm...
