More often than we would like, we get inquiries from clients—as do other companies and freelancers I might presume—to take on “small” projects which are due “yesterday”. We understand that there are things thatactually need to be done urgently, things such as surgery, or putting out a fire. However, we are neither surgeons, nor firemen; we’re Web designers.

The thing is, when someone is making a request that requires urgency on vendor’s behalf, it’s usually to cover up someone else’s screw–up. Someone didn’t do their job well enough (for whatever reason, this could be completely legitimate by the way), so you are being brought in to make up for the lost time.

Now, this is a very tricky situation to be in, from the way I see it, there are a couple of acceptable ways to handle these requests:

• charge a premium rate for the job because you are performing a premium service (getting them out of a jam), or
• do not accept this kind of work because you have wore your nerves thin over the years, and you’ve experienced how these projects usually go.

On one hand, there’s a voice inside your head telling you that this will be aquickie; you and the team will roll up the sleeves and get some of that easy money. On the other, you know that things are never black and white, and that the all too familiar scenario might repeat: the deadline suddenly isn’t all that urgent anymore leaving you with a project that will linger on forever, there is “just one more little thing”, the client doesn’t have the content ready yet expects you to do your job, the list goes on… However, if you protect yourself well—polar bear style—through a good contract covering these situations, you may avoid most of the damage, but you will still be stuck with that foul taste in your mouth.

On the other hand, sometimes these projects really do breeze through before you can even realize that you’ve started them, but that’s rarely the case. Odds are that things will get messy.

The point is, if you decide to take on a job like this make sure that:

• the client is really important to you,
• that you are covering all your bases by charging a premium rate,
• that your back is covered by a good contract addressing all the what if’s,
• you are ready to deal with the fact that the project might change it’s course drastically.

Or just decide to, you know, pass.