New Contract Stress

[WTFH]

NLUK has gone soft!

Cojak is online.. (

I was worried where this was going.

[kloos]

Not really. You might not have noticed the subtitle of the General forum - All hope abandon ye who enter here. Seriously. And it's there for good reason. Gotta have thick skin to contract and you have to have thicker skin to last in general.

I've been in and out of forums for decades so I know how they work. I'm not the "forum rage" type as life's too short and the banter is good to break up the day and if you're careful you might actually pick up a tip or two, even from the general forum.

Anyhoo, job done. I had a vent, got it off my chest, then got over it

[vetran]

I was worried where this was going.

straight to the gutter as usual?

[ladymuck]

One of the things I like doing when starting a new contract is digging through documentation to see who has been there before that I know (or is still there now). This can give me a hint as to how well or badly things have gone in the past.
Then I also look to see if there are any signs that stuff I've done in the past (presentations/designs/documentation) on other sites has been plagiarised by someone and appeared at this client. This can be quite common, and depending on how lazy they've been, they might not have done a Ctrl+H for all references to me (or the previous client), and they very rarely update the file properties.

That's bitten me on the bum before!

Wrote a huge manual for a client system. Returned a few years later, only to be met with "are you the LadyMuck who wrote this?"

Fortunately, I write excellent documentation so their only gripe was being charged with maintaining it when there were system changes because my work was so very useful the document didn't get mothballed.



Another time, another client. I essentially recreated Project in Excel and that template went to Dubai and back and was represented back to me as one of my tasks to maintain.

[Roll Out The Farrell]

Every new gig is a new Oxford notepad and a new Mitsubishi Gel Impact pen (I am a pen geek!)

Every past notebook has inside cover of client co immediate area seating plan with names, as I am crap at remembering them, and normally first day/week there's every tom/dick/harry coming to say hello.*


* Or "the database is broken/ not working, can you fix it?"

qh

Do you remember the Parker 25 range?

I had both a fountain and ballpoint model of the Parker 25 and they were a joy to hold. Lovely chunky, brushed stainless steel and it was the first pen I learned to twirl around my thumb. I was reminiscing about the Parker 25 the other night and went on line to discover that you can't get them any more :-(

[Gibbon]

Not really. You might not have noticed the subtitle of the General forum - All hope abandon ye who enter here. Seriously. And it's there for good reason. Gotta have thick skin to contract and you have to have thicker skin to last in general. Complaining about the first day of your chosen career is gonna attract a bit of ribbing. And that comment about your 1 like vs all the other feedback being a fair split was just a bit surreal. We don't do internet hugs on this forum. You think we are bad? Try posting something inane on Mumsnet and see what a real mauling is like.

You really need to move out of Dewsbury, you might be a bit nicer, and yes we do do hugs here, and here's yours's you wuss

[northernladuk]

Do you remember the Parker 25 range?

I had both a fountain and ballpoint model of the Parker 25 and they were a joy to hold. Lovely chunky, brushed stainless steel and it was the first pen I learned to twirl around my thumb. I was reminiscing about the Parker 25 the other night and went on line to discover that you can't get them any more :-(

If you don't rock up to a new client with your Montblanc Meisterstück Classique Ballpoint Pen and case then you shouldn't be posting on here. HTH

[WTFH]

If you don't rock up to a new client with your Montblanc Meisterstück Classique Ballpoint Pen and case then you shouldn't be posting on here. HTH

Why would I use the pen my wife's maid keeps by the toilet for sudoku?

Fulgor Nocturnus to sign the contract and monthly timesheets, BIC the rest of the time.

[northernladuk]

Why would I use the pen my wife's maid keeps by the toilet for sudoku?

Fulgor Nocturnus to sign the contract and monthly timesheets, BIC the rest of the time.

I like the cut of your jib sir.

[SueEllen]

That's bitten me on the bum before!

Wrote a huge manual for a client system. Returned a few years later, only to be met with "are you the LadyMuck who wrote this?"

Fortunately, I write excellent documentation so their only gripe was being charged with maintaining it when there were system changes because my work was so very useful the document didn't get mothballed.

I worked on a project where we got a guy back who wrote the manual and some code to go with it.

Unfortunately the people who had worked on it before we all arrived and he arrived back had screwed everything up.

He spend most of his first day looking at everything in complete disbelief. He then stated loudly so the whole floor could hear "They have f**ked up my work and the entire system!"