The worst contractor you have ever worked with or heard about

[SeekingIT]

Indeed!!!

Chap turned up on the second week reeking of booze. When he was caught swigging from half bottle of whisky at about 10 in the morning a couple of days later, he was advised to go home, and not come back.

Chap wasn't working on Agresso perchance? - if so small world........

On first contract, nice chap joined the team, apparently in his head, he was a millionaire, funny how he had holes in soles of his shoes and was rather unkempt.....
Anyways, I come back from lunch one day and ask where JM was?

Had to let him go, I was told, apparently Visa security guards (whose building we occupied a floor) were on their rounds outside the building, caught him enjoying the wacky baccy....Never saw him again...

[Chorltonite]

Once worked with a test manager who turned out to have a serious gambling habit. He was only given the boot when they worked out he was sleeping in the office (everyone thought he just worked rather long hours). They even found a duvet under his desk! This also explained why everyone's cereal has been going missing from the kitchen for weeks. Being skint clearly drove him to hard times.

Only after he left did a number of innocent first time contractors admit that he owed them money as well. He'd borrowed off them on the premise that his agency had messed up paying invoices. They never got their money back.

I'm not sure anyone saw him again!

[alluvial]

I was in a gig for a certain large financial client since subsumed and there was a contractor chap who after being there for a while, managed to secure the programming team leader role. The week after he sent round an email to the entire site advertising a girly website he and his mate had put together, Nottingham Girls I believe it was called. Even warned people to not click on the link in the office.
It was weird as I'd never heard the office go so quiet followed by a number of thumps as people's jaws hit their desks.
Surprising thing was that he managed another hour at least before security arrived at his desk and marched him off site.

But you should have seen what they replaced him with.

[Emajaykay]

The worst

Reading a thread on this page its struck me that we haven't had a discussion about the worst contractor you've worked with over the years and why they were so bad..

Don't get me started. The know all goatee bearded sandal & sock wearing wearing civil service specialists approaching retirement take the package and come back as a contractor. Inland revenue & NHS springs too mind.

We do it this way because we have always done it this way - yep but it keeps failing dude! Prince 2 & ITIL documentation all present and correct and the management of resultant lists (Risk, issues etc etc) is a speciality. What have you done about that risk - er nothing i have logged it in my list, it has a ref no, an owner, delivery date (missed 62 times), someone else needs to sort it I am the PM. Can we discuss your dependencies and critical path? That's not really me it is him/her/them!

The best ones are the ones who have been TUPE'd or contract transferred to an outsourcer and learn quickly about profit and loss as applied to their program of work!

So the worst one was (let's call him Bert) I have been a contractor here for 10 years - yep cos you'd fail in the real world! Bert had never successfully delivered a program to the knowledge of the old hands for 10 years. He was a contractor & homeworker. His absolute speciality was dropping youngsters in the crap for his failings. So we set him an improvement plan with deliverables and timelines that were very reasonable. Sick with stress within a week! Contract terminated within a month. bert then submitted a CV 2 years later to another company I was at declaring his great successes in the programs he failed in! Never got past the inbox stage!

I will not take Civil Service jobs anymore.

[Zero Liability]

Worked with a bloody atrocious woman at some stage. Didn't get the processes in spite of working years there, kept arguing with the contractors handling quality assurance, took hours to get basic work done. Nice lady out of work but horrid as a contractor. I was surprised she made it that far. She also had no concept of the separation of company and personal finances. Very easily offended and prone to dramatics. Some of them think too much like permies and get up to similar antics, involving client managers who'd rather not be involved, until they tell them to get stuffed, and then next day you see their desk is empty.

I still don't think even the worst ones I've worked with compare to the worst of the permies, however, who simply get "moved" to another department more often than not.

[EternalOptimist]

Worked with a bloody atrocious woman at some stage. Didn't get the processes in spite of working years there, kept arguing with the contractors handling quality assurance, took hours to get basic work done. Nice lady out of work but horrid as a contractor. I was surprised she made it that far. She also had no concept of the separation of company and personal finances. Very easily offended and prone to dramatics. Some of them think too much like permies and get up to similar antics, involving client managers who'd rather not be involved, until they tell them to get stuffed, and then next day you see their desk is empty.

She mellowed, apparently, when she got a forum to moderate

[I just need to test it]

I sat down with a new starter to run him through the work he was being assigned. He sat quietly throughout, no eye contact, took no notes, asked no questions.

Once I'd finished he said "Actually I do have a question. Will I be able to access porn sites? My last place had a firewall that prevented me viewing it".

[Bunk]

I sat down with a new starter to run him through the work he was being assigned. He sat quietly throughout, no eye contact, took no notes, asked no questions.

Once I'd finished he said "Actually I do have a question. Will I be able to access porn sites? My last place had a firewall that prevented me viewing it".

Fair question

[mudskipper]

Fair question

Did you get the gig?

[tractor]

...

Don't get me started. The know all goatee bearded sandal & sock wearing wearing civil service specialists approaching retirement take the package and come back as a contractor. Inland revenue & NHS springs too mind.

We do it this way because we have always done it this way - yep but it keeps failing dude! Prince 2 & ITIL documentation all present and correct and the management of resultant lists (Risk, issues etc etc) is a speciality. What have you done about that risk - er nothing i have logged it in my list, it has a ref no, an owner, delivery date (missed 62 times), someone else needs to sort it I am the PM. Can we discuss your dependencies and critical path? That's not really me it is him/her/them!

The best ones are the ones who have been TUPE'd or contract transferred to an outsourcer and learn quickly about profit and loss as applied to their program of work!

So the worst one was (let's call him Bert) I have been a contractor here for 10 years - yep cos you'd fail in the real world! Bert had never successfully delivered a program to the knowledge of the old hands for 10 years. He was a contractor & homeworker. His absolute speciality was dropping youngsters in the crap for his failings. So we set him an improvement plan with deliverables and timelines that were very reasonable. Sick with stress within a week! Contract terminated within a month. bert then submitted a CV 2 years later to another company I was at declaring his great successes in the programs he failed in! Never got past the inbox stage!

I will not take Civil Service jobs anymore.

^Definitely this.

Many roles I have been in and the local 'Subject Matter Expert' has gotten themselves into an unshakeable position and have this 'all doing' spreadsheet that solves all of everyones' problems that they knocked up over a couple of lunchtimes.

In reality, it's an Excel wireframe with multicoloured cells that does absolutely nothing but 'shows' what is required as an output. Their boss believes that they have a proof of concept prototype and far from being knocked up in a day, the dude has spent every waking moment on it for the last two years rather than doing the day job - nice distraction. And they think the project can take it from this stage to integration and production in a few weeks. You get the job of giving them the bad news and the 'SME' hates your guts

The other biggest one for me is the PM who burns the budget hiring PMOs at higher or equal rates to BAs and architects and then wonders why they cannot afford to deliver anything. Yes, but the project is 'well managed' and has a wicked looking dashboard

The most recent one was an H& SE 'senior exec' who didn't understand risk or responsibility, couldn't make a decision and when his bluff was called, he left and joined a similar org with the same role.