Reply to: End of Contract Etiquette

[Old Greg]

Well if it makes you feel important

The point is not to feel important, but to make other people feel less important.


And of course to offer courteous and helpful advice in the professional forums. So consider yourself warned.

[dx4100]

Handover has been absolutely vital in every gig I have had...

[northernladuk]

Well if it makes you feel important

Having a different job doesn't make you any more or less important. It's just different. Looking like a pillock however......

[SlipTheJab]

We're not all code monkeys or helpdesk folk. Handover is always a key part of my contracts, and being indispensable in advance of handover is an important part of my operating model.

Well if it makes you feel important

[northernladuk]

We're not all code monkeys or helpdesk folk. Handover is always a key part of my contracts, and being indispensable in advance of handover is an important part of my operating model.

^ This....

[Old Greg]

Handovers are a waste of time anyway, any half decent dev team will ensure that no one has all the knowledge to themselves, and can cope when someone is off, ill or has been hit by a bus, no one is indispensable, they're really just a box ticking exercise to make the manager feel that he's doing something managerish (rather than admitting that his job really just entails signing of timesheets and looking after the holidays spreadsheet )

We're not all code monkeys or helpdesk folk. Handover is always a key part of my contracts, and being indispensable in advance of handover is an important part of my operating model.

[MrMarkyMark]

Fisher Price - like it. Yes well lets not get into will waving or "Im more important than you" thing....

Depends on whether you do true project work, I guess, also the scope / resources you manage.
You always seem to think we are all the same position, but we are not.

Yep. In a support environment, it doesn't take a week to do a handover anyway.

Ah, proved my previous point, above. Ta!

[psychocandy]

Handovers are a waste of time anyway, any half decent dev team will ensure that no one has all the knowledge to themselves, and can cope when someone is off, ill or has been hit by a bus, no one is indispensable, they're really just a box ticking exercise to make the manager feel that he's doing something managerish (rather than admitting that his job really just entails signing of timesheets and looking after the holidays spreadsheet )

Yep. In a support environment, it doesn't take a week to do a handover anyway.

Imagine it - contractor is there 2 months and says hes leaving in a month. Even the best, most knowledgable person in the world will have spent a lot of those 2 months seeing how the end client does things, which servers are which, how things work locally. So client wants him out asap rather than keep showing him stuff for the last month and then start again with new fella. They'd rather get someone in asap hoping they'll stay longer.

[SlipTheJab]

Handovers are a waste of time anyway, any half decent dev team will ensure that no one has all the knowledge to themselves, and can cope when someone is off, ill or has been hit by a bus, no one is indispensable, they're really just a box ticking exercise to make the manager feel that he's doing something managerish (rather than admitting that his job really just entails signing of timesheets and looking after the holidays spreadsheet )

[psychocandy]

Wouldn't that be more dead than you?

lol. *willy

[northernladuk]

Fisher Price - like it. Yes well lets not get into will waving or "Im more important than you" thing....

Wouldn't that be more dead than you?

[psychocandy]

Only for total Fisher Price / Numpty stuff surely?

Fisher Price - like it. Yes well lets not get into will waving or "Im more important than you" thing....

[Chuck]

You don't want to renew and the client seems unlikely to renew.

So have the conversation but don't even mention renewal. On the Friday before, say that next week is your last week and you want to ensure a clean handover. Discuss the details of the handover and then go, after getting timesheet signed, on the appointed day.

Everyone happy.

[MrMarkyMark]

Maybe. But I've seen it happen more than once where they've told contractor, ok so you're off in 3 weeks, tell you what we'll make that one week for you to do the handover.

Only for total Fisher Price / Numpty stuff surely?

[psychocandy]

Sounds BAU inside IR35 to me. But glad things are going well.

Ah yes we've had this discussion. And I think the general agreement was "borderline", "not great", "it is what it is"