It's all our fault!

[MrMark]

UK firms feel they are paying through the nose for IT contractors and it is hindering their own staff development

Well if you hire permie muppets who have no idea of how to progress or improve their own skills... could be their HR/agent axis of evil have let them down again!

Edit: I've worked at plenty of places with talented permies (I'm sure others here have too). The companies that complain they have staff lacking in skills have surely only one place they can look to blame (ie themselves).

[Pogle]

I have worked on a site through morse, bunch of tits.

Ditto

[BA to the Stars]

I have worked on site with Morse. Their guy was clueless, cribbed off previous work done by someone else. Knew the theory but f*** all about the real world. Rip off merchants.

[NotAllThere]

I have worked on a site through morse, bunch of tits.

dots

[dang65]

Edit: I've worked at plenty of places with talented permies (I'm sure others here have too).

I would say that every single client co team I've worked with has had one superb, totally switched-on permie and a load of very average people. This often makes for very pleasant contracts because the switched-on person never seems to expect anyone to be as knowledgable as him/her (they've been there years, know the systems inside out) but it's not difficult to be just that bit better than the rest of the team. So you slot in just nicely and everyone's happy. I've never known tension with permies. The times when I have witnessed it with another contractor it's always because that contractor doesn't slot in to the hierarchy, because they are crap, and they're usually straight out the door.

[Drewster]

...........The times when I have witnessed it with another contractor it's always because that contractor doesn't slot in to the hierarchy, because they are crap, and they're usually straight out the door.

To be fair its not ALWAYS because they are crap.... some times good ones (technically or whatever) don't fit in.... Although I guess you could mean if they don't fit in then they could be called "Crap Contractors".

Unfortunately they don't always go straight out the door.... I once worked on site where a bloke was basically sidelined completely no one ever asked or expected him to actually "do" anything...... but he still turned up every day and invoiced every week and got renewals......

He out stayed me and several others...... I guess from his perspective he "fitted in" pretty well........

[Andy2]

There was a group of us in a place and I they pissed the client off, we got stuck in the middle and left to take the ill feeling. Mainly the client's fault but Morse could have handled it far better. They convinced the client to take on a group of developers when they knew there was no work so we ended siting about doing nowt. I think they sacrificed a long term relationship for short term gains. I was told to monitor log files for a few weeks, just ended up not doing it.

In my experience the contractors who behave as permies and attend christmas party and all other permi events are the ones who get multiple extensions.