Am I really good or are permies really tulipe?

[Mich the Tester]

Stupid question; must be the second option. Just got an e-mail from clientco nr2 complimenting me on the quality of some test scripts I whipped up last week on a record and playback tool at home in the space of about 40 minutes while CUK'ing; thoroughly professional piece of work apparently.

Or maybe the CUK congregation's intellectual brilliance rubbed off on me in some subconscious fashion.

I don't understand what I've done right, but I'll send an invoice; how many hours shoud I bill them for?

[ThomasSoerensen]

Stupid question; must be the second option. Just got an e-mail from clientco nr2 complimenting me on the quality of some test scripts I whipped up last week on a record and playback tool at home in the space of about 40 minutes while CUK'ing; thoroughly professional piece of work apparently.

Or maybe the CUK congregation's intellectual brilliance rubbed off on me in some subconscious fashion.

I don't understand what I've done right, but I'll send an invoice; how many hours shoud I bill them for?

40.

that is what you spent.

you just make an error on the unit.

or would 6 be more believable

[Doggy Styles]

Am I really good or are permies really tulipe?

This got me thinking. Bit of a generalisation I know, but in my experience permies tend to be OK if they have moved about every few years, or are ex-contractors.

The dodgy ones are more likely to be the lifers, or those that hop about a lot (presumably with a good line in bull).

Maybe there is an optimum average time on each job. What do you think?

And if so, is it part of anyone's candidate evaluation process?

[d000hg]

Mich we all know you target crap companies since they need you most.

Perhaps we might make a hypothesis that companies who hire contractors tend to have worse permies than those who do not. And that's why they need the contractors...

[Doggy Styles]

Perhaps we might make a hypothesis that companies who hire contractors tend to have worse permies than those who do not. And that's why they need the contractors...

Good point.

[Mich the Tester]

Mich we all know you target crap companies since they need you most.

Perhaps we might make a hypothesis that companies who hire contractors tend to have worse permies than those who do not. And that's why they need the contractors...

Sounds about right.

[DanielAnthony]

Erm, I worked as a permie for a blue chip Co which needed contractors in order to roll out a large implementation project (Windows/Citrix skillset). I think we had nearly 200 contractors working on the project and on the last day of the project +1 they were all gone.

I have to say that the many contractors I met on that project we're worse than the permie members of staff in the 3rd line support team I worked in. I say this because we had to spend a lot of time helping them sort out problems they had created whilst on site and often had to go back and fix things when parts of the project were forcefully handed over to us. To be fair, there were one or two who were very good (in terms of being on par with the top permies I worked with) but the majority were paper MCSE's and I really struggled to justify in my mind why they were driving much nicer cars than us!

So to put my money where my mouth is I have just accepted my first contract The clientCo is willing to wait out my 4 week notice period as they feel I'm the right guy for their project. The agent told me at the time there were 4 contractors going for this same role, so I'm pleased I got it. But from what I experienced above, the competition wasn't that great :\

[Mich the Tester]

So to put my money where my mouth is I have just accepted my first contract

[Fred Bloggs]

It could be that the best staff blokes eventually come round to the idea that they'd be better off contracting? I have seen some truly dire staff blokes in my time and just a few really poor contractors.

[ThomasSoerensen]

Erm, I worked as a permie for a blue chip Co which needed contractors in order to roll out a large implementation project (Windows/Citrix skillset). I think we had nearly 200 contractors working on the project and on the last day of the project +1 they were all gone.

I have to say that the many contractors I met on that project we're worse than the permie members of staff in the 3rd line support team I worked in. I say this because we had to spend a lot of time helping them sort out problems they had created whilst on site and often had to go back and fix things when parts of the project were forcefully handed over to us. To be fair, there were one or two who were very good (in terms of being on par with the top permies I worked with) but the majority were paper MCSE's and I really struggled to justify in my mind why they were driving much nicer cars than us!

So to put my money where my mouth is I have just accepted my first contract The clientCo is willing to wait out my 4 week notice period as they feel I'm the right guy for their project. The agent told me at the time there were 4 contractors going for this same role, so I'm pleased I got it. But from what I experienced above, the competition wasn't that great :\

Welcome to the dark side.