Reply to: Work not as described. Would you stick with it?

[BolshieBastard]

says the doormat.

If you want to believe that, that's up to you.

[insur]

Personally, when I started contracting I was only prepared to work on the latest and the greatest.
As the years rolled on I realised there was very good money to be made once greenfield development had completed and the majority of contractors had moved on.

I have found ClientCo to value developers who can fix issues and get the product stable very highly which equates to more extensions and plenty of kerching.

Looking back I have probably done more billable hours post greenfield than on the actual development stage.

Having done both I can definitely say greenfield development wins hands down, it's so much more enjoyable and gets me up in the morning with a desire to actually come to work.

Currently I'm working on an old legacy piece of junk which no one else seems willing to tackle but I
think this will be my last one.

Shall see this one out for as long as ClientCo can tolerate me and then only look for greenfield and go back to how I was when I started out.

[billybiro]

I cannot be arsed reading through all of this so, forgive the brevity of my response.

You're paid more than a permie when contracting because you often have to deal with tulip thrown at you. If you're going to whinge everytime something like this happens (and it happens), then, imho, you aint cut out for contracting.

Sometimes as contractors, we have to bite the bullet, roll up the sleeves and get on with it then, at the end of the contract bail.

Being a contractor isnt all doing what 'you' want to do.

says the doormat.

[Wanderer]

I have no fear of getting another contract

Go ahead then!

Don't walk away until you have a new contract and don't burn your bridges with the existing client is my advice. Every contact you make is potentially useful in the future..

Until then, keep clam and carry on invoicing. Jobs can change, I've done some where I spent weeks watching the clock waiting for home time because I was bored out of my mind but once the project kicked off it was great so never say never...

[woohoo]

Some of these replies are just bollocks.

Life is short and just because your a contractor doesn't mean you have to do tulipty work. This attitude of keep on invoicing and put up with is fine if you can switch off your mind and be a robot. For people that want to learn, be creative and produce something of value then support work isn't going to do it for them.

Give your notice and move on. Look after your self, no one else will, especially the sod who misled you at the interview.

[escapeUK]

and that I don't deal well with the boredom of not being given enough to do for 70% of my time.

I deal with it really well. I work on either furthering my own knowledge, revise for exams, work on plan B, online shopping. E-mail friends. Its all good. This was all during my permie time I admit, Ive not been in a contract with nothing to do so far.

But id just keep taking the money and have a nice relaxing time.

Oh and when I was a permie, I remember when one of the senior production managers was bored too. So he went to the two directors and said so, said "Use me or lose me." They decided lose him. lol. Best to keep your head down.

[ACYork]

Actually whilst reading this another thought came to mind.

I've worked with people that wanted to learn new technologies/do something interesting etc. and they just went off a developed something in a new technology that would be useful for the client - usually permis to be fair but I'm sure the same can apply to contractors.

But it's a fine line, it can't be some big thing that the client thinks "oh my god he must have had nothing to do" but you can downplay how long it took and just say "I had a little bit of spare time waiting for x/y/z and so knocked up this little WPF app that speeds up doing a/b/c".

Then of course you have the new technology on your CV and the client is pleased you've speeded up some process for them with some nifty little tool. You have to have access to the technology of course and it has to be useful to the client.

Might pass some time whilst you are looking if you do decide to leave.

A great suggestion, but that relies on you having been at the client long enough to know what tools they might want developed, though in actual fact, I did exactly that with a little WPF app at my last client that rapidly became business critical! Unfortunately, the fact the client is on VS2008 still discourages me from breaking out the VS2010 learning projects I store on DropBox.

As it is, I've had a word with my "Client Report" (my rebranded line manager - someone said as a contractor I don't have a Line Manager, though I argue my client is a company, thus a non-corporial entity, thus someone other than the client signs my time sheets). Everyone knows where they stand and he's happy that I'll move on to another client project after some time putting up with the tulip. They can't afford to lose me at the moment doing the support stuff but they're recruiting heavily for a lot of projects at the moment, so doing the constructive thing and talking to them about it was the best way to go. Of course, it helped that I was able to say that during my interview I described myself as hating XSLT with a fiery passion...

[Lewis]

I don't deal well with the boredom of not being given enough to do for 70% of my time?

Actually whilst reading this another thought came to mind.

I've worked with people that wanted to learn new technologies/do something interesting etc. and they just went off a developed something in a new technology that would be useful for the client - usually permis to be fair but I'm sure the same can apply to contractors.

But it's a fine line, it can't be some big thing that the client thinks "oh my god he must have had nothing to do" but you can downplay how long it took and just say "I had a little bit of spare time waiting for x/y/z and so knocked up this little WPF app that speeds up doing a/b/c".

