Reply to: Carlsberg don't do IT contracts....

[darmstadt]

IBM, 6 months, £350pd, work from home. The day after I started the PM left and the replacement got sacked so they forgot I existed. I didn't have an employee number so nobody was interested. After 2 months I took on another contract and ran both concurrently.

I did one for IBM at €560+ per day for about 4 months before I packed it in. I used to go in, read my mail, browse IBM internal databases for hours, sleep (own office) and then go home. They eventually found me some work after nagging them, and this is one of the reasons I packed it in, doing TCPIP with DB2 on VSE for the Pakistan Airforce who were based near the Afghanistan border just before the whole Taliban thing kicked off...

[xoggoth]

You bastard! I wondered where Boris had gone!

[Sockpuppet]

Well I'm on 200/day to go to 1 hour tours of local facilities this week.

For the next month I'm on a fact finding trip round europe, 4 weeks of getting pissed every night.

And this is my first contract, how rubbish is that. I can't peak with the first one it'll be all downhill from there.

[darmstadt]

So what's the redbook on?

Can't say, don't really know as I had to sign an NDA for it. As IBM have their big NDA meeting that week as well with all the partners and PWD members I expect its going to be to do with the next releases of their mainframe OS'es.

[Cliphead]

IBM, 6 months, £350pd, work from home. The day after I started the PM left and the replacement got sacked so they forgot I existed. I didn't have an employee number so nobody was interested. After 2 months I took on another contract and ran both concurrently.

[DaveB]

Somewhere in the middle.

350/day good week "work from home" all week. Bad week 4 days in office.

Left to my own devices mostly. Probably a days worth of actual work needed per week.

[ViolentCheese]

150/day.

I go in, get arsed raped by everybody.

2 hours + commute each day.

No fit women.

HTH

[swamp]

£450 a day for attending the 'internet cafe' seven hours a day.

Coffee is rubbish though

[DimPrawn]

True, £400/day for sitting at home surfing the net, visiting the gym and sitting in the garden is pretty ropey really.

[Francko]

£400/day.

Anyone got a better contract at the moment?

Blimey! Things aren't going that well for .net people. Oh, well, you can always try to cross-train to SAP.

Bye bye flashy car I am afraid....

[hattra]

Fly to Madrid Sunday for a week to install a system, all expenses paid

The week after fly to the UK for a coulpe of days for meetings and a conference, all expenses paid

After that I'm off to Poughkeepsie to IBM for a residency (to write a redbook) for 2 weeks, all expenses paid

Then back to the UK for a week to install another system, all expenses paid

Not too bad methinks

So what's the redbook on?

Most of my contracts have been boring and dull, though the current one has more than it's fair share of eye-candy hanging out in the office

My best job was a (sort of) permie one - two and a half years in Bermuda

[darmstadt]

Ah yes, but have you got a small chopper? IR35 Avoider has and I understand that DimPrawn is getting one too.

For all my travelling I have a Jumbo Chopper

[Board Game Geek]

Well, my office comes on wheels ! 4 to be precise !

It's a mid-sized blue van, stuffed full of USB leads, second-hand PSU's, Kettle Leads, a couple of new HP printers, a Dell Optiplex GX520 PC, and various boxes of important, salvaged components saved for "just in case" that I have subsequently forgotten about.

The passenger side is where the really good stuff is.

3 weeks copies of the Daily Mail. 12 empty triangular sandwich boxes (Tesco's Finest Chicken Salad) with the occasional bit of lettuce or chicken scrap still left in the box. 14 empty Tropicana Smooth plastic bottles. 9 Cadbury's Praline wrappers, 3 standard size Snickers (Marathon) wrappers, and a pile of baby wipes (I carry a box of 100 around so I can wipe my hands before and after lunch).

Somewhere in all that lot is my 250GB Hard Drive, plus assorted notes.

I don't think there's any more room for actual people, though I don't miss the company because I talk to myself anyway, or to Boris, the Resident Spider.

[Spacecadet]

I did a weeks work in Grand Turk early September, client has been in touch and possibly wants me out there again early next year! Billable for over £3k plus expenses, not bad for a weeks work and almost completely non-technical

[Xenophon]

Fly to Madrid Sunday for a week to install a system, all expenses paid

The week after fly to the UK for a coulpe of days for meetings and a conference, all expenses paid

After that I'm off to Poughkeepsie to IBM for a residency (to write a redbook) for 2 weeks, all expenses paid

Then back to the UK for a week to install another system, all expenses paid

Not too bad methinks

Ah yes, but have you got a small chopper? IR35 Avoider has and I understand that DimPrawn is getting one too.