What are some of the Worst Contracts You've Had and How Long Did you Stick it Out?

[Willy Win]

Posting this out of curiosity and always interesting to gage how reliable/determined/committed/professional/crazy/desperate us contractors can be. So what's the worst contract or what have been the worst contracts you've ever had, why , and how long did you stick it out for?

Did it make you 'grow' as a person, cynical, reflective, scream slightly inside or just plain cheesed off?

[cojak]

For a full expression of people's experience I think this is best suited to General.

[stek]

Posting this out of curiosity and always interesting to gage how reliable/determined/committed/professional/crazy/desperate us contractors can be. So what's the worst contract or what have been the worst contracts you've ever had, why , and how long did you stick it out for?

Did it make you 'grow' as a person, cynical, reflective, scream slightly inside or just plain cheesed off?

Dunno

[SueEllen]

What do you define as bad?

[SlipTheJab]

I shot the wrong bloke... sorry... I misread that as ' What are some of the Worst Contract Kills You've Had' HTHBIDI

[greenlake]

So what's the worst contract or what have been the worst contracts you've ever had, why , and how long did you stick it out for?

[shaunbhoy]

Worked for Siemens in 2000/2001 as a Systems Engineer on a GSM Project for their Railways. Based in the Hague and living in Scheveningen (which in December/January was bloody freezing!!).
Spent the first month waiting for them to translate all the requirements into English from Dutch then finally binned it after about 6 weeks of boredom to take a better contract back in Blighty.

[Flashman]

Posting this out of curiosity and always interesting to gage how reliable/determined/committed/professional/crazy/desperate us contractors can be. So what's the worst contract or what have been the worst contracts you've ever had, why , and how long did you stick it out for?

Did it make you 'grow' as a person, cynical, reflective, scream slightly inside or just plain cheesed off?

I'd take a terrible contract over a bad permie job every time.

[Elliegirl]

Does comically bad count?

One Programme Manager was terrible. Truly shocking. I was in meetings where the rest of the team would steal glances at each other, to check that we were not going mad and that the guy was truly talking nonsense. One day he congratulated me on a piece of work, telling me it was the best he had ever seen. This planted a seed of insecurity in me that it took a while to shake.

Another (I've mentioned this before) tried his hardest to get rid of me because he wasn't involved in my selection process and I think he had his eye on the role for someone else. Thus, a process of undermining, outright rudeness and intimidation. They sacked him. For something else, but it still made me laugh.

At one quasi public sector gig, the Director sacked everyone on the programme and said the changes could be done by the in house team because he found out the Programme Manager was getting paid more than him. A new team was of course reinstated later.

Current gig: like a mass murder scene. Nearly half the team have been replaced in the 13 months since I started.

[TestMangler]

Worst job I ever had was retrieving lobsters from Jayne Mansfield's arsehole.

(C) Derek & Clive.