Quitting a contract - implications

[malvolio]

I'll be about £1000 a month net worse off but I will not have to deal with a micromanaging scrum master who cannot run a meeting without it going over time by 50%

That's the kind of running failure I saw all too often over my contracting life; can't run meetings, can't keep to the point, ignores overruns, and almost invariably doesn't have an objective for the meeting (OK, that's a fact of life with Scrum ceremonials, but they aren't real meetings anyway).

I once killed a meeting stone dead that was going nowhere with the i/s guys and the coders totally at odds over the required, highly business critical solution. Basically "OK, everyone shut up, I'll reconvene this meeting in 24 hours and you will present me with a workable solution to the question set". 24 and a half hours later that's what happened. Turns out the two opposing groups spent till 8 the previous evening working out how to do it.

Sometimes you have to be a bit brutal. But it doesn't work if you don't have the respect of your team.

[PerfectStorm]

We spend most (or a lot) of our lives thinking that companies we work for (or contract to) are the authority - that something bad will happen if we don't do what they want.

As you get more senior, the less this has any meaning.

They might say "you can't do that", there might be phone calls, you might get a strongly worded email or a letter.

But at the end of the day - it's all bark. All mouth, no trousers.

Remember that.

[TheDude]

We spend most (or a lot) of our lives thinking that companies we work for (or contract to) are the authority - that something bad will happen if we don't do what they want.

As you get more senior, the less this has any meaning.

They might say "you can't do that", there might be phone calls, you might get a strongly worded email or a letter.

But at the end of the day - it's all bark. All mouth, no trousers.

Remember that.

Sadly I am at an organization where many people are more interested in keeping their job than actually doing it.

My team lead is a tulip developer and consistently nitpick in code reviews just to make his voice heard.

My rate is great but I dread going into the office and I dread 2pm each day because that is when the US clock on and the bulltulip meetings start.

[lecyclist]

TheDude, do you have F*** you money, enough to walk away? That's one of the best things about being a contractor.

Alternately, can you rank this contract against all the other contracts you've done? If it's not top 10, you can walk away/ jump to another contract without fear.

[TheDude]

TheDude, do you have F*** you money, enough to walk away? That's one of the best things about being a contractor.

Alternately, can you rank this contract against all the other contracts you've done? If it's not top 10, you can walk away/ jump to another contract without fear.

I don't have F you money but I have a contract offering 90% of what I make on the table.

[PerfectStorm]

I don't have F you money but I have a contract offering 90% of what I make on the table.

Tell them there's another one offering 100% of what you make and get them to better it

[SunglassesRon]

I've only ever quit one contract in the past, because they advertised the role as looking for a Java engineer and I found myself spending 6 weeks trying to get a Ruby application compiling on an M1 mac. I handed in and served all of my notice and all was amicable.

[PerfectStorm]

I've only ever quit one contract in the past, because they advertised the role as looking for a Java engineer and I found myself spending 6 weeks trying to get a Ruby application compiling on an M1 mac. I handed in and served all of my notice and all was amicable.

Parallels?