first contract offer slightly concerned

[Wanderer]

it's abroad and i'm waiting for my new passport to arrive (one week at the latest). The recruitment agency say that I have secured the role and the start date is flexible, depending on my passport situation, but htey want me asap.

Shall I keep looking for other roles anyway, until I have my passport, flight booked and hard copy of the contract?

Yep. But tell them the passport is in the post, will be here tomorrow so send the contract straight away. If they email you the contract then you can print/sign/scan|fax it back straight away and you're good to go. No written contract = no job.

Why is it taking so long to get a passport? I got one done in 45 minutes once while I sat in the pub across the road and read the paper. Tell them you need an urgent one and they will sort it for you, worst case they should be able to get one the next working day if you pay the fee.

[gingerjedi]

I was talking about this with a friend tonight and he said that now is the time to avoid public sector organisations.

If jobs have gone in them or are under threat then the last thing the staff want is contractors coming in - so the staff will be looking for ways to make it hard for contractors or to get rid of them.

This might have been what you came up against. Then again the guy might have been a completely dysfunctional human being.

Bit of both, the boss is an IBM 'partner' (somerset cc has a joint operation with IBM) so up his own arse. The rest of the team were typical lifer civil service types, lots of coffee and meetings but very little action.

I've been offered a few months at Airbus now so better off out of there.

[jmo21]

I was talking about this with a friend tonight and he said that now is the time to avoid public sector organisations.

If jobs have gone in them or are under threat then the last thing the staff want is contractors coming in - so the staff will be looking for ways to make it hard for contractors or to get rid of them.

This might have been what you came up against. Then again the guy might have been a completely dysfunctional human being.

I'm in exactly this situation in an NHS office just now.

Some guys in same team in another office wanted to be doing the project I am working on, thankfully I don't have to deal with them for anything, and due to location, see them every day.

The guys in this office all seem decent even though their jobs are all under threat.

I'm just keeping my head down, I got an extra 2 months from Xmas, which may turn into another 2 after that, and that time period stretches right across their review period.

[PropertyCrashUK]

I'm in exactly this situation in an NHS office just now.

Some guys in same team in another office wanted to be doing the project I am working on, thankfully I don't have to deal with them for anything, and due to location, see them every day.

The guys in this office all seem decent even though their jobs are all under threat.

I'm just keeping my head down, I got an extra 2 months from Xmas, which may turn into another 2 after that, and that time period stretches right across their review period.

Best of luck. Just watch your back in those situations. When people's jobs are threatened some people can end up doing all sorts of dodgy things to make others look bad - especially if they are a permie whose job is under threat and there are some contractors around.

I had a situation some years ago where I had to log website traffic at a big corporate event - second week I was at this blue chip. There was a permie guy in the department who hated me simply because he had wanted the role that I got the contract for.

I had set up the logging of the traffic on 2 servers and monitored it for a couple of days at which point this permie shows up on site to talk with his mates. Next thing I know all the logging reports had disappeared - empty folders.

Thankfully I was monitoring the traffic on a third server which I kept quiet to myself. A few days later when we had a meeting the permie guy was the first to speak at the meeting and the first thing he asked for was the web traffic reports - he had a big smirk on his face.

You should have seen his face change when I showed them to everyone. *****!

[theroyale]

I was talking about this with a friend tonight and he said that now is the time to avoid public sector organisations.

I am in a contract till the end of march with the NHS. Along with all the cuts that are obviously happening in the public sector there is also a freeze in place at many organisations on hiring permanent staff for the foreseeable future.

The people they're able to hire to fulfil their projects are contractors.

Any thoughts on this? Others experiencing/hearing about something like this?

[TykeMerc]

I am in a contract till the end of march with the NHS. Along with all the cuts that are obviously happening in the public sector there is also a freeze in place at many organisations on hiring permanent staff for the foreseeable future.

The people they're able to hire to fulfil their projects are contractors.

Any thoughts on this? Others experiencing/hearing about something like this?

I've seen the hiring contractors due to a head count freeze syndrome more times than I'd care to recall.