Mental Health Issues and Contracting

[evilagent]

[I am posting this here rather than General, as I hope it gets treated seriously]

There was a BBC article about how Amazon workload could lead to stress-related illnesses......

If you had a period of time-out due to health reasons, particularly clinical depression, brought on by stress, how should this be managed in the CV gap?

Should clientcos be allowed to discriminate?
On the grounds that some roles, perhaps PM roles, are by nature stressful, and placing the candidate into such roles might trigger another episode?

Contractors don't have the benefit of employment laws, so may be inclined to hide away long-term depression, rather than encouraged to seek help.

Working for yourselves, how do you ensure you remain healthy, when there may not be others around you (close colleagues) to notice warning signs?

When staying away on-site mid-week, if you have family, etc, how much a toll does it take on your mental well-being?

How much of an effort do you take to ensure your health is maintained?

[MyUserName]

I train every lunchtime and normally an evening or two a week. My hobby allows for pretty much full contact fighting so I work my stress out that way.

I think this helps me stay calm. I certainly feel more stressed if I am not able to train for whatever reasons.

[northernladuk]

Surely because we are not employees and are a supplier bidding for business the clients can chose not to take a contractor on as he doesn't believe he offers the best service, for whatever reason. If he believes the contractor is not up to the job and is aware of the condition he can chose not to take him on as his services offering has risks.

No discrimination, just business.

[Nexus7]

Mental health issues affect both permies and contractors. They can affect all roles whether you're a PM or a developer, tester etc.

I think the worst thing one can do is try and hide these issues away - in the long term I would imagine it makes things worse. I realise it's easy to say when you're not struggling to pay the bills though.

I guess if someone asks about gaps in the CV you can say you took time off for personal reasons.

[evilagent]

Mental health issues affect both permies and contractors. They can affect all roles whether you're a PM or a developer, tester etc.

I think the worst thing one can do is try and hide these issues away - in the long term I would imagine it makes things worse. I realise it's easy to say when you're not struggling to pay the bills though.

I guess if someone asks about gaps in the CV you can say you took time off for personal reasons.

True enough that permies are just as likely to be affected.
But, as permies, their employers may be obligated to provide support, paid leave, or given less demanding roles, without necessarily binning them.
As contractors, we might get binned straight off.

As a broader issue, maybe the thread could be expanded to cover the best kinds of illness cover, and what happens if some illnesses are not covered.

EDIT: there is a Private Health Cover thread in General, dont want to replicate.

[craig1]

I've seen a few people go off the deep end with mental health issues and it can be a nasty thing. Contracting has to be one of the harder things to take if you're mentally fragile as you get absolutely none of the protections that an employee will have. A private sector client can kick you out the door giving no reason at all and you have absolutely no legal comeback on them for discrimination, regardless of how blatant. There's no limit to the amount of bullying they can get away with and you either take it or leave.

No work = no pay. Also, the private healthcare we can get as contractors is often far inferior to the corporate varieties with larger benefit pools. I know one contractor who was hospitalised in the North London Priory for suicidal depression after being benched for 9 months, his private healthcare insurers paid for 30 days then stopped as he'd reached the limit, the hospital booted him out and the local NHS weren't interested has he'd previously been treated privately. Thankfully he has a very good family who helped him as well as a decently large war chest to pay for his outpatient therapy after he exceeded his £1000 outpatient limit through the insurer.

All I'd recommend is that if you don't have private healthcare that you have a big enough warchest available to pay for some pretty serious medical expenses if you want to get back on track quickly. I snapped my hamstring back in 2007, a proper snap at the tendon on my right leg, I was told 6 month wait for surgery on NHS or immediate on private healthcare, it cost me £5000 plus the rehab costs, thankfully my warchest was big enough to cope with it.

[Old Greg]

Does discrimination on grounds of race, disability etc. apply to engagement of contractors?

[craig1]

Does discrimination on grounds of race, disability etc. apply to engagement of contractors?

Private sector, definitely not. The only tiny protections are the general public ones for disability access, etc.
Public sector, depends on your interpretation but it'd be up to the court's interpretation of certain things. Expensive to prove and not guaranteed.

[Old Greg]

Private sector, definitely not. The only tiny protections are the general public ones for disability access, etc.
Public sector, depends on your interpretation but it'd be up to the court's interpretation of certain things. Expensive to prove and not guaranteed.

I'm not sure this is true, but IANAL etc. Would it really be legal for an agent to say to a black contractor's face, 'We don't engage contractors who are black'?

[craig1]

I'm not sure this is true, but IANAL etc. Would it really be legal for an agent to say to a black contractor's face, 'We don't engage contractors who are black'?

Unless I'm missing something, there's no general discrimination legislation that protects against non-criminal discrimination against non-employees. A company can be held liable for not stopping non-employees from discriminating against its own employees but the other way around is completely fair game. In reality, a company wouldn't say that they're binning you on your first day for being a black hindu gay female in a wheelchair, they'd just say they've no work for you so goodbye and you have no recourse except for any notice or termination within your contract.