Being marginalised on a contract.

[Ravello]

If she's not the 'sit back and take the money' type I'm not sure the collective here are likely to be able to help...

Seriously though the options are fairly obvious and if your friend has been contracting for 10 yrs I'm sure she's aware of them. Personally I'd sit back, take the daily rate and keep an eye on the market just in case.

[lukemg]

Most of last year I was running a non-IT team of 50+ staff across 2 sites covering maternity leave for 2 permies with P+L and budget responsibility. This year I am escalating user issues with an outsourced service provider (complaints dept really), last week I helped a team install some new printer drivers...Point is, it goes with the job, if you are a contractor you have to adapt, be flexible, do what is required while being the perfect employee - Reliable (no days off because your cat is ill), professional (don't slag the place or people - too much). I EXPECT to find myself in bad situations because this has happened before, when in most cases all is fine, it is a bonus. In the role you describe, I would still be finding my place, keeping my head down, making sure I was seen as keen and helpful and friendly BUT I would expect to be given the workload by others, especially at the start and I wouldn't care who did that or if they were having cosy chats. They pay me a premium not to care. I do have certain lines I won't be pushed over but nothing your friend describes. They might not like her and she might be first out when the time comes BUT complaining up the chain will probably guarantee that and the manager WON'T thank her for bringing it up, they get enough grief from permies, any contractor that kicks off isn't worth it.

[Francko]

Most permies will try to boss you around. Afterall they are just bitter employees with a 2% payrise once in five years and are aware that they are just as disposable as contractors are but at half the price. That's why they will have the need to feel important and so acting as they are important there by giving you tasks and orders. I don't think you can really avoid that, it's statistically guarantee that there is at least one frustated permie in your team. I am surprised your friend is in this situation just now. I would just ask to get everything documented so that if something goes wrong the culprit is the non-manager acting as a manager.

[meridian]

I deliberately didnt mention this. No, she's white but the other 3 are black. Are you suggesting there could be some sort of discrimination going on?

Funnily enough, my first thought was of discrimination but of a different kind - I've worked with some real a-holes who thought the women in the office were only there to make tea.

If she is as good as she says re the apps under test, it's all going to come down to the quality of work that she does. Document the test scripts well, raise quality failures, and highlight potential areas of problems. Depending on how she percieves the internal relationships she might prefer to raise issues with the TM rather than STA in case the STAs use her work/recommendations as their own.

All is not lost, I've worked with a couple of completely hands-off TMs who also had a very good perception of what was really going on in the team dynamics. She needs to stay professional throughout though.

[Gibbon]

when you say black do you mean west indian / african or asian ?

[SuperZ]

Is it because she is black?

Is it because she is female and the others are sexist?