Reply to: Lazy Scrounger Contractors

[BABABlackSheep]

So you were running 2 contracts at the same time and found it stressful. Self inflicted no sympathy..

As for your other post - if you turned up with the attitude you have on this forum - I would be binning you immediately...

Maybe cut the guy some slack.

Some people deal with stress better than others.

Read through his posts again.

[eek]

You can, may I suggest, having read your post - that you kind **** off?

It's stressful for me because for the last couple of years contracts don't just fall into my lap, being able to pick and choose at least for a developer like me, is not a luxury I am granted. However until my last 2 contracts ended almost simultaneously I was able to just about secure continuous work.

The majority of work I do is for companies that are basically on fire and believe throwing a contractor at the problem will fix it. Or their dev team walked out because it's such a hostile environment.

I think I push myself too hard and that's why it's stressful. I find the expectations are much higher. But I'm not a permietractor so maybe that's why? Also a lot of people on here seem to be making £800+/day and probably have more specialised roles. Maybe those are more in demand (well, they must be given the cost) and maybe they're less stressful?

Often the projects I work on are beyond salvageable and should be canned but it's not my decision to make. I've been told a few times to mind my own business when I raise patently idiotic things in meetings, and have since learned to flag things once then keep quiet while they drive the project into the ground.

Only once did I have a nice easy greenfield project to work on, that contract was a breeze.

Permie life was a dream though I just showed up, did exactly what I wanted to do all day (pure architecture and dev work), had some junior devs to mentor and lots of office bants and drinks after work. Unfortunately it paid around half of what I make contracting

One way of dealing with the stress is the odd tulippost on the internet where I just vent and rant about it. Not like I can exactly go down the pub is it :P

So you were running 2 contracts at the same time and found it stressful. Self inflicted no sympathy..

As for your other post - if you turned up with the attitude you have on this forum - I would be binning you immediately...

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

Thx and I'm sorry if we got off on the wrong foot, I do like to rant and rave more than I should

What stresses me out is unclear direction. I don't mind deadlines, high workloads etc provided I know which way I'm supposed to be pointing.

Too often I get hired, plonked in a bad situation, and then the management bugger off and I have no machine/account/door pass/etc. and no instructions of precisely what they want me to do. I hold myself to a very high standard so if I'm not kicking ass I start to feel like I'm going to get fired any second.

Have worked with companies perm and contract that really really needed to fire people sooner. I respected one job that fired a guy on day one because he was garbage. It sucks but some people you can immediately see are a liability.

[Whorty]

You can, may I suggest, having read your post - that you kind **** off?

It's stressful for me because for the last couple of years contracts don't just fall into my lap, being able to pick and choose at least for a developer like me, is not a luxury I am granted. However until my last 2 contracts ended almost simultaneously I was able to just about secure continuous work.

The majority of work I do is for companies that are basically on fire and believe throwing a contractor at the problem will fix it. Or their dev team walked out because it's such a hostile environment.

I think I push myself too hard and that's why it's stressful. I find the expectations are much higher. But I'm not a permietractor so maybe that's why? Also a lot of people on here seem to be making £800+/day and probably have more specialised roles. Maybe those are more in demand (well, they must be given the cost) and maybe they're less stressful?

Often the projects I work on are beyond salvageable and should be canned but it's not my decision to make. I've been told a few times to mind my own business when I raise patently idiotic things in meetings, and have since learned to flag things once then keep quiet while they drive the project into the ground.

Only once did I have a nice easy greenfield project to work on, that contract was a breeze.

Permie life was a dream though I just showed up, did exactly what I wanted to do all day (pure architecture and dev work), had some junior devs to mentor and lots of office bants and drinks after work. Unfortunately it paid around half of what I make contracting

One way of dealing with the stress is the odd tulippost on the internet where I just vent and rant about it. Not like I can exactly go down the pub is it :P

Thanks for the extra info, this is interesting and I see where you're coming from now. With pubs shut and hard to see mates then I get that this is your outlet now - can I apologise as this wasn't what I read it as at first but that's my bad

Regarding day rates that others post on here, I'd take it with a pinch of salt as my guess is most don't earn anywhere near £800 pd. I've always been 500-550 when working as day rate which I've personally found sufficient and I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable earning more (as a Big 4 consultant I was charged out at £2000 p/day and that had it's own stresses I was always trying to justify that rate and I was working 16+ hours per day frequently).

