Monday, September 12, 2011

Good friends screw each other over

I had to create a little spreadsheet of who gets charged how much for tutoring. I have this fear that someone will stand at the door with their checkbook asking how much they owe me, and my mind will go blank and they will underpay me and then I will be too embarrassed to say anything.

So I update the spreadsheet each time someone pays me, and each time someone agrees on the rate they'll pay me, and each time I tutor. The part that seems weird is that people will refer me to their friends, and they are fine with telling their friends I charge more than they get charged. They see nothing wrong with this. Obviously I'm not going to argue - if they're fine with it, I'll be fine with taking their money. But it sure doesn't seem very friendshippy.

2 comments:

Kizz said...

They may tell their friends because the fact is, they're getting a discount for getting in on the ground floor with you. The friends pay the next tier rate because they came in later. Like getting the early bird rate for a concert or conference ticket. They'd also rather have you have plenty of work so you can keep tutoring their kids at the current rate.

Anonymous said...

Or sometimes people simply like to say they pay more to stroke their egos about their worth.