HP sucking up contractors

[Dethmask]

[QUOTE=tomtomagain;2033322]

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

Actually, I have worked for 2 big corporations and found exactly the opposite. Loads of energy, people listened, the IT teams worked as one unit, even though they were spread around the UK. Loved it. Only left one due to staff cuts that left me with so little life, I might as well have life in the Server room!!!

I do appreciate different places, different experiences, but this is the first truly "sleepy hollow" company I have worked in. Praying the new year brings me the ticket out. Either that or I shall insist on a bed in work!!!

[Dethmask]

Running back to the city is beginning to appeal.

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.

Yeah, you hit that one on the head. I can blag it as harder to a interviewer, but I was out last night and some 70yr old retiree warned me about being complacent in a dull, pointless job. OMG. OAPs are telling me to get the hell out. I might just have to listen to you people a little more seriously!!!

[tomtomagain]

[QUOTE=Dethmask;2034131]

Actually, I have worked for 2 big corporations and found exactly the opposite. Loads of energy, people listened, the IT teams worked as one unit, even though they were spread around the UK. Loved it. Only left one due to staff cuts that left me with so little life, I might as well have life in the Server room!!!

I do appreciate different places, different experiences, but this is the first truly "sleepy hollow" company I have worked in. Praying the new year brings me the ticket out. Either that or I shall insist on a bed in work!!!

The other factor is that HP is in complete crisis. It is far, far too big and it's core markets have been eroded.

It cannot compete on hardware against the Chinese, its not got much differentiation between it and the other service providers ( Wipro et al ) and it hasn't got a decent "mobile" story.

It doesn't own any decent corporate tools ( SQL Server, Oracle ,SAP ) and so it's being slowly eaten up by the cloud.

[Batcher]

A couple of places I've been they had been providing dev & support teams but turns out they bid too low to get the contracts then found out they couldn't do it and make a profit. One place it was said they had paid £4m to buy themselves out of a bad contract early.

[sal]

A couple of places I've been they had been providing dev & support teams but turns out they bid too low to get the contracts then found out they couldn't do it and make a profit. One place it was said they had paid £4m to buy themselves out of a bad contract early.

Worked for HP Enterprise services for about 2 years, there were plenty of decent guys working there but the entire operation model is flawed. Account managers are selling ridiculous SLAs at low cost to win the contract. Then they try to assemble the support teams from various delivery centers across the globe based on the cheapest offer, usually ending up with mostly Indians from Bangalore.

There were clients who deliberately endured the constant outages and SLAs breaches, because the penalties received from HP were often greater than the cost of the contract, so they were actually earning money at HP expense.

No one cared that much as long as most of the revenue was secure in the form of US Government, US Navy etc multi billion contracts. But these started to dry up and HP started falling apart.

[jmo21]

Worked for HP Enterprise services for about 2 years, there were plenty of decent guys working there but the entire operation model is flawed. Account managers are selling ridiculous SLAs at low cost to win the contract. Then they try to assemble the support teams from various delivery centers across the globe based on the cheapest offer, usually ending up with mostly Indians from Bangalore.

There were clients who deliberately endured the constant outages and SLAs breaches, because the penalties received from HP were often greater than the cost of the contract, so they were actually earning money at HP expense.

No one cared that much as long as most of the revenue was secure in the form of US Government, US Navy etc multi billion contracts. But these started to dry up and HP started falling apart.

That sounds depressing

[Dark Black]

I had a contract with HP last year - had a bad feeling right from the start when then kept me waiting for 3 months claiming my clearance needed re-doing (it didnt but they re-vetted me anyway)..

When I did finally start, everyone had to endure a weeks "induction", permies and contractors alike - I'd had to wait an extra few weeks as apparently they "save up" new starters for a monthly induction (you couldn't make this stuff up).

The first day of "proper" work on site I was shown to a project team only to be told they didnt have any work... (why then FFS did they take on contractors?). After a few days of reading docs etc I got moved to another project which turned out to be 'C' code bug fixing... (it was advertised as a C++ / Java dev role).

I managed about 4 weeks in total, including the "induction" before I binned them. The final straw was being asked to sign-off on a quality review for something I'd not seen or had no idea about ("oh we just need a sig for the paperwork" they said, "not on your life mate" was the reply) - they were fairly peeved when I gave them a weeks notice - they were expecting 4 weeks and the agent hadn't told them I'd negotiated that down to 1 week before I started (alarm bells were ringing even then).

Never again.. rates are fairly pants too.

[Hercule]

only just found this thread.
I've recently finished a contract with HP ES as well. All that has been said above sounds very similar to the experiences i've had.

Funny enough i had been hired twice for the same job by them. First time they cancelled my contract after two days because some management genius decided that all contractors need to leave immediately. Later i was asked to come back, which i did but luckily i was able to negotiate a higher rate this time...
In the meantime, a couple of million quid were blown through the chimney because the project was actually about cost savings and getting old and expensive infrastructure out the door. go figure