[mikester]

Integrity.

I took a small job on the side to build a network for a company for a friend of a friend.

We had a verbal agreement, I know that's lame but it wasn't a lot of work and I wasn't worried about it. It's a tight knit network of friends who are generally pretty honest with each other.

I do the work;

Setup the network - just a couple of switches, a router, firewall, internet connection, DMZ, access-lists and VPN Remote access.

The usual.

We had an agreed upon rate.

I worked on it for about 6 1/2 hours installing and configuring. My knowledge an expertise got it up and running and operational very quickly (in my opinion). Less than a day's work in full - I had estimated 8 hours.

All of this was verbal.

Now he wants to cut my rate in half.

HALF!

My buddy who I was managing this with is talking to the owner (friend of a friend) about it. There isn't much of anything I can or care to do about it more than discuss it, get what I can and walk away. Of course - in the future if we continue this effort I'll get contracts together.

The questions are though - where is the integrity?

What would you do? They asked me to set this up so that I could offer them an ongoing support contract as well. Of course I won't be doing that now probably regardless of the situation. I have that remote access. I can wipe the configs (take my ball and go home). They have their hardware and they can hire someone else to configure it for them. I of course would walk away with nothing but malice at that point.

I am not the sort of person who would do that kind of thing. Sure I thought of the possibility but for me it isn't an option. Especially in this situation - just some extra funds - a little fun money.

Dorks.