Then of course you have the new technology on your CV and the client is pleased you've speeded up some process for them with some nifty little tool. You have to have access to the technology of course and it has to be useful to the client.

Might pass some time whilst you are looking if you do decide to leave.

[ACYork]

LM: Line Manager - guy who signs the timesheets

[LumbaBread]

Thanks for the advice guys. Even to the "grow some cajones" crowd and the the "TW;DR;" (too whingey, didn't read) response. Particularly, thanks Lewis - I intend on chasing the greenfield stuff, I was drawn in to a role with Finance experience though.
I'm having a chat with my LM today to say the job content doesn't fit with my expectations, I don't have defined enough deliverables to avoid myself being counted as outside IR35 (helps to have a legal reason behind it) and that I don't deal well with the boredom of not being given enough to do for 70% of my time, so they have two options: include me on a project that can use my time or I'll need to hand in notice to stop my skill set going staler than a fondue house's baguettes. I figure telling them that makes it easier for them to plan and react appropriately. Might agree that I'll serve 6 months (which is what I originally interviewed for) and then see how it's going.
As for pragmatically fearing the market, isn't anybody else seeing a boat load of .NET roles out there at the moment, or is that just in god's own country up north?
Oh, and before anybody starts talking about IR35 and deliverables needing to be defined, I can't be the only contractor that assumes I might have to creatively retro-actively define my deliverables in case of inspection because I work on a time / materials contract and my recruiter stands zero chance of accurately defining my deliverables, can I?

LM ???

[ACYork]

Cheers

Thanks for the advice guys. Even to the "grow some cajones" crowd and the the "TW;DR;" (too whingey, didn't read) response. Particularly, thanks Lewis - I intend on chasing the greenfield stuff, I was drawn in to a role with Finance experience though.
I'm having a chat with my LM today to say the job content doesn't fit with my expectations, I don't have defined enough deliverables to avoid myself being counted as outside IR35 (helps to have a legal reason behind it) and that I don't deal well with the boredom of not being given enough to do for 70% of my time, so they have two options: include me on a project that can use my time or I'll need to hand in notice to stop my skill set going staler than a fondue house's baguettes. I figure telling them that makes it easier for them to plan and react appropriately. Might agree that I'll serve 6 months (which is what I originally interviewed for) and then see how it's going.
As for pragmatically fearing the market, isn't anybody else seeing a boat load of .NET roles out there at the moment, or is that just in god's own country up north?
Oh, and before anybody starts talking about IR35 and deliverables needing to be defined, I can't be the only contractor that assumes I might have to creatively retro-actively define my deliverables in case of inspection because I work on a time / materials contract and my recruiter stands zero chance of accurately defining my deliverables, can I?

[Lewis]

My 2p worth...

If you can bear it and the people/money is good then stay, if you really don't like it leave. Life is just too short to spend it stuck in a office you don't like all day.

As you say another contract is always around the conrner (although you have to be pragmatic and realise things aren't great right now).

I've been doing this thing for a long, long time and I've only left mid contract twice, but I look back and think why did it take me so long to leave, sometimes there is no sensible option but to cut your loses.

You'll be able to return to the agency and the client again, people have very short memories, although to be honest you're unlikely to ever need to work for the client again anyway. In fact I can't think of even using the same agency twice!

As a C# banking contractor I reckon that in the last decade I've spent about 90% of my time on greenfield development, usually on the latest or near latest version of tools. And of course that then gets you the next greenfield role using the latest tools and the cycle continues...

If people see C#2 on your CV for your latest role, you're not going to land that C#5 job when it comes out or that C#4 job now. Decide what you want to be doing and chase that, you will get it. Lastly, make sure you read up on the latest technologies and use them at home, if you want to get into the new stuff you have to be able to talk about it in interviews - although, you probably already know all this!

People that are stuck on legacy toolsets are doing it through their own choice.

[jmo21]

Move on.

It's not what you want to do, you are confident you cna get other roles.

The others are correct, sometimes you will get the tulip, and if you know that going in, and are happy to take the contract then fine.

But if the role has been sold as one thing and changes, then no one can blame you for wanting to move.

Whether end client or agency take the huff is another matter, and you won't know how they'll react until it happens. You may not even find out. End client co might bad mouth to their customer (internal, external whatever), "The contractor let us down... blah blah"

So long as you deal with it as professionally as possible then you can hold your head high.

[farout117]

Welcome to the world of contracting! You do not always get to work on funky new technologies in cutting edge offices.............

From experience, most of the time, contractors are hired to "fix" the tulip permies do. I still love what I do though.

(no disrespect to you Brillo, you're one of us )

[BrilloPad]

Personally I would look round until I find something better.

BTW I am in the same boat as you are now - but a permie. Difficult to move after such a short time as a permie - and I have the carrot of an enormous bonus dangled in front of me.