Billing hours for a consultant waiting on hardware

(Based on about a decade in the gig economy)

If you reported the problem to the staffing company early in the process (i.e., Monday afternoon), it would be reasonable for them to work with the client and either reassign your time or release you to go home until the problem is resolved.

Conversely, if you waited until the next week to even inform the staffing company, then it's not reasonable to require them, nor the client, to pay for services you didn't render.

You cannot push the client to do anything, as far as I understand the situation.

What you can do is to discuss the topic with your employer (i.e., whomever you have a contractual relationship to), and ask them how to proceed. Explain that you definitely do not want to get less money just for the client's blunder.

It is your employer's duty to make sure you get paid. Either the employer convinces the client to pay, or the employer will charge the client more during the next businesses together.

If your employer decides that it is you who pay the money (actually to not get them) then you obviously need to find another employer.

If you really want to fight, you have to talk to a specialized lawyer, and follow their advice. But going this way is not going to bring you real happiness, most likely. The judicial system can be quite tricky sometimes.

As a subcontractor, you have a whole layered set of expectations to deal with.

The client expects to only pay for hours worked - they didn’t ask you to wait around, you could have done other things with that time (working x hours on multiple clients is very common). They reasonably expect to pay 15.

The consulting firm doesn’t owe you 40 billable hours a week unless you/your sub firm has a contract that says that, and that would be unusual. They’re only going to pay your sub firm 15. If you were a regular they were using from gig to gig they might float you some hours and have you do internal work, but as a new starter that’s not really feasible.

Armchair lawyering aside there’s no legal requirements in any of this, it’s why contracting exists, to be exploitative of labor.

Now, you are an employee of the staffing (sub) firm. They may owe you 40 hours of salary if you are salaried. Or if you are hourly, they also only owe you for hours (15). Unless someone said “sit at that desk full time even though you didn’t get your laptop”, you are in a position no different from an hourly employee at McDonald’s who expected to get 30 hours on the schedule this week but only got 15 because the store closed early or the manager cut your shifts - it sucks but there’s no real recourse, that’s hourly work. They can start you whenever, cut you whenever, and reduce hours whenever, all they have to do is pay you for time worked.

If you are really valuable to where the staffing firm or contracting firm wants to spend money to keep you happy and retain you, you could make a case, but you’d need real leverage - you are the only person they could find to do this job in a month of trying; you regularly make big $ for them, etc.

In this case, unfortunately, this is part of the risk of contracting; in general you ask for an hourly rate way above what a salary would be to account for issues like it.

If you are available to work and other conditions by the employer or employer's client make it so you cannot, then you need to be paid for your time. Your state's Department of Labor (EDD in my state, California) would consider what your staffing agency is trying to do as wage theft. Try looking up the written law that applies for your state, and cut and paste into an email to your employer. You don't need to explain it or warm your supervisor up to the idea. You don't need to apologize. Share it just as you find it, and see what response you get.

There are MANY employers who are quick to play fear or ignorance of their employees in such a situation. But if you let them do this once, they'll do it again!

A small excerpt I found, for my state:

In California, the state’s Wage Orders generally define an employee’s hours of work as the “time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer, and includes all the time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so.” Although this basic rule appears relatively straightforward on its face, disputes regarding whether employees are entitled to be paid for time spent engaged in certain activities are increasingly common, and claims alleging that employees should be paid for time spent “on call” or “on standby” are prime examples.

If you are working for a serious consulting company, normally what the company would do is assign you to work on something else until the necessary equipment arrives. That gives you something productive to do that they can pay you for.

If you are being an independent consultant, then you have to work this out with your customer. Point out to them that your costs do not go away while you are standing by waiting for them, and ask them if they want to pay you (possibly negotiating a reduced amount, if they aren't assigning you work) to keep you "on retainer", or accept that they are breaking the contract and will have to negotiate with you when they are ready to pay you. In the latter case they have to accept that you may find other work in the meantime and not be available.

If you are working for a sketchy consulting company, they may try to claim that you are a subcontractor. In which case, tell them that you interpret that as meaning you're free to take assignments elsewhere unless they are paying to keep you available. Or try to find a real consulting company to work for.

As a consultant, very likely you can not do that. Check your contract.

Very likely, the company has still created an hourly report to the client, and that has an hour-based accounting.

I would explain the case to the company. I would express my sorrow that there are delays on administrative nuances.

Do not say that it would not work, taking part on the meetings, answering mails etc, that is work.

If you hire a costly consultant and then they send him to useless meetings, that is their business decision. Although on the long-term you come out better if you focus to customers with lesser ineffective workplace culture.

However, as a consultant, you can not account the hours where you did not work.

Explain to them that logic would dictate to pay for the hours also they get from the client.

If you are in the USA, I believe $100/hr is the lowest for which you should accept such contracts, except if you are in a serious life situation and you have no choice.