The dark side calls.

[Appydaze]

Dark side calls here too!!

£450 per day (6months) vs £70k + Benefits

What should I go for? ...been contracting for 12 years....been a bit patchy last couple of years though! !

[Elliegirl]

Woolworths.
Marconi.
Polly Peck.
Carillion.

That's off the top of my head so there's likely quite a lot more.

Polly peck.
You can do SOOO much better than that!

[simes]

You know you'll regret it, don't you?

You've heard that going back to perm never lasts more than a year. I'd heard that too, but I thought that I would be different. Oh yes.
As someone who has walked this road let me tell you how it panned out for me.

I'd got a bit tired of being away from home so often. I also felt that I had made enough money contracting and as I was offered a permie job that was commutable from home I took it. I thought I'd do it for a final few years as I eased gracefully into retirement. Seemed perfect, right?
I lasted a year before I had to quit too. Not had to as in 'forced out' but for my own sanity.

If you've been contracting for a while becoming a permie again is just horrid. You have probably forgotten what it was like: team meetings, lack of decision-making, needing to consult on everything (getting every brain in the game, even the dumb ones), absurd appraisals (I'm old school: if you don't want me, tell me to **** off and I'll go. But please don't torment me with developmental reviews and how I can improve my performance. Just **** right off!), team building activities, grievances, forced interactions with arseholes across the company, playing corporate games, woke whingeing at its finest, and generally becoming a suit, a drone, a Borg.
Also, you can't get anything done at all. You identify a training need for one of your staff, say, then spend months fighting HR, budgets, the training liaison manager or whoever to arrange the training and eventually just give up because the bureaucracy is impenetrable.
You want a new USB? As a contractor, you ask the client to provide one and if they don't, so what? Their ball, their game. But as an employee, it's now your ball and your game. You have to fight procurement and budgets, IT and IS security and if you're lucky you may get one in a month...all for a ******* USB!

You have to deal with staff and all of their petty tulipe, such as -
I need to work from home ALL ******* DAY because, well, take your pick: My dog's ill/I'm a lazy ****/If you complain I'll go straight to HR and mire you in a grievance/the precedent is set/INSET day at the school/I have a hole in my arse
You asking me to actually do some ******* work is putting me under pressure. I feel harassed. Here come the unions and HR to tie you up in grievances and paperwork for the rest of your life......
Why have you ranked person B above me? Is it because I am the youngest/oldest/fattest/thinnest? You're discriminating against young/old/fat/thin people! [Real answer - because you're a lazy twat who does **** all but complain]

Honestly, all permies do is ******* whinge. As a contractor it ain't your problem. As their boss, it is now your problem.

Come back in 12 months and let us know how you got on.

That was hilarious.

Spot on.

[Mr_Z]

interesting thread - shut down options

Some interesting/understandable cautionary views.
No doubt a decision many are wrestling with.

To aid forward planning what is tricky is a lack of any unambiguous confirmation of various shut down options (MVL vs strike off) & their future impact

I know these have been done to death & i may have missed a key thread or sticky, but seems to be much contradictory info on the web (& this great forum) & some accountants cannot be fully replied upon it seems for accurate info...

Perhaps this is in the wrong section but can anyone in the know clarify:

1. For a voluntary strike off (not an mvl liquidation) where Dividends have reduced profit to <25k and a capital distribution (with or without ER claimed) is then taken, do the TAAR (or any other) two year rules apply to prohibit opening another company without losing the capital gain advantage?

2. For a shut down via MVL, if permiedom or semi-retirement or job hunting doesnt work out, can you def come back via an Umbrella within 2 years without any issues on this score?

Even if intention is firmly to shut down & go perm or retire, understanding the options clearly helps

[Paralytic]

deleted

[jamesbrown]

So you have to wait until Dave retires/leaves/gets hit by a bus.

Take a year out and become a bus driver.

[tsmith]

Ha, Ha...thanks for the cautionary warning. I need it. I dont call it the dark side for nothing.
I last ditched contracting back in 2001 when the dot com boom crashed and burned. I lasted about 3 years.
I ended up in a city brokerage (of the old school) where my boss would do coke at lunchtime, and would crow to the obnoxious pimply traders that the only reason he hired an overabundance of
pretty young secretaries was that they were so nice to look at. It was like being at a testosterone overdosed male boarding school.
still, I picked up useful experience, and got snapped up at a vastly increased contractor rate when I jumped ship....and its payed off well over the last sixteen years.
Now, a different kind of storm is blowing in...nonsense regulations. times are looking increasingly tough for us.
I've been given a great offer at a place I like working at....perhaps I need a harbour to park my ship for a while. I know a lot of you would do the same in my position.
let's see where all this IR35 nonsense takes us.
After all, Permanent never really means Permanent.

Ha love this " As a contractor you feel like you're getting paid for your time, as permie you feel like you're being punished for doing something very wrong in a previous life."

The problem with perm if youre not in a 'hockey stick' growth organisation. Things tend to move very slowly. Way way too slowly. So how much impact can you make in a year.

Probably not that much. And its difficult for an "A player" to stand out. Once you hit a certain level of promotion. Theres not that many more places left above you. Dave the CTO has been there 10 years. Hes not going anywhere soon. So you have to wait until Dave retires/leaves/gets hit by a bus.

But how long is that going to be 5 years, 10, 20?

[fargaman]

You know you'll regret it, don't you?

Ha, Ha...thanks for the cautionary warning. I need it. I dont call it the dark side for nothing.
I last ditched contracting back in 2001 when the dot com boom crashed and burned. I lasted about 3 years.
I ended up in a city brokerage (of the old school) where my boss would do coke at lunchtime, and would crow to the obnoxious pimply traders that the only reason he hired an overabundance of
pretty young secretaries was that they were so nice to look at. It was like being at a testosterone overdosed male boarding school.
still, I picked up useful experience, and got snapped up at a vastly increased contractor rate when I jumped ship....and its payed off well over the last sixteen years.
Now, a different kind of storm is blowing in...nonsense regulations. times are looking increasingly tough for us.
I've been given a great offer at a place I like working at....perhaps I need a harbour to park my ship for a while. I know a lot of you would do the same in my position.
let's see where all this IR35 nonsense takes us.
After all, Permanent never really means Permanent.

[krytonsheep]

went permanent in 2015 & I lasted four months. .I'm not proud of that but more or less from day one I regretted it & just had this overwhelming feeling of dread every day until the day I left.

I managed 3 months a while back (good salary, no commute) but each day I could feel the life being sucked out of me in increasing amounts. Absolutely soul destroying. As a contractor you feel like you're getting paid for your time, as permie you feel like you're being punished for doing something very wrong in a previous life.

[GhostofTarbera]

Absolutely spot on. You hit the nail on the head! I went permanent in 2015 & I lasted four months. I'm not proud of that but more or less from day one I regretted it & just had this overwhelming feeling of dread every day until the day I left. Hideous.

2015 was the land of milk and honey for contractors

Different world now, no contracts no limited company’s rate cuts


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