How do we all feel about tracking time?
Bowl Leader
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I’m making 55k in Chicago. Am I underpaid?
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Bowl Leader
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I started a small agency at the end of last year. No timesheets, no tracking hours. No impact on profitability.
Everyone always says “it’s so that we can track time and tell the client we need more people” but I have yet to see that promise come to fruition.
We are always told “put in all the hours, even if you worked 13 hours a day” but when you do you get the “guys we’re putting in too many hours”.
It’s all a load of wagyu-grade malarkey.
And if that actually pans out for you, then power to you. But in my experience that theory only works until R1 and quickly gives way to “well we gotta deliver the work”.
I'm at a shop that doesn't do timesheets. So effing liberating.
We have a lot of established clients that we have a track record with. So that helps. We've also got media, social, and a lot of production and post-production capabilities built in-house. So there are a lot of points of revenue. But the most important factor is that we're fiercely independent, and agency decision makers get to make the call on what work we may make or lose money on. Try a holding company telling that to its stakeholders.
Lies. All lies.
I’ve been through so many different time tracking systems both as an IC and as a manager of peeps. It’s all vaporware with varying levels of hassle and pain for everyone.
It’s toxic garbage. if I work efficiently and land an idea fast, then it looks like I’m not working hard enough. If I’m anxious and need overworking to prove “how dedicated I am” I’m not efficient, OR rewarded for “really giving it my all”. So then should we round up? Or down? sometimes I’m distracted and something takes longer than it should. Is that time billable? Then don’t get me started on the agencies that tell people to pad their time cause negotiations are happening. And if I’m thinking on a brief and crack it during down time, is that billable? Then all my time is billable.
Personally I am not a fan, but I do see the benefits from it in a business perspective and trying to make sure we are staying profitable.
I’ve been with agencies that fail to use the information to benefit them. They allow scope creep and don’t have the coconuts to tell a client no. So they give away more free work than they profit from.
I’ve also worked with an agency that actually billed the client for the time and it made more sense and it wasn’t as bad because we were more organized on the process and strict on how many hours we were truly going to spend on a project. Those clients were larger and usually didn’t stress over it.
Bowl Leader
This is a very common story. Everything ends up being undersold at least 80% of the time. We do charge overage if there is too much scope creep.
The idea of clocking in and out like factory workers feels stifling to our free flowing spirits. It's like asking a bird to sing on command. It just ain't natural.