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I am new on upwork.com. I had a micro-project on it. The project was written out as a 4.5 hour-long project. In the proposal description it was clear that it can be done in that time.

So I applied for it, and I got the contract.

The customer had quite a problematic personality:

  • He was unable to clearly formulate what he wants. He communicated in gibberish and unclear, short sentences.
  • Instead of development, he thought on some type of collective work. I.e. we both work on the task. In this time, he has seen what I am doing, but he never committed anything. It's probable that he worked in parallel with me, on the same task, and used my code only as a reference.
  • He regularly had expectations that I should do things as he is doing them. But he contributed only some mutilated code lines, from which it was not clear what expectations it should fulfill.

These problems caused the project to go on for four days.

After that, he removed the strong time requirement. He did not say that we are late, but he disappeared.

I think this is the case where both parties say that the other was bad, except that I can't say this about a paying customer; furthermore he is the paying customer both for me and for Upwork.

My other Upwork projects went (are going) very well compared to this.

Actually, the task was not a big one, and I think I would be more happy if the customer would simply disappear and our project would simply disappear. The loss of the money (and time) would be a nuance, compared to the problem what a terrible feedback would cause.

What could I do to silently leave the project, without seriously affecting my Upwork stats? The customer does not look as if he would have a hostile attitude to me, and I would be also very happy if it would remain so. He did not mention being unsatisfied whatsoever, and I think it would be the best if that didn't change.

Spevacus
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Gray Sheep
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  • The customer re-appeared, he is still friendly and we agreed a final step. Probably everything will be okay. Should I delete this question? – Gray Sheep Sep 29 '20 at 18:23
  • Yes, you can close the question! – MurtazaA Sep 30 '20 at 06:37
  • @MurtazaA I can not close, at most I can flag it for closure. I asked about its deletion. – Gray Sheep Sep 30 '20 at 10:45
  • Sure, just delete it if you think your problem is solved! – MurtazaA Sep 30 '20 at 10:48
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    Be aware that deleting a lot of your own questions will earn an automatic question ban after a while. – Canadian Luke Sep 30 '20 at 16:37
  • I know the question is related to a personal problem but you should keep it open and choose an answer, or answer it yourself so that others can use this as a source of knowledge when that happens to them. – Magus Nov 13 '21 at 20:16
  • @Magus I could write an answer: upwork.com knows that some customers are... "heavy", furthermore they happen with roughly equal probability among the freelancers. Thus, the chance of that you will have bad luck multiple times, is very low. In my personal case, this customer, although wasted a week for me, but ultimately paid, offered new projects and probably gave a good feedback. But I was not so lucky with another one. The result is that I still have a quite good, although not exceptional rating here. Today I do not use them (my current job forbids it) but I could get projects any time. – Gray Sheep Nov 14 '21 at 20:34
  • @Magus Probably there is no way to delete a contract on the upwork.com, but probably it can be closed in good standing (and with good feedback), but very likely it requires the cooperation of the customer, too. So there is no way to silently leave out, but some bud luck is tolerated by the company. I could summerize these into a self-answer, should I? – Gray Sheep Nov 14 '21 at 20:38
  • You should! This is all good information about upwork and for freelancing in general, I'm sure someone will benefit from it. – Magus Nov 15 '21 at 01:25

1 Answers1

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Most importantly: upwork.com knows that some customers are... "heavy" and they consider it in your (disclosed) rate calculation.

Furthermore, such bad luck happens with roughly equal probability among the freelancers. Thus, the chance of that you will have bad luck multiple times, is very low. In my personal case, this customer, although wasted a week for me, but ultimately paid, offered new projects and probably gave a good feedback. But I was not so lucky with another one. The result is that I still have a quite good, although not exceptional rating here. Today I do not use them (my current job forbids it) but I could get projects any time.

The most important thing: do not over-estimate the importance of single case bad lucks, the top prio is your average result.

Probably there is no way to delete a contract on the upwork.com, but probably it can be closed in good standing (and with good feedback), but very likely it requires the cooperation of the customer, too. So there is no way to silently leave out, but some bud luck is tolerated by the company.

The UI what the customers see... well it is not better than the developers see. Many seemingly non-cooperativity of the customers roots that they have no idea, what and where to click on their UI.

Beside these, I also accepted and did some not economical projects with the goal to improve my rating. As the details of the rating calculation are not known, I have no way to know, how much did it help.

Gray Sheep
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