Charles, I don't really understand why your statement is specific to this industry? You could say that about any job. Take a highly paid lawyer and put him into another area of law where he is getting paid peanuts and you've got the same situation. It would require a change of lifestyle (and I'm not just talking about expensive clothes etc) and changing your goals (can you still afford to go to grad school? Can you still afford to put your kids in private school etc?), that most just don't want to commit to on a f/t basis. Is that wrong? Not if it works for them. My lawyer frequently gets asked by his clients to go to lunch/dinner etc. Sure he goes to one or two with his current and regular clients and he weighs the options of spending time with potential new clients that way but the latter is always contingent on retaining that person as a client. Would he give up billable hours to spend more non-paid time with clients? Hell no! Bottom line is money is a motivator to some degree for almost everyone. Now to what degree it motivates is another angle altogether...but your statement isn't exclusive by any means to jobs in the sex industry.
C x
Originally Posted by Camille
Camille: I can use the industry I am in as a GREAT example, I am in the I.T. world, I do server admin, set up small offices on the side, fix, repair and upgrade machines, set them up etc... and I earn my living doing this. Should I not offer technical advice to people on here without asking for their billing information? Should I tell all my non technical friends that all advice is billable?
As posted you have to weigh what is being asked of you and using your knowledge of your craft whether the fix is a long drawn out one or a quick fix. You must use your knowledge of the person asking the question in a manner like this : do they know how to research it on their own? (google or libraries) do they know HOW to apply the solution or WHAT do to with the knowledge they find?
Sometimes my more technical friends will call me up because they are looking right at the answer but because they are thinking in "high tech" mode they do not see the simple answer.
I do not mind my non technical friends wanting to ask me questions or hanging out with me... I would not expect them to interfere with my job or prevent me from doing a side job to earn income.
If I was just hanging out with a lady on a friend basis, say we went to the mall, and she got a call for an appointment. I would make it a point to get her back to her place so she could keep the appointment but she would need to tell the caller that she might need a few minutes to get home and freshen up. Once she has that confirmed, we are leaving where ever we are at and I am dropping her off so she can fulfill her agreement.
I would not hang around, but would ask her to call me once the visit was over if the guy was not a regular just for a safe call.
But back to technical stuff.... I usually do not quote a price for anything until I know what I am dealing with. Sometimes my fee's are weird, like buy me a burger at the BK if the fix was a wrong setting or 10-20 bucks for the gas... but if its a serious issue, well then the fee gets different but I will tell you up front what the issue is, what the fix is, what I would charge for it and give you a chance to say yay or nay. if you refuse to let me work on it, then you owe me nothing.
So if you get right down to it, everyone on here has a skill set or 3, and everything is billable. But that should not prevent 2 people from just hanging out and getting an ice cream or a lunch. Guy picks a lady up for dinner, pays for dinner and drops her off at her place... total time from pick up to drop off, say 3 hours.. she got fed on his dime instead of her going out and getting food.