Reply to: Toxic Contractors

[NickFitz]

Happily not

Do you have anything to confess, Nick, old chap?

Only that I continued to work on a financial-services-related contract, despite having a bad cold, in Cheltenham in 1999

[NickFitz]

It might have been... why?

Nothing to do with financial services by any chance?

[OwlHoot]

I well remember the guy in Cheltenham who managed to infect the entire office with his nasty flu/cold/lurgy germs...

Cost me over a grand that did.

And I was ill over Xmas.

Contractors don't take days off just because of a cold or flu. That's for wimp permies. Haven't you heard of lemsip and hankies?

and look on the bright side - At least now you'll never again get that variety of the several hundred flu strains floating around

[RichardCranium]

Some people are contractors because they can't hold down a permanent job.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Suddenly seeing that dilbert is in fact real is known as a "Dilbert Moment".

We had a Scottish guy on an Irish project who'd turn up drunk and stinking mid morning, with a bottle of whisky in his briefcase, which he'd drink over the course of day. By evening he was even more stinking are rather aggressive. It took management two weeks to pluck up the courage (i.e. find a couple of large security guards) to sack him.

Another Scottish contractor got sacked on a different project. Eventually the police were called in, because he took to standing outside his managers' houses of a night, shouting abuse.

I worked on a project with a permie like that - clientco paid for him to go to rehab.! didn't do any good.

[NickFitz]

I well remember the guy in Cheltenham who managed to infect the entire office with his nasty flu/cold/lurgy germs...

Cost me over a grand that did.

And I was ill over Xmas.

This wasn't in 1999 by any chance?

[Lucy]

Team player I see

He was never around, we needed him for our project and when we had meetings he would ask why things weren't done (because they were his tasks! and he hadn't delegated anything) project was turning to tulip, permies hated him and we worked out he was still working in his previous gig that he had stolen from his outsourcer.

[oracleslave]

By far the worst people I have worked with are from the 'big 4/3' whatever they are now. One 'project manager' woman had never managed a project before in her life, had some regulatory experience, subsequently brought in another 15 of her colleagues who mostly didn't have project experience either. Clearly decided our project was their training ground.

A PM I worked with in NZ had another contract at the same time and would be doing a lot of 'work' from home. We busted him.

Team player I see

[Lucy]

By far the worst people I have worked with are from the 'big 4/3' whatever they are now. One 'project manager' woman had never managed a project before in her life, had some regulatory experience, subsequently brought in another 15 of her colleagues who mostly didn't have project experience either. Clearly decided our project was their training ground.

A PM I worked with in NZ had another contract at the same time and would be doing a lot of 'work' from home. We busted him.

[oracleslave]

There seems to be a bit of a common theme in there...

Yeah, NAT how do you get these cool drinking gigs?

[Troll]

Suddenly seeing that dilbert is in fact real is known as a "Dilbert Moment".

We had a Scottish guy on an Irish project who'd turn up drunk and stinking mid morning, with a bottle of whisky in his briefcase, which he'd drink over the course of day. By evening he was even more stinking are rather aggressive. It took management two weeks to pluck up the courage (i.e. find a couple of large security guards) to sack him.

Another Scottish contractor got sacked on a different project. Eventually the police were called in, because he took to standing outside his managers' houses of a night, shouting abuse.

There seems to be a bit of a common theme in there...

[NotAllThere]

... this 60+ year old lady from Romania ...she sat in the corner muttering darkly in some crazy language...

Romanian, presumably.

[DimPrawn]

Sat across from a 58yr old women, brought in to do testing. She sat there for 3 months, coughing, and staring out the window. Barely touched a keyboard.

.

You know our Lucy then?

[gadgetman]

Can't believe most of this stuff - its like a Dilbert strip come to life

[Meerkat]

One guy that was caught on cctv about 3 weeks after joining leaving the office at 8pm with about 100k worth of cisco kit. When approached said he was using it to do his CCIE and 'didnt think they'd mind!'

Sat across from a 58yr old women, brought in to do testing. She sat there for 3 months, coughing, and staring out the window. Barely touched a keyboard.

Neither were got rid of, NHS are soft.