Hourly work: fire a freelancer or leave and conduct explanatory conversations?

Question

Freelance

I hired a freelancer through freelancing with payment by the hour (such a project), we use the timetracker program to take screenshots of his work, we stopped at tahometer.com
As a result, I noticed a similar picture:
[18:10:10] Anton: I noticed strangers on your monitor open programs
[18:10:10] Anton: videos
[18:10:16] Anton: and some
manuals [18:10:47] Anton: is this a joke? somehow unprofessional (
[19:39:20] Borshchik: can I have a list of screenshots?
[19:39:48] Borshchik: where can you see my not "professional" behavior?
[19:42:11] Anton: [links to screenshots]
[19:47:54] Borshchik: three screenshots showing how the project is open and work is going on, and on the other screen I have something open that is not related to the project, is this unprofessional? this is not a joke, why would it be a joke?
I turn to you for advice: to drive such a programmer in the neck, or is it possible to somehow explain to him in a popular way how to work productively on a project?
I forgot to mention, the job is paid by the hour.

Answer 1

There are studies about human multitasking, they usually say that a person copes with two parallel tasks worse than if he did them sequentially.
I would not be able to, but there are unique personalities, you need to look at the final result.

Answer 2

To drive such customers in the neck!

Answer 3

And what makes you think that you know better how to work more productively for him? I have a coder who does his job and watches serials in the original in English at the same time - he is learning the language. He has a small window with a video in the corner of the screen on top of everything. It does not affect the speed and quality of its work at all. He's so comfortable. Why should I forbid him something? Someone will listen to music in parallel with work. Someone on a tablet will check some kind of toy every 30 minutes - you won’t track all this, and why? No need to dragon people, are you a slave owner?
UPD: By and large, these nit-picking and disassembly of yours just reduce productivity. You are harming yourself. As colleagues write correctly - to drive such a customer in the neck :)

Answer 4

soon you will finish the project yourself with your productivity.
Therefore, most of the programmers do not work for such customers, so they have taken the habit of following what a freelancer is doing, breathing in the back.
I call these people simply - SNIFFER.
I myself would suggest that the freelancer leave you.
Smell further..

Answer 5

On the one hand, in my opinion, distractions reduce productivity when programming. Listening to music is still okay, but watching videos or reading manuals is probably too much. This is my opinion as a programmer. When I turn on the time tracker, I'm used to being completely immersed in work.
On the other hand, if the customer wrote to me in exactly this language, and then posted correspondence, screenshots on the toaster, and wrote the phrases "to punch in the neck" and "educational conversations", I would think a hundred times whether I would like to work. Hourly pay is good, of course, but there must be mutual respect. It would be worth clarifying, maybe this affects his productivity positively (as many write above)

Answer 6

If you did not discuss this moment with the freelancer in advance, then your claims are inappropriate.
In the general case, the freelancer himself decides how it is more convenient for him to work. Many, for example, listen to music in the background or watch work-related documentation or videos. Along with this, the freelancer needs to take small breaks from time to time to rest.
If this annoys you, then switch to a phased payment for freelancer services. In this case, there is no need for constant monitoring.

Answer 7

I hate hourly pay. I myself work, for example, in a state institution, as an IT specialist, respectively, to be more precise - a programmer (although not a system one, but still). personnel officers absolutely don’t give a damn about what I give at the exit, they don’t give a damn about the result - and if I’m late for an hour and a half, and then I sit until the evening - then this is essentially minus an hour and a half from the salary and at the same time there are no pluses to the salary from the fact that I I sit even after the end of the work shift - at the same time I can stay at night to "work" and sit and drink beer in the office - and this will be counted to me as the fact that I "went out to work." this is a completely crazy scheme, but you have an even more crazy scheme. and judging by your comments, you may be competent as a personnel officer of the Russian type (not obviously European), but you don’t understand anything about what a programmer is and how they work. Our personnel officers, in all seriousness, believe that if I don’t drum my fingers into the keyboard for 8 hours in a row, then I’m shit and I don’t understand anything. Thoughts about what I need to think about and, in general, a good programmer thinks more, writes less - they do not and cannot have. If you climb into the development process from the point of view of organizing the workflow, work as a programmer yourself.

Answer 8

Drive in the neck :) Free the slave, finally :)
You missed the site, here the average contingent is people who work for the result and get paid for what they did, and not for doing nothing but the project.

Answer 9

If it was on three screenshots out of a thousand, then you should not bother, if every second one is like this, then it’s worth considering, there is no information for a definite answer in the question.