Your projects sound very similar to mine. I'm often brought in only when things have gone t1ts up already. I'm a PM with a reputation in my field for being comfortable* clearing out teams if required and kick-starting projects. I rarely get greenfield projects, but actually I quite like picking up bad projects - let's face it, if things can't get any worse then the only way is up

I think this is quite common though - contractors are more expensive and we're often the last resort. I assume any role I'm going for is in trouble else they wouldn't be asking to interview me Maybe with a few more projects under your belt you could start to harness the reputation as someone who turns around projects?

* I'm not that comfortable to be honest and hate sacking people so always provide the sitting team the chance to turn things around first and work with me. Still usually ends up with a few key people having to be shown the door though.

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

may I suggest, having read your previous posts - that is because you aren’t very good at it.

You can, may I suggest, having read your post - that you kind **** off?

It's stressful for me because for the last couple of years contracts don't just fall into my lap, being able to pick and choose at least for a developer like me, is not a luxury I am granted. However until my last 2 contracts ended almost simultaneously I was able to just about secure continuous work.

The majority of work I do is for companies that are basically on fire and believe throwing a contractor at the problem will fix it. Or their dev team walked out because it's such a hostile environment.

I think I push myself too hard and that's why it's stressful. I find the expectations are much higher. But I'm not a permietractor so maybe that's why? Also a lot of people on here seem to be making £800+/day and probably have more specialised roles. Maybe those are more in demand (well, they must be given the cost) and maybe they're less stressful?

Often the projects I work on are beyond salvageable and should be canned but it's not my decision to make. I've been told a few times to mind my own business when I raise patently idiotic things in meetings, and have since learned to flag things once then keep quiet while they drive the project into the ground.

Only once did I have a nice easy greenfield project to work on, that contract was a breeze.

Permie life was a dream though I just showed up, did exactly what I wanted to do all day (pure architecture and dev work), had some junior devs to mentor and lots of office bants and drinks after work. Unfortunately it paid around half of what I make contracting

One way of dealing with the stress is the odd tulippost on the internet where I just vent and rant about it. Not like I can exactly go down the pub is it :P

[BABABlackSheep]

It's amazing what dumpster fires you can walk away from with a hefty number of gold coins in your pouch. I'm just the gaffer. I just do what I'm told.

I find contracting to be generally very stressful though.

Gaffer is the boss, so a bit confused, anyway.

All I can say is that I was a consultant for many years. I worked where they told me to work, doing what they told me to do, and for how long they decided I should be there.

I doubled my take home overnight going contracting. I now work where I want to, doing what I want to, for as long as I want to.

There are no guarantees in life. People are extremely fortunate to be furloughed, as there have been many other people who have had bad accidents or other tragic life incidents that means they have had no little or no support from anyone, and no funds to help them out in life.

I’m grateful for every day I can contract.

[Whorty]

Nothing is more cathartic to an engineer than a good ol' pointless moan, you should try it

I find contracting to be generally very stressful though.

I try not to moan as I find it doesn't help. I try not to worry about anything I can't control, and if I can control something then I try to fix it so I don't need to whinge.

I don't find contracting any more stressful than perm, and in many ways it's less stressful as less tulip to deal with. I also know that there is an end to any role I'm in so if one contract is tulip I'll most likely be in another one within 12 months (I work on projects so not many of my contracts extend much past 12 months).

[eek]

Nothing is more cathartic to an engineer than a good ol' pointless moan, you should try it



It's amazing what dumpster fires you can walk away from with a hefty number of gold coins in your pouch. I'm just the gaffer. I just do what I'm told.

I find contracting to be generally very stressful though.

may I suggest, having read your previous posts - that is because you aren’t very good at it.

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

You're clearly triggered by not getting what others are ... i've tried but not really much more I can add. You stay angry and post whiney comments on here if that helps.

Nothing is more cathartic to an engineer than a good ol' pointless moan, you should try it

Been working all the way through. Wouldn’t expect anything otherwise, wouldn’t whinge about it. I knew the game when I started contracting.

