Unrealistic deadline change?
This evening at 10:50pm I received an email notifying me of a booking. I had literally just put my head down on the pillow for the night when my phone chimed. I considered leaving it until morning, but luckily I decided to check and saw that it was a booking. Upon viewing the details of the project, I noticed that the deadline given was 4:20am, a mere 6 hours later.
Is this a new timing feature? I understand wanting a project completed as quickly as possible for a client, but 6 hours as an overnight deadline seems quite unrealistic.
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Hi Chuck,
Hope you are doing well!
Thanks for bringing up the concern about project invitations at odd hours. We appreciate your feedback, and we want to clarify how our system operates.
Our platform caters to clients from around the world, and regardless of their location, the deadlines for projects remain the same. We strive to provide clients with access to a diverse pool of talented Pros who can fulfill their requests, which means that projects may reach Pros in different time zones, including odd hours.
While we understand that managing work during unconventional hours can be challenging, restricting project invitations by location is not a viable solution. Doing so would limit opportunities for Pros willing to work during those times, as well as for those located in other countries who possess the necessary skills or language proficiency required for the project.
We value your understanding of the global nature of our platform and appreciate your flexibility in handling project invitations across different time zones. If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to reach out!
Best regards,
Gabriela Schneider
Hi Gabriela!
I can understand keeping tight deadlines for Speedies and Contests, where many Pros around the world are available to participate at any time of the day, but in this case it was a booking, where the client specifically picked me. And especially considering the global nature of the platform, where a client can book a pro while he or she is in bed for the night, it seems unrealistic that the deadline to submit the voiceover for a booking is just 6 hours. A Pro could be asleep, be booked for a project, and miss the deadline all before their alarm clock goes off in the morning and they were even aware about it.
If a client is in, say, Australia, do they know that the time zone of the Pro that they're booking (for example GMT-5) means they might not get their voiceover in a timely manner?
Until recently, I was seeing project deadlines for booking at 24 hours. I assumed that was to allow for clients booking Pros in time zones many hours apart. I think that a 16-hour deadline could be workable (an 8-hour deadline after the Pro sees the notification after 8 hours of sleep) but a 6-hour deadline for bookings on a global platform is really tight.
My 2 cents.
Chuck