First days of a contract

[Lance]

it is being shipped by a 3rd party supplier, so no way to speed it up, I have asked what i can do that doesn't require their kit, but they have said to wait until it arrives.

are you looking for another contract yet?
If not why not?

The laptop could be weeks. There's a global chip shortage.
If they won't pay you for the delay you would be better going elsewhere.

[eek]

it is being shipped by a 3rd party supplier, so no way to speed it up, I have asked what i can do that doesn't require their kit, but they have said to wait until it arrives.

Keep looking as if the end client isn't paying you they have no incentive to fix the issue and laptops are a faff to find at the moment.

As Lance says you may be waiting weeks..

[thesarge]

are you looking for another contract yet?
If not why not?

The laptop could be weeks. There's a global chip shortage.
If they won't pay you for the delay you would be better going elsewhere.

that is a very good point, they say it is in transit, but who knows

I have started looking again, if nothing else to keep options open.

[Antman]

2017 I worked for 10 weeks (of a 3 month contract) without a laptop due to their IT suppliers "handling" it, every day 2.5hr round trip schlep to the office to see if there was a desktop free - Orrible!

Find another role, life's too short for that bollocks.

[PerfectStorm]

As has been mentioned, in the bad old days of presenteeism it was usually possible to get some stuff printed, have long meetings etc and wait this out.

These days you may have to go unbilled until meaningful work kicks in, but I would still bill a quarter day for a meeting that happens in the day for example.

See if you can get the product manager or similar to agree to have some preliminary stuff sent to your LTD/personal address. Yes will technically be against some rules, but it's them sending it to you so no biggie for adult contractors.

[northernladuk]

See if you can get the product manager or similar to agree to have some preliminary stuff sent to your LTD/personal address. Yes will technically be against some rules, but it's them sending it to you so no biggie for adult contractors.

Not sure that's a good idea at all. How do you think that will work? An employee of the company sending out kit when they aren't supposed to? I think just asking an employee to break the rules like that isn't a great start to a gig.

They have already agreed to send it and unlikely a product manager has a laptop lying around to send anyway so I think pestering them with this request isn't going to go down very well to be honest..

[PerfectStorm]

Not sure that's a good idea at all. How do you think that will work? An employee of the company sending out kit when they aren't supposed to? I think just asking an employee to break the rules like that isn't a great start to a gig.

They have already agreed to send it and unlikely a product manager has a laptop lying around to send anyway so I think pestering them with this request isn't going to go down very well to be honest..

In this context, the 'stuff' being referred to is electronic documents and emails and the personal address is an email address. So in other words, "get them to email you some stuff to your own email address while you're waiting for access". Technically against some rule or other, but all consensual.

[b0redom]

This is an inside gig. I’d just put in an invoice and say that you’re a temporary employee with a contract and no one told you you couldn’t work and leave it at that.

Obviously as everyone else has said keep looking too.

[eek]

This is an inside gig. I’d just put in an invoice and say that you’re a temporary employee with a contract and no one told you you couldn’t work and leave it at that.

Obviously as everyone else has said keep looking too.

That would be my point of view as well but there is a separate issue.

Most umbrella firms regard contractors as their product and the agency as their customer.

[Glencky]

Yep, interesting. It hadn't occurred to me that this scenario would pan out this way once wfh was standard. As others have said, it's really common (at least for a small number of days) but in normal times you'd be in the office and the hiring manager would just be panicking trying to get you the kit so they don't have to babysit you 8 hours a day! (I've been that person). You'd have stuff printed, you'd trail people to meetings, you'd have 'get to know you' coffees with key contacts, and the laptop would arrive and you'd get started on the raft of 'new joiner' regulatory training (in financial services, at least).

The 'ask them to send you stuff to your personal email' is a bad idea depending on industry - definitely don't do it in financial services, healthcare or the like - worst possible first impression, asking people to break rules that are actually really important.

I'm sorry you're in this situation - ultimately you need to find a way to apply pressure. If you're sat in the office looking at them the pressure is inherently there. In this situation it's too easy for them to mess you around. You need to try and get the timesheet signed, complain like hell to your agent and politely to the client/ your hiring manager. And in the meantime - yes, if it's important to you that you have the income soon then get looking again for something else.

A lot of this is industry specific. In financial services, these days with the level of vetting etc, even with a pretty slick onboarding process you won't move from interview to bum on seat inside a month for most places. Internal service levels for laptop etc procurement tend to be 1 to 2 weeks, but that can't usually start until the vetting process is at a certain point. So there's coordination on the hiring manager side to get everything to land at the same time. That's why it's so common to not quite manage it. I am normally impressed if I've got a laptop and basic login sometime on Day 1, and impressed if i've gotten access to everything I need and every piece of kit (secure token etc, although now it's all apps) AND gotten through all the joiners training inside the first 2 weeks. It can actually be a bit of light relief between meeting dozens of new people and absorbing loads of new information I find, but it does mean you've got an inherent delay before hitting the ground running!

Good luck sorting it out. If I was the hiring manager in this circumstance, assuming this is just the kind of coordination delay I mention above, I'd be paying you and trying to get you invited to certain Teams type meetings/ meet and greets so you could at least use some of the time.