How many days have you been on site with no access?

[TheDude]

I am on my second day with no login or building access and if others experiences of AMS are anything to go by I may be in for a long wait.

I know from experience I will also be allocated a 4GB 2 core machine which I will then have to wait to be upgraded.

Out of interest what is your personal record of being unable to contribute due to onboarding problems.

[ladymuck]

A week I think.

Back when turning up to the office was a thing, I would take my own laptop and show willing but the client wouldn't allow documents to be sent outside their network. So all I did was attend some meetings and twiddle my thumbs while waiting.

I did offer to go home and not invoice until they were ready for me to start but kept being told "no need, your kit is due to arrive [this afternoon / tomorrow first thing]"

[TheDude]

A week I think.

Back when turning up to the office was a thing, I would take my own laptop and show willing but the client wouldn't allow documents to be sent outside their network. So all I did was attend some meetings and twiddle my thumbs while waiting.

I did offer to go home and not invoice until they were ready for me to start but kept being told "no need, your kit is due to arrive [this afternoon / tomorrow first thing]"

Not invoicing is not the way I roll!

[lecyclist]

6 weeks no access, 2 further weeks without access to the development environments. £500 a day in the 1990s. Walked from the contract shortly after. My chess rating improved greatly, I developed an interest in the books of Anne Rice, frequented many late night bars around Wiltshire and discovered a parallel world inhabited by eccentric characters.

In Sweden some years ago, I did no work for 3 months, barely logged in, over 1000€ a day (unfortunately taxed in Sweden). I showed up to the immaculate wooden-glass temple each day, grazed on the free fruit and snacks, smiled, had occasional fikas, and waited to be invited to participate in strategy discussions that never materialised. Usefully, I learned how an outwardly matriarchal egalitarian society that appeared to be a model of socialism, was actually a neo-liberal utopian hell drifting ever rightward. cf. the treatment of Julian Assange, and the Swedish population's horniness for NATO membership.

The best thing about contracting is never the job.

[northernladuk]

AMS? Alexander Mann? Why is your access to client systems controlled by them? It's normally the clients EUC SLA's that are the reason access isn't granted on time.

I think I've been pretty lucky with a laptop and access granted from day one in nearly all contracts. Once exception was a public sector gig with a very scattered on boarding. Visitor for 2 days before getting a pass. Basic system access arrived after 4 but had to use a desktop in the corner of the office. Laptop turned up start of 2nd week. No induction, had to physically walk round asking what people did and if they could give me access to various shared drives I needed. No clear work given in 6 weeks and at that point left. Might have been a different situation as the whole gig was a crock from start to end, so not sure getting access was really the route of the problem.

[SueEllen]

3 weeks. Took 2 weeks off as (wanted) holiday.

Previously with onsite contracts I would hang around the area when not in meetings so I would get everything sorted within a week.

[David71]

January to July 2019. Yep, best part of 6 months waiting for a project 'kick-off' meeting and I wasn't the only one either! No secure laptops / access to the end clients systems could be given until after the kick-off.

Home based but contractually obliged to be in the clients Brussels office for 50% of the time (travel, accommodation, per diem covered by client) so off I went for two weeks every month to sit in an office watching videos on my laptop.

After 5 months I received a very apologetic email saying the project was being put on-hold and here's a months notice!

[courtg9000]

Not exactly the same but I once spent 3 months waiting for HP kit (Servers) to turn up in a datacentre. Couldn't move the project forward until the kit arrived. So spent 3 months on site twiddling my thumbs. Kept being told they will arrive later this week, then early next week. Then had to wait a month to get them racked and connected!

[simes]

January to July 2019. Yep, best part of 6 months waiting for a project 'kick-off' meeting and I wasn't the only one either! No secure laptops / access to the end clients systems could be given until after the kick-off.

Home based but contractually obliged to be in the clients Brussels office for 50% of the time (travel, accommodation, per diem covered by client) so off I went for two weeks every month to sit in an office watching videos on my laptop.

After 5 months I received a very apologetic email saying the project was being put on-hold and here's a months notice!

I was going to chime in with an example but having read yours, I think you win this one sir!

[JoJoGabor]

Last year I worked for one of the big banks, it took them 10 weeks to get me an account, 3 weeks before I started and 7 weeks on the job. I had to attend a half hour stand-up each day then I was free to do what I want. In the first week I got wind the project 3 of us had been contracted to do had already been completed. So even when I got access, I did maybe 4 hours work a week for the remaining 5 weeks. I left at the end of the 3 weeks.