Legal Advice - No notice contract?

[Mr.Whippy]

This is for low skilled muppets. Office temps have this type of clause.

Utter rubbish, I have no notice period in my contract yet I'm neither low skilled nor a muppet.... I think proof of that is the multiple contract & extension offers from different clients and my rate increasing 20% over the last 12 months despite pretty much everyone else I know in my field having to swallow cuts totalling nearly 25%.

[BrilloPad]

Anyway, I didn't get the contract until after I started.

What you do that for?

[blacjac]

oh and if I engage the services of a plumber, he/she could (and actually once left) in the middle of the job because he said he couldn't fix it - i.e. was not able to provide the services required, was totally inconvenient, but perfectly acceptable IMO I still had to pay his call out fees.

I don't believe many contractors would just give notice for the heck of it, how many would go through the trouble of finding another contract which entails having to deal with agents , sit through a number of interviews, just for the heck of it. If a contractor leaves, I believe 99% is due to justified reasons, and its not unreasonable for any service provider to do so.

I had a plumber quit on me without finishing the job! Finished it myself in the end.

Never go for the it's good to have no notice ballpats. This is for low skilled muppets. Office temps have this type of clause.

Professional contractors should get a decent notice period or payoff - just like other freelance professionals - sportsman, tv personalities, politicians ...

In either of those cases did the plumber serve you with notice?
Did you have to pay them for their time after they did (one week, 2 weeks, one month)?

There is a difference between working your notice and leaving the contract immediately as you are unable / unwilling to complete the job.......

Notice period = permies or temps.

[RichardCranium]

WTF
erm, is contracting for you? have you thought about working for the local council. It might be steadier.

I never wanted to be a contractor; I was a career permie. When I found myself on the street when LastPermieCo laid off the IT department, I took an awful support contract to pay the bills and spent the next five years trying to get back into permie work. Always the same response: "You're a contractor so we won't shortlist you". Then a few years wondering what the hell to do but still unable to get a permie job. About seven or eight years ago decided to accept that contracting was the only option and so give up applying for permie work.

I have applied for the three or four permie roles that looked perfect for me in that time but always got: "But you're a contractor".

Comments like yours make me wonder WTF I am supposed to do. I have retrained, upskilled and made myself as employable as I can see how. I've done all the research I can think of, sought advice and followed it. And here I sit on the bench - with many others - trying not to get depressed. So I try not to worry during the day and do so in the middle of the night, instead.

For some, in the right fields, contracting is fantastic: for a while. I had six years when I earned really good money. Then the market changes and you can find yourself wondering what happened. When on the up it is easy to call everyone else a loser. Then when you're the one working out how many weeks the war chest will last you get a bit more humble.

Contracting is like sales: when it's good, it's great. When it's bad, it's Hell.