Strange client restrictions

[Anonimouse]

One company had coffee bars and restaurants but they didn’t take cash or cards, the money was deducted from your salary, thus contractors cannot purchase tea, buns and lunch.

[BrilloPad]

Investors in Industry. 1991. Free breakfast and lunch. One tightwad I worked with ate several lunches then beans on toast in the evening!

To be fair, he was permie.....

[jk3838]

Personally I don't mind (in fact welcome) anything that sets me aside from the permies, even the small stuff

e.g. Here we can't use the onsite canteen as it's subsidized

Not only can I add it to my file of 'not an employee' (not major evidence obviously), but it also shows the permies that I don't work here.

[Hobosapien]

Personally I don't mind (in fact welcome) anything that sets me aside from the permies, even the small stuff

e.g. Here we can't use the onsite canteen as it's subsidized

Not only can I add it to my file of 'not an employee' (not major evidence obviously), but it also shows the permies that I don't work here.

Yet from next April the client will still likely deem you inside IR35 and lump the canteen exclusion in with all the other employee benefits they aren't giving you.

HMRC only interested in employee related taxes not employee related rights.

[jk3838]

HMRC only interested in employee related taxes not employee related rights.

Oh I know, but I still think these little differences don't do any harm

And I won't be here come April

[westtester]

One site I worked at wouldn't let contractors use their car park. Didn't know this until the day I arrived and got bollocked by the receptionist for parking there.

[LadyPenelope]

I've worked at quite a lot of clientcos with allocated contractor areas - these were typically the offices with no windows where their permies refused to work, filled with broken office furniture, like that bloke in Office Space who was fired but kept coming to work.

It was a way to vent their frustration at how much money we were getting paid.

I've never seen this in 15 years of contracting. What part of the country did this take place in, if you don't mind my asking?

The only difference I experienced at 2 clients (1 mobile phone co, one academic publisher) was perms could work at home on Friday and contractors couldn't. Seemed a bit mean.

Compare and contrast with latest role where perm staff allocated to the programme I was working on were expected to come into office on Friday by their line managers, 'to keep in touch with the team'. Whilst the programme policy was that Fridays were a wfh day, so the contractors all worked from home.

[sludgesurfer]

I once did a 2 week stint witnessing a subsea umbilical being tested for a client at a manufacturing facility at the Walker quayside in Newcastle.

I turned up on day one with my sandwiches and ate them in the canteen with the rest of the guys. That afternoon I refused to sign off the first test due to some inconsistencies in the test results. On day 2, there was a handwritten note on the canteen door saying something to the effect of "staff only". I ate my sandwiches outside.

On day three, with the sun splitting the sky I looked up to try and figure out why it was "raining", only to realise the crane driver in one of the giant cranes was in fact urinating on me.

[LadyPenelope]

I once did a 2 week stint witnessing a subsea umbilical being tested for a client at a manufacturing facility at the Walker quayside in Newcastle.

I turned up on day one with my sandwiches and ate them in the canteen with the rest of the guys. That afternoon I refused to sign off the first test due to some inconsistencies in the test results. On day 2, there was a handwritten note on the canteen door saying something to the effect of "staff only". I ate my sandwiches outside.

On day three, with the sun splitting the sky I looked up to try and figure out why it was "raining", only to realise the crane driver in one of the giant cranes was in fact urinating on me.

Oh good God

[simes]

I think that, right there, has to be the worst contractor experience ever had, heard and related.

Sludge, can I ask what happened on days three and onwards?