[ale] the truth about contracting?

[Jeff Hubbs]

John Wells wrote:

> Thanks to everyone for the insight. It helped to confirm my suspicions that
> the recruiter was full of BS.  I told him to put wording into the contract
> that would guarantee work for at least a year, and he stumbled all over
> himself ;-).

Woo-hoo!  Another way to accomplish the same thing - one that's actually 
better for you than "guaranteeing work for a year" - is to make sure 
they guarantee "payment for a year's worth of work" instead."  This way, 
  they're on the hook to pay you even if they have no work for you.

Lest anyone think that's too greedy, consider that, with the volatility 
and nuttiness in this industry, securing a contractor's services for a 
given amount of time in the future does restrict his/her ability to plan 
for and secure work in the future.  It's this kind of "play or pay" 
clause that results in the occasional Hollywood star getting paid 
however many millions to NOT make a movie.  It sounds ridiculous at 
first, but what it really does is pay the star for having blocked out a 
big span of time and then finding out that that time can now be released 
BUT too late to really do anything about filling the gap with anything 
else.  Just being a Hollywood star is expensive.

- Jeff



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