HP sucking up contractors

[Boo]

TEK Systems but you'd be mad to go with them.

why, specifically ?

Boo

[sgxluk]

Well let's see, they bring you in at short notice, onto a tulip project which has no plan or chance of succeeding, you spend 90% of your time fighting the idiocy & undoing their damage. Then you get asked not to attend site, but you hold them to the termination clause, only to be threatened by them that they'll try to cause you IR35 hassle (even though outside!) with Hector.

Some piece of businness as a company.

Plus the pimps look about 12 & have no clue!

[MojoDog]

I had a bad couple of years, before my current good contract. One company, England south coast, took me on to do software, and 80% of the work was testing. I left after 6 months. Then a permie job, another false job description and more testing. I walked out after 3 months. Then a permie job at HP, near Basingstoke. Worst job I've ever done, false job description, unbelievable bureaucracy, load of chiefs and few indians, bad software, awful.

Anyway, HP were taking on huge numbers of people, for various projects. I can't talk in any detail, but when I started as a permie, they took on ~40 contractors over a short period. I know quite a few left as soon as they could. I still get emails from agents which are clearly for that site.

It's an odd place, a bit like a holiday camp. They treat staff quite well, lovely canteen, easy work, very very easy work. If you like easy boring dull work and are happy to work on bad code it's for you. A permie who started a few months before me, and who I used to work with elsewhere, just walked out after less than 6 months, boredom apparently. I found a contract after 6 months, and left due to boredom.

It's not hard to see why so many big government IT projects go mammaries skyward.

The moral of my story is don't give up. If things look bad, they can turn around. My current contract is brilliant, nearly done 6 months, 6 months more guaranteed, decent rate, nice people.

That's interesting, Ive been offered a 6-month contract there. I was contacted by an agent a couple of months ago who put my CV forward to HP. I then got a phone call saying that it was down to me and another guy, they were doing telephone interviews and he went first. The upshot was that HP offered him the role on the spot without talking to me - not fussed about that, its the perks of being freelance. Anyway, same agent calls me yesterday and says that my "rival" has handed in his notice, saying that "he didn't feel that his technical knowledge was up to the job because it mostly IT work and he was a mechanical engineer..." These are the agent's words.

If that person is reading this, I would be grateful if you could get in touch and have a chinwag about it.

Cheers

[northernladuk]

Well let's see, they bring you in at short notice, onto a tulip project which has no plan or chance of succeeding, you spend 90% of your time fighting the idiocy & undoing their damage. Then you get asked not to attend site, but you hold them to the termination clause, only to be threatened by them that they'll try to cause you IR35 hassle (even though outside!) with Hector.

Some piece of businness as a company.

Plus the pimps look about 12 & have no clue!

How can the agency be blamed for the clients project problems?

[Dethmask]

HP - where contractors go to die

[QUOTE=sgxluk;1908591]Well let's see, they bring you in at short notice, onto a tulip project which has no plan or chance of succeeding, you spend 90% of your time fighting the idiocy & undoing their damage. Then you get asked not to attend site, but you hold them to the termination clause, only to be threatened by them that they'll try to cause you IR35 hassle (even though outside!) with Hector.


***************
I am buried in with HP contractors in a "glass bubble" somewhere in the UK. It is truly a place where techies come to die quietly in a corner. Average age of people here, between 53 and 126! The lethargy and pointlessness of the place is staggering. So much money is being thrown at this attempt to streamline some processes that basic common sense would sort in a heartbeat. No documentation, no passion, no point. Good money, short days and so little managerial interaction it is frightening. As long as you don't talk loudly and produce a little work once or twice a week, no one cares.

Tell me not all HP environments are like this? Tell me that in other places people work hard for a purpose and produce some good stuff. I am hearing the quite the opposite. Shame, it could be a great company, instead of the graveyard that I endure. Hoping the new year will bring a local contract and my ticket out of purgatory!

[tomtomagain]

[QUOTE=Dethmask;2033213]

Well let's see, they bring you in at short notice, onto a tulip project which has no plan or chance of succeeding, you spend 90% of your time fighting the idiocy & undoing their damage. Then you get asked not to attend site, but you hold them to the termination clause, only to be threatened by them that they'll try to cause you IR35 hassle (even though outside!) with Hector.


***************
I am buried in with HP contractors in a "glass bubble" somewhere in the UK. It is truly a place where techies come to die quietly in a corner. Average age of people here, between 53 and 126! The lethargy and pointlessness of the place is staggering. So much money is being thrown at this attempt to streamline some processes that basic common sense would sort in a heartbeat. No documentation, no passion, no point. Good money, short days and so little managerial interaction it is frightening. As long as you don't talk loudly and produce a little work once or twice a week, no one cares.

Tell me not all HP environments are like this? Tell me that in other places people work hard for a purpose and produce some good stuff. I am hearing the quite the opposite. Shame, it could be a great company, instead of the graveyard that I endure. Hoping the new year will bring a local contract and my ticket out of purgatory!

That isn't just a HP problem. That is big corporate.

[jmo21]

[QUOTE=Dethmask;2033213]

Well let's see, they bring you in at short notice, onto a tulip project which has no plan or chance of succeeding, you spend 90% of your time fighting the idiocy & undoing their damage. Then you get asked not to attend site, but you hold them to the termination clause, only to be threatened by them that they'll try to cause you IR35 hassle (even though outside!) with Hector.


***************
I am buried in with HP contractors in a "glass bubble" somewhere in the UK. It is truly a place where techies come to die quietly in a corner. Average age of people here, between 53 and 126! The lethargy and pointlessness of the place is staggering. So much money is being thrown at this attempt to streamline some processes that basic common sense would sort in a heartbeat. No documentation, no passion, no point. Good money, short days and so little managerial interaction it is frightening. As long as you don't talk loudly and produce a little work once or twice a week, no one cares.

Tell me not all HP environments are like this? Tell me that in other places people work hard for a purpose and produce some good stuff. I am hearing the quite the opposite. Shame, it could be a great company, instead of the graveyard that I endure. Hoping the new year will bring a local contract and my ticket out of purgatory!

Heard the Erskine site is like that.

[vadhert]

Been there, done that, ran back to the city after a few weeks.

You could literally walk into this place and fall asleep for the day and no one would notice because they were all doing the same thing.

Terrible CV Killer.

[jmo21]

THIS

Revealed during the interview that it wasn't a contract, but a perm role.

Ouch, had you agreed a rate before the interview?

I'd be pretty raging either way.

I'd like to think I would just walk out, but I'd probably just say "There's seems to have been some mistake... etc" and say goodbye.

[Brussels Slumdog]

Did a few months remote with them years ago. My designated computer arrived the week my contract ended. Thank goodness I found an old computer lying around on one of their sites as I wasn't allowed to use my own computer.