I have a day job and do some side contracting work off and on. The extra work I do is good paying, I can work from home, in my jammies, at night when my kids are in bed. There isn't a lot of this work floating around as most companies like to do it in house, but that said there aren't many of us with that skill who don't charge an arm and a leg to do it. So I'm always happy to get some new stuff handed to me.
This weekend I received a text from a friend asking me how long I thought it would take her to learn how to do this type of work I do on the side. I said not too long, which is true for some aspects of it, but other parts, like understanding and editing xmls can take some time to figure out. Then I didn't hear back from her right away. A little background on this person, she works for a good company but is being pushed to go back to work more days than she wants to as she has a 2 year old at home. She is pushing to keep the status quo but is thinking about quitting and doing contract work. She has a partner who makes killer money so she is free enough to pick and choose and wants free time to go on trips and hang with her kid. I on the other hand have a partner with a moderate income and have my eye on early-ish retirement so I want to make as much money as I can.
Meanwhile that same day I get a text from another friend who works for the same company as my friend, letting me know that she recommended me for some contract work that they needed to get done. I said, great, thanks...and then had that oh, crap moment and went and checked my text feed from my other friend where her last text said that she's thinking of quitting and pursuing contract work.
Essentially friend 1 knew that there was work coming up, is thinking of quitting and wanted me to train her so she could do this same type of side work. I said, hey we can talk about it and see if we can come up with an arrangement, depending on how much work there is and how busy I am.
I had a conversation with the contract manager this morning and my friend followed up with me to see if I had spoken with him, which I said yes, then I never heard back from her. I'm not sure if this is becoming an ackward situation or not.
I think i'm basically being handed this contract assuming they want to pay me what I ask. But I'm having a bit of a conundrum. In some ways I feel like being the nice friend (cause I like her and we hang every now and again), and I get where she is coming from in terms of work life balance, so I think maybe I should share this with her. But, on the other hand, and as my husband pointed out, there is limited work, do I really want to be training someone who is going to be my competition? I will be putting my time into bringing her up to a level that she could do the work, which frankly I'm not super into if I could just be doing the work and making money. Added to that we are on opposite sides of the spectrum where I want to make as much money as possible to not work as soon as possible, and she is wanting to work as little as possible to work as little as possible.
I feel a little like it appears that I am "stealing" work, although she is in no position to bid on the work right now as a) she doesn't know how to do it and b)she is currently working for them in a different capacity.
I'm not stealing work from her, but I have this niggly feeling that this is maybe how she is viewing it. But since we haven't discussed it, I am only speculating madly as I sit at my day job and my imagination kicks in.
Any advice, feedback? You know, other than the logical, "talk to you friend"?