Answer 10

I do not see the point in hourly control over the developer.
If a person is at least a little higher than a dumb junior coder, his job is not only development, but also thinking. And thinking takes more time than coding.
As it was correctly written above - split tasks up to 4-8 hourly, make an assessment with a margin of 20% and go ahead.
It’s worth delving into the little things if the actual time spent begins to diverge severely from the estimated time.
You will not be able to work by calculating minutes from an hour for a long time and / or with serious developers.
Personnel shortage in the market is wild. Working for an intermediary with an hourly rate who resells you on the stock exchange - well, this is somehow very strange.
PS If anything, there were ~ 25 people in direct subordination.
PHP, layout, admins, content, ios, android, qa.
The approach has proven to be excellent.
PS On one of the screenshots I saw "global".
2014 is ending. global. here for it - it is really necessary to drive.

Answer 11

If the work is done within the timeframe for which the amount of payment goes beyond the market and the quality of work suits you, then what are the grounds for the claims? I myself am a freelancer and with such a claim, the customer would have to finish his project himself, it’s better to lose a little than to work with inadequate ones. Or, according to your work, worth a conditional $ 1000, should he do it for $ 100 only because it can shrink in time to the detriment of comfort? If you don't like it this way, switch to fixed-price and stay away from the person.

Answer 12

You have to work not by the clock, but by the head. This is first. Secondly, if the use of spyware has not been previously agreed - this is generally a criminal offense, you are probably stealing passwords, appearances and credit cards from him. Well, that is, he can say so and will be absolutely right, goons must be punished. How exactly, besides the obviously curved metric "project open - project not open", are you going to measure the productivity of a programmer, except for short sprints and fixing tasks? What do you care what he's doing? Paying by the hour, like paying poets line by line, is terribly unproductive.

Answer 13

It is very unethical to post screenshots of someone else's screen and correspondence. If you don't like the speed of work - break up, if you like it - forget it. Even if paid by the hour, a person has 15 minutes of rest from that hour. The smartest thing is to estimate tasks in hours in advance. Managed earlier - there was more free time. If you don't have time, you work harder. And hourly pay in its current form is some kind of slavery.

Answer 14

and what is wrong??
Work in progress

Answer 15

What do you care what he has on the screen?! I would not show the screen at all, and if I did, then for the price of the cutoff.

Answer 16

I don’t like that you are discussing a person and his professionalism behind his back, so don’t interfere with work, there are no complaints, don’t touch it, otherwise they may write to you that others will not want to work with you

Answer 17

Dear commenters, I forgot to mention that the freelancer was hired on an hourly basis.

Answer 18

I always watch or listen to vids in parallel, should I die of boredom?

Answer 19

It is quite a normal situation if a person really works in parallel. I do it myself, it practically does not affect productivity.

Answer 20

I support a freelancer, because himself, if he is only busy with a project, then his head begins to swell in the second hour of work. If, in parallel, scroll through some kind of crap or launch videos, then at least the productivity decreases a little, but in this rhythm I can work over eight hours without lunch breaks :)

Answer 21

easiest picture

Answer 22

Pure CSS, multiple background gradients
https://jsfiddle.net/qwf3cor2/

body {
  background: #C79B4B;
}
div {
  width: 200px;
  height: 60px;
  line-height: 60px;
  text-align: center;
  color: #FFF;
  background: 
  linear-gradient(-135deg, #C79B4B 0, #C79B4B 5px, #fff 6px, #fff 8px, transparent 9px, transparent 100%),
  linear-gradient(135deg, #C79B4B 0, #C79B4B 5px, #fff 6px, #fff 8px, transparent 9px, transparent 100%),
  linear-gradient(-45deg, #C79B4B 0, #C79B4B 5px, #fff 6px, #fff 8px, transparent 9px, transparent 100%),
  linear-gradient(45deg, #C79B4B 0, #C79B4B 5px, #fff 6px, #fff 8px, transparent 9px, transparent 100%),
  linear-gradient(to right,#fff 0, #fff 2px, transparent 3px, transparent calc(100% - 3px), #fff calc(100% - 2px), #fff 100%),
  linear-gradient(to bottom, #fff 0, #fff 2px, #f00 3px, #900 calc(100% - 3px), #fff calc(100% - 2px), #fff 100%);
  margin: 30px;
}

Choose the sizes of the corners and the main background gradient yourself.
An alternative is a picture and border-image.

Answer 23

From here, just
make it wider

#octagon {
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  background: red;
  position: relative;
}

#octagon:before {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  border-bottom: 29px solid red;
  border-left: 29px solid #eee;
  border-right: 29px solid #eee;
  width: 42px;
  height: 0;
}

#octagon:after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 0;
  left: 0;
  border-top: 29px solid red;
  border-left: 29px solid #eee;
  border-right: 29px solid #eee;
  width: 42px;
  height: 0;
}

Answer 24

Nothing with CSS.

Answer 25

codepen.io/Geyan/pen/zojRzZ?editors=110 like this