Always confident of work because if I wasn’t I wouldn’t have quit my perm job all those years ago.

I get paid a tulip load for little to no responsibility. Find it strange people don’t think risk/reward isn’t a factor for us.

If it gets an issue, I can also go back and become a permie.

It's amazing what dumpster fires you can walk away from with a hefty number of gold coins in your pouch. I'm just the gaffer. I just do what I'm told.

I find contracting to be generally very stressful though.

[BABABlackSheep]

Been working all the way through. Wouldn’t expect anything otherwise, wouldn’t whinge about it. I knew the game when I started contracting.

Always confident of work because if I wasn’t I wouldn’t have quit my perm job all those years ago.

I get paid a tulip load for little to no responsibility. Find it strange people don’t think risk/reward isn’t a factor for us.

If it gets an issue, I can also go back and become a permie.

[Whorty]

Yup.

Worked for me for years.

Failed as a permie.

Failed as a contractor.

Shut down more companies than I care to count due to my overwhelming Jonah effect.

[DoctorStrangelove]

There are some godawful contractors out there.

Yup.

Worked for me for years.

Failed as a permie.

Failed as a contractor.

Shut down more companies than I care to count due to my overwhelming Jonah effect.

[Whorty]

That's a weird claim to make.

I've really only seen 2 types of contractors.... first type is a genuine disguised employee who works at one client for multiple years within their hierarchy and is basically working as a contractor as a combined tax dodge plus a way to get paid more money and not fall within the defined salary brackets. You can't say they are failed permies because they are just disguised permies and obviously are able to keep their job for multiple years even though they have no employment protections. Second type is the highly skilled contractor who comes in and solves the problems / delivers the projects that the permies don't possess the skill set to do (most likely because the company is not willing to pay their perm staff enough to attract the type of skillset/talent required to deliver). I don't know how you call them failed permies, they are actually coming in to fix the failures of the permies and most of them had successful permie careers first.

Not weird, it's based on my own experience but you're right, there are also those 'permie-tractors' but I've never worked with them hence why I forgot to mention them. Are there many of these left?

[Whorty]

<snip>

You're clearly triggered by not getting what others are ... i've tried but not really much more I can add. You stay angry and post whiney comments on here if that helps.

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

That's a weird claim to make.

I've really only seen 2 types of contractors.... first type is a genuine disguised employee who works at one client for multiple years within their hierarchy and is basically working as a contractor as a combined tax dodge plus a way to get paid more money and not fall within the defined salary brackets. You can't say they are failed permies because they are just disguised permies and obviously are able to keep their job for multiple years even though they have no employment protections. Second type is the highly skilled contractor who comes in and solves the problems / delivers the projects that the permies don't possess the skill set to do (most likely because the company is not willing to pay their perm staff enough to attract the type of skillset/talent required to deliver). I don't know how you call them failed permies, they are actually coming in to fix the failures of the permies and most of them had successful permie careers first.

Yeah I'm not keen on this contractor superior to permie mentality.

There are some godawful contractors out there. I think they get by because they're really poorly vetted by employers. Recruiters are absolutely useless, they are non-technical and will sell their own grandma for a commission but companies rely on them. But they do it because they can get a lot of money even if they leave devastation in their path. Gotta respect the hustle.

As for other reasons why people go contracting, I do it because permie jobs are just so boring. The last gig I had they had a 2 year project to migrate a website, page by page, from an old technology to a new one. Who wants to do that for 2 years? I did it for a few months as a contractor, and it was dull and depressing, just sitting on my own working down a list of pages. Imagine if that was your entire life. Greenfield jobs are rare, but even if you land one you're just doing one project for years. I can't hack a permie job because they tend to just be so dull, often as a cog in a machine, too. I'll be a cog if I get to learn new tech or do something unique but I won't enjoy it after 6 months. I have a mate that was in the same permie job for 14 years! It's not the life for me. Doesn't mean he failed though, or I failed, just means we want different things.

Unfortunately though contracting seems to have a lot of tulip piled in with it, working at companies that are so hostile and unpleasant they can't retain perm staff, or working on really tedious projects. So I'm happy to be able to go in then get out a bit later.