Reply to: Clients demanding permie working hours

[foggo]

The standard day when I was at BT was 7h 24m.

Did you spend 2:46.55 on hold?

[draxenato]

If its a support job then the lunch will be about making sure there is enough cover, if its any other type of job I don't see what difference it makes but it might be they have had bad experience with people taking the p for lunches and hours of works so now they have fixed it.

Does sound like a manager on a power trip to me

Well I can sorta see their point. I'm working in a small team of two permies and four contactors, we all have very distinct roles in our project, there's not much overlap in terms of skills and experience. We're also free to take our lunch breaks when we want, but that can (and usually does) end up with us losing over two hours of productivity per day.
I end up twiddling my thumbs coz I can't make any progress without the assistance of a colleague who's on break, then when I go out someone else is waiting on me. So on and so forth. So yeah I can see the point of it.

[Sausage Surprise]

When I was contracting there circa 1996, for the permies it was 9:45 to 16:00 Mon to Thu and 10:00 to 11:50 on Friday.

Still is...

[GardenGirl]

If its a support job then the lunch will be about making sure there is enough cover, if its any other type of job I don't see what difference it makes but it might be they have had bad experience with people taking the p for lunches and hours of works so now they have fixed it.

Does sound like a manager on a power trip to me

[BrowneIssue]

When I went into it the other day to book time off for a conference in a few weeks, I was pleased to see that certain irrelevant options bore the legend Disabled (Reason: Contractor)

At one MoD site I was at they put "Consultant" after your name in the network login full name and email full name. That was nice.

At an asset management company they put "(temp)" after your name on everything. That was less nice.

[NickFitz]

I mean things like holiday request forms

My current ClientOrg has a leave request system which I have to use as the meat-based components of their management systems fall apart otherwise. (The request system is written in ASP.NET and so usually manages to fall apart anyway, but that's a different matter.)

When I went into it the other day to book time off for a conference in a few weeks, I was pleased to see that certain irrelevant options bore the legend Disabled (Reason: Contractor)

[blacjac]

Yep!

[Fred Bloggs]

Sorry, I mean't Dragonfly, Arctic was income sharing wasn't it?

Yep!

[blacjac]

But arctic didnt fail for that reason!

No, Arctic didn't fail for that reason, but the Dragonfly case failed because of what a numpty at the AA said. And that means it doesn't really matter what your contract says or what your working arrangements were any more. You're an IR35 fail on the say so of some numpty you never even met while you were at the client up to 7 years earlier.

That's why Dragonfly is such a dangerous case to lose.

Sorry, I mean't Dragonfly, Arctic was income sharing wasn't it?

[Fred Bloggs]

No, Arctic didn't fail for that reason, but the Dragonfly case failed because of what a numpty at the AA said. And that means it doesn't really matter what your contract says or what your working arrangements were any more. You're an IR35 fail on the say so of some numpty you never even met while you were at the client up to 7 years earlier.

That's why Dragonfly is such a dangerous case to lose.

[BolshieBastard]

While I used to agree with you, the Arctic case has changed my mind...

All it takes is for an investigator to ask someone in HR if you were a good employee and for them to reply "yep, they were at their desk for 9 every day, just like they had been told", and you're screwed.

But arctic didnt fail for that reason!

[blacjac]

To be honest, when clients ask you to follow certain procedures it's usually best to just nod and when the time comes either

a) follow it
b) sort of follow it
c) or just ignore it.

Usually I do 'b' or 'c'. I mean things like holiday request forms, set working hours, behaviour in front of other clients, and other tulipe.

Some contractors get all uppity and start waffling on about how they are a business and they won't be dictated to like a permie... blah blah IR35 blah. Clients usually just look bemused and say they don't know anything about IR35. Later said contractor doesn't get renewed.

Honestly, some contractors believe Hector is watching them on CCTV every working minute!

Couldn't have written it better myself!

While I used to agree with you, the Arctic case has changed my mind...

All it takes is for an investigator to ask someone in HR if you were a good employee and for them to reply "yep, they were at their desk for 9 every day, just like they had been told", and you're screwed.

[Fred Bloggs]

To be honest, when clients ask you to follow certain procedures it's usually best to just nod and when the time comes either

a) follow it
b) sort of follow it
c) or just ignore it.

Usually I do 'b' or 'c'. I mean things like holiday request forms, set working hours, behaviour in front of other clients, and other tulipe.

Some contractors get all uppity and start waffling on about how they are a business and they won't be dictated to like a permie... blah blah IR35 blah. Clients usually just look bemused and say they don't know anything about IR35. Later said contractor doesn't get renewed.

Honestly, some contractors believe Hector is watching them on CCTV every working minute!

Couldn't have written it better myself!

[expat]

I had a client who wanted me to start coming in "on time". So I did, vowing to leave on the dot too. I thought they'd soon change their tune when they saw that it reduced my productivity by 30-40%.

It did, and they didn't. They were happier with me doing 9-5 and less work.

[swamp]

To be honest, when clients ask you to follow certain procedures it's usually best to just nod and when the time comes either

a) follow it
b) sort of follow it
c) or just ignore it.

Usually I do 'b' or 'c'. I mean things like holiday request forms, set working hours, behaviour in front of other clients, and other tulipe.

Some contractors get all uppity and start waffling on about how they are a business and they won't be dictated to like a permie... blah blah IR35 blah. Clients usually just look bemused and say they don't know anything about IR35. Later said contractor doesn't get renewed.

Honestly, some contractors believe Hector is watching them on CCTV every working minute!