Will the contract market recover? If so when?

[dsc]

(and even then this clientco is trying to do things on the cheep).

Any ideas why? I thought all the tech firms have more money than sense nowadays.

[DrewG]

I went to a state secondary school and my best buddy went to a private one. He was struggling academically so it was a way for him to get more help with smaller class sizes. From the age of about 15/16 the amount of insanity that took place with the rest of his private school friends was way beyond anything I saw at my state school.

Teenagers + AWOL parents + money + alcohol + drugs + stealing parents cars + lets damage anything we see = carnage on a weekly basis.

I've got two kids at two private schools and that hasn't happened at any of these schools. These schools both churn out top 10 Uni kids, oxbridge kids etc, every single year though.

Your anecdotes don't change the reality that the 7% of kids that go to private school mostly end up in the top jobs.

Your anecdotes don't change the number of Oxbridge medics and judges and tier 1 lawyers that have come out of their respective schools.

[edison]

But the point was that security still has money to spend - it's other areas like BI where cost cutting is occurring because the Return on investment can't be justified.

It's easy to justify security spending because there are large fines and reputation damage if you don't keep security up to date.

I'm seeing the same - gigs I've been approached for recently seem to be security, compliance or outsourcing related.

Current client has slashed its IT budget for new financial year with most of the capex budget going on security and infrastructure and all the business transformation ones involving CRM, analytics etc have been delayed a year.

[malvolio]

Not all state schools and colleges are the same.

Choose where you live wisely....

I would have loved to. My father being in the services I had 14 schools in total (one of them twice). changing grammar school in the fifth form meant I had missed about 60% of the local syllabus (I had read none of the set books for example) so my GCE results were terrible other than an A in maths for some reason (the teacher put me in for CSE Arithmetic as a backup given my class performance!). A levels again suffered from the lack of background. So I never bothered with applying to Uni but went off to work instead. Doesn't seem to have done me much harm.

I am a voracious reader so have a black belt in Trivial Pursuit type quizzes, am a pretty good mechanic (learned from my father who looked after fighter jets) and passed Mensa entrance by some margin so the lack of a fancy certificate in anything has never worried me.

More to the point though, all of my jobs, perm or contract, have been gained on the back of experience gained, not qualifications passed.

[dsc]

I've got two kids at two private schools and that hasn't happened at any of these schools. These schools both churn out top 10 Uni kids, oxbridge kids etc, every single year though.

Your anecdotes don't change the reality that the 7% of kids that go to private school mostly end up in the top jobs.

Your anecdotes don't change the number of Oxbridge medics and judges and tier 1 lawyers that have come out of their respective schools.

Ffs enough about private schools in a thread about contract market recovery, yes private schools are great, yes your kids will be super successful and earn endless wads of cash, yes we are all jealous. What is it with the constant my dick is bigger than your dick posts on these forums?

[PCTNN]

You're right sending your kids to private school, DrewG. If they aren't smart enough to make it in the real world by going to 'just' a public school, it makes sense for you to pay as much as you can and pull as many strings as possible so they can end up with a half decent life.

[eek]

I've got two kids at two private schools and that hasn't happened at any of these schools. These schools both churn out top 10 Uni kids, oxbridge kids etc, every single year though.

Your anecdotes don't change the reality that the 7% of kids that go to private school mostly end up in the top jobs.

Your anecdotes don't change the number of Oxbridge medics and judges and tier 1 lawyers that have come out of their respective schools.

My initial comment was based on the fact I've tried to keep my spending sane even though I earn stupid amounts of money as a contractor and a concern that if you need £100,000+ a year to keep going it wouldn't take much for things to go badly.

As for the advantages of private school - meh, many universities now penalize private school students - and many of them would very much like to charge private school students full international rates (and given the financial issues about to hit universities I can see it actually being attempted).

[DrewG]

You're right sending your kids to private school, DrewG. If they aren't smart enough to make it in the real world by going to 'just' a public school, it makes sense for you to pay as much as you can and pull as many strings as possible so they can end up with a half decent life.

Yeah, I know right? They must be really stupid to ace incredibly hard entrance exams and interviews. Total morons.

I have no idea if they're "smart enough to make it in the real world", they're still teenagers. Why not give them access to best academic resources, a peer group from families focussed on education, and not a single chav, roadman etc in sight.

It's my obligation to give my kids the best start in life, I appreciate people can be jealous for a variety of reasons and that's ok.

[eek]

Yeah, I know right? They must be really stupid to ace incredibly hard entrance exams and interviews. Total morons.

I have no idea if they're "smart enough to make it in the real world", they're still teenagers. Why not give them access to best academic resources, a peer group from families focussed on education, and not a single chav, roadman etc in sight.

It's my obligation to give my kids the best start in life, I appreciate people can be jealous for a variety of reasons and that's ok.

I wouldn't call it jealousy - I personally spent the x00,000 extra on the mortgage to get into an area where decent state schools were available. That money is then recovered when you sell up.

But this is well off topic and I'm only replying because the bit in bold was inappropriate for this conversation.

[PCTNN]

Yeah, I know right? They must be really stupid to ace incredibly hard entrance exams and interviews. Total morons.

wow, so kids are passing entrance exams for schools that will take 40k from you...How unbelievable is that