Start of another (overpaid, underworked) contract in the UK IT world!

[psychocandy]

As opposed to me who seems to have about 6 months work to do in the next month :-(

Saying that I had a contract once working in an SAP support team. I knew bugger all about SAP but it involved some Unix and no-one knew anything so they needed someone.

Turned up and they were amazed that someone knew how to look at files, move stuff around, and, WOW, even use vi. I gave a training course to the rest of the team and they seemed to think I was the Unix guru of the century..... Easy money.

Still didnt learn a great deal about SAP but they were happy to have a Unix 'guru' on board and I wasn't about to tell them how basic they're requirements were...

[quackhandle]

To the OP, don't worry about, the client will have you back contracting in a year or two when the developers have severly f**ked up all your tables, deleted some, created new ones removed all indexes and wonders why the system runs like a dog.

qh

[NickNick]

Most of us have seen these companies shipping in graduates (often bright and hardworking) with no/limited experience at £1000k+ per day.

Been there, done that, died inside, indie contractor for some ten years now and never looked back.

[Platypus]

How can you be proud of ripping off your client?

It's about the value you add. If someone asks you to automate 'x' and offers you a grand, but the job takes you five minutes, would you give a refund? You've still added the value. They paid for the fact that you know how to do it, not the fact that it took 5 minutes.

[psychocandy]

It's about the value you add. If someone asks you to automate 'x' and offers you a grand, but the job takes you five minutes, would you give a refund? You've still added the value. They paid for the fact that you know how to do it, not the fact that it took 5 minutes.

Didnt Brunel do something like this? Charge someone a shedload for hammering in one nail or something. When they moaned that it took him 5 mins he explained they were paying for the expertise and not the time it took.

[JoJoGabor]

The last few years, I have noticed the majority of people in IT are absolutely rubbish. people who claim to be specialists know about 30% of their chosen specialism. The contractors who can earn the big money are those who know several areas in depth and when I say in depth I mean 90% upwards of their technologies. When these people come in it is amazing how much they can look good when surrounded by dross.

On my current project team of 30, about 20 are contractors, and probably only three people are top end, one is a permie and the other two are contractors. No wonder we are facing so much competition from abroad when the majority of native IT people can't even be bothered to learn their job properly.

[Stan.goodvibes]

It's about the value you add. If someone asks you to automate 'x' and offers you a grand, but the job takes you five minutes, would you give a refund? You've still added the value. They paid for the fact that you know how to do it, not the fact that it took 5 minutes.

Thanks Platypus. Just to clarify - the first week or two I was there I was given some Excel workbooks to fix and did it at my customary speed. Eventually after a few times of nagging my rather suprised manager for more work he actually told me to slow down.

Secondly, the work I did was done well and I was a pretty efficient VBA coder, everyone was happy with the results and the timeframe, and in the end they paid the agency off to keep me working direct (for FIVE years). Quite how that is giving the rest of you a bad name I don't know.

I've also had my fair share of tulip contracts since.

My current role - they know I don't have much to do but are prepared to keep me on for those moments when they quickly need something done and to help with the transition to the outsourcer. Like all the other times I've landed a cushy gig it's because I walk in on day one and work my butt off delivering (usually for a few months) until someone gives me an indication it's OK to slow down.


Point being, IT contracting can still be a cruisy wicket.