The worst contractor you have ever worked with or heard about

[administrator]

Good breakdown.

I find disgusting eating habits overrule any other potential bad points. FFS, why do people sound like fecking ducks when they chomp down on their processed chow. Keep yer fecking traps shut. I don't want to hear you masticate nor do I want a stop motion horror film of your enzymes slowing breaking down your cheesy whotsits into their chemical compositions of slime, Agent Orange and toilet duck..

GRRRRRR!

I'm bringing a pack of Wotsits to the next grub club

[Unix]

My second contract at a retail bank was along side 6-7 other contractors. One of them was constantly boasting about how great he was and that he usually works in London for 1k a day. He would say things like "I am 10x better than the X" within earshot of X who was the permie lead architect. If a permie asked him for help he would ridicule them and laugh in their face. He ended up getting terminated as he was fiddling his time sheets. He arrived one day to find his pass no longer worked. One claim he made was he had written a search engine just before Google which was better, but he "couldn't be bothered" finishing it.

[suityou01]

I found this blog post when I was googling in my last gig. I sat across from this old dude (contractor) who was perm turned contract after retiring as he had vital system knowledge of their aging IT. Not his fault and fair play to him for making a quid or two out of it to top up the retirement coffers.

He was 67, looked like Monty burns, slurped his tea, tapped his desk, ate his food like a pack of masticating dingos and generally was disgusting. The nose blowing and hanky examining was also a part of the repertoire.

Any who, here's the blog post.

[hyperD]

I'm bringing a pack of Wotsits to the next grub club

Don't you dare!!!

[eek]

My second contract at a retail bank was along side 6-7 other contractors. One of them was constantly boasting about how great he was and that he usually works in London for 1k a day. He would say things like "I am 10x better than the X" within earshot of X who was the permie lead architect. If a permie asked him for help he would ridicule them and laugh in their face. He ended up getting terminated as he was fiddling his time sheets. He arrived one day to find his pass no longer worked. One claim he made was he had written a search engine just before Google which was better, but he "couldn't be bothered" finishing it.

I know people who developed the equivalent to yahoo before yahoo appeared on the seen. Things either get traction or die so I did this before x doesn't mean much.

Even then google won because they were better than the other search engines at the time (in the same way facebook overtook myspace). Even in 1997 Excite / Altavista were worth billions......

[TestMangler]

Saw a contractor terminated last year for BO.

Much as it sounds funny, it was bloody awful. When he visited another building, some senior bod found out who he was, phoned his client manager and told her the bloke was not allowed in the building again !

People around him hat desk fans with pots of Neutradol sitting in front of them blowing on their desks. I also got the honour of 'walking him off'. the bloody lift stopped at every floor on the way down to reception.

Other than being totally stinkiferous, he was crap as well. Well, I think he was, we couldn't talk to him for long enough to get updates without retching or running for air !!

[MyUserName]

Saw a contractor terminated last year for BO.

Much as it sounds funny, it was bloody awful. When he visited another building, some senior bod found out who he was, phoned his client manager and told her the bloke was not allowed in the building again !

People around him hat desk fans with pots of Neutradol sitting in front of them blowing on their desks. I also got the honour of 'walking him off'. the bloody lift stopped at every floor on the way down to reception.

Other than being totally stinkiferous, he was crap as well. Well, I think he was, we couldn't talk to him for long enough to get updates without retching or running for air !!

Shirley someone mentioned it to him? What did he say when he was asked to improve his personal hygiene?

[Damon]

Saw a contractor terminated last year for BO.

Much as it sounds funny, it was bloody awful. When he visited another building, some senior bod found out who he was, phoned his client manager and told her the bloke was not allowed in the building again !

People around him hat desk fans with pots of Neutradol sitting in front of them blowing on their desks. I also got the honour of 'walking him off'. the bloody lift stopped at every floor on the way down to reception.

Other than being totally stinkiferous, he was crap as well. Well, I think he was, we couldn't talk to him for long enough to get updates without retching or running for air !!

I have experienced this too.....we sat the guy down and asked him to take more care and time on his 'personal' appearance...sure enough he got smarter dressed....so we had to sit him down and say please spend more time showering and use lots of deodorant....he responded and all went well. I found it incredible that it seemed no-one had ever taken the time to talk to him..he was in his 40's!

Once had to fire a Test Manager as she stank of booze and we found vodka bottles in her desk drawers....shame as she was actually very good at her job.

[Mich the Tester]

Once had to fire a Test Manager as she stank of booze and we found vodka bottles in her desk drawers....shame as she was actually very good at her job.

Was she by any chance involved in a project with an outsourced dev team in Bangalore, doing a Siebel configuration?

If so then she should not have been sacked but applauded for only resorting to alcohol. Tranquilizers could have been justified even.

[TestMangler]

Shirley someone mentioned it to him? What did he say when he was asked to improve his personal hygiene?

He was told to go and see a doctor early on and was off for a few days and came back and was only mildly honking.

Client also asked the agent to speak to him, which I believe they did a couple of times.

The extent of this guys problem can't be underestimated though. He would take his jacket off and it looked like he had taken a shower with his shirt on, he dripped that much. he was into prog rock though, so f**k him