Hassle free contracting life?

[norrahe]

No major problems, some delayed payments when I went direct, some fishing, some benchtime but overall its been pretty good.

can't complain

[lukemg]

15 years - no problems but big agencies+ big companies which helps. Also, I ain't living hand to mouth and sweating over every payment so that lowers the stress - caveat - if it was a small co/agency I would insist on weekly billing going in to reduce liability...

[russell]

Thats why I only work for blue chips that are unlikely to fail, like banks e.g. Lehman Brothers, Icelandic banks.

[PAH]

Only real problem I've had in over 12 years of contracting is an agency going into voluntary liquidation having not paid lots of contractors (including me) for a couple of months. They had debts of going on for a million (mostly to contractors) only to be able to start up again under a different name and continue as if nothing had happened.

Icing on the cake is I recently found out the liquidators are charging £220 per hour and have racked up 40k in fees so far, with f-all to show for it, apart from to say we aren't likely to see any dividend from what money they do claw back from the directors. Bunch of ******* parasites, just like the agents.

Off to watch 'Falling Down' and 'Exterminator' for some inspiration on how to deal with these *******.

[hyperD]

Not had a problem when I've contracted, apart from fishing trips by agents but they're quickly dismissed when you ignore the bulltulip about needing references up front.

However, working direct, even for blue chips, can have its share of problems: once it took 7 months for a large milestone payment to appear - almost ran out of cash.

Also cancelling projects at the last moment can play havoc with the cash flow too.

[northernladuk]

It's called life. The longer you live it, the more likely tulip will happen.

Deep man, deep!

[VectraMan]

Contracting for a startup is not a very sensible thing to do. Very high risk but where's the reward above say contracting at a blue chip?.

In my case it was a very interesting job, and a chance to start something from scratch, which seemed a lot more appealing than being bored out my mind at a blue chip. And the guy doing it assured everybody the funds were secure for 6 months of contractor time (at a pretty decent rate). Joining a startup on a low permie salary with a vague promise of better things to come, and then discovering the company goes bust after 6 months wouldn't be good, but as a contractor I was quite happy to commit to 6 months only.

If the recession hadn't hit, it might have been okay.

[MarillionFan]

It's called life. The longer you live it, the more likely tulip will happen.

[DimPrawn]

Contracting for a startup is not a very sensible thing to do. Very high risk but where's the reward above say contracting at a blue chip?

Different if you are getting shed loads of money to offset the risk or stock options or something, but otherwise, they go bust you get zip.

[jmo21]

I've only been contracting 3 years, and nothing bad happened yet thankfully.

Back in my permie days, I was offered a job with a very small startup, but at £6k less than I was looking for. They said we'll pay you X - 6k in first month, X - 5K in 2nd etc, and after 6 months you'll be at what you were looking for.

My spidey senses were tingling, so knocked it back. I don't know how quickly they went bust, but when I checked a year later they were gone.

So I've always been very wary, even before I started contracting.

[VectraMan]

Client went tits up while I was working direct.

Only lost £3k, so can't really complain.

I lost about £6K when that happened to me 3 years ago. It was a small startup, so maybe I should have been more suspicious.

Only problem I've had with agents is one who didn't pay me because they hadn't received their contract back from the client, which they really should have been chasing themselves and not waiting for me to complain. But it all got sorted out within a couple of weeks. It's the dealing with the scum when looking for work that gets you down; in my experience once you're in a contract it's fine.

[russell]

If you work for small clients this is likely to happen more often I would think, never happened to me mind you.

[DimPrawn]

I've never had any major issues beyond agency fishing, a few cockups on payment (down to incompetence rather than malice). I have known colleagues who have used agencies that have gone bust and worked at clients that have gone bust, but you can see this coming a mile off if you have any business nouse.

So I think a lot of it is luck and stupidity combination.

For me, contracting has been a completely hassle free, highly profitable and varied "career".

HTH

[curtis]

I read quite often on this site about tulip 'issues' people have while contracting like agencies trying to pull fast ones saying they owe them money for leaving a contract early, not getting money for ages and ages, never getting money owed, companies/agents going bust and the consequences etc etc

So far apart form just normal agency tulip I have never had any major issues but after reading other peoples stories I suppose I'm waiting for it to happen one day.

Is there anyone who has been contracting for a long time that has never had any really bad tulip happen? (apart from normal everyday agency games/lies) If you have have you suffered a lot of was it just one or a few things?