Sometimes clients are just nasty...

[bobspud]

Thanks guys. I told the chap that I wouldn't be available. Money was good but actually not that much more than I'm on now and I already have a contract till the end of October. In the end I figure that it's better to keep on the right side of the party with hundreds of clients rather than jump ship to someone that only has one project.

[doodab]

No.

[darrenb]

If this is a short, sharp contract then I might take the pain

Fair enough. I suppose it depends what you want to do for a living. How about a series of one-night contracts that are highly paid but rather sore-in-the-bottom? (PM me.)

[cojak]

Clients like this only exist because people put up with them.

Sometimes you've got to take a step back and ask yourself, Do I really need the money that badly?

Let's say you have a choice between a job with an abusive client that pays 750 GBP / day, and a job with a non-abusive client that pays 500 GBP / day. How much are you worth? You are worth 500 GBP /day.

I agree up to a point - and the point is the end-date.

If this is a short, sharp contract then I might take the pain - it's when they (seemingly) go on forever that I won't bother.

[vetran]

tell them you will do it for a sixth month fixed contract with a guaranteed golden parachute. Do two weeks work and go off for 6 months with stress.

[Lockhouse]

. Would anyone else Jump on this ship?

Depends how much they are paying. Everyone has their price.

[darrenb]

Clients like this only exist because people put up with them.

Sometimes you've got to take a step back and ask yourself, Do I really need the money that badly?

Let's say you have a choice between a job with an abusive client that pays 750 GBP / day, and a job with a non-abusive client that pays 500 GBP / day. How much are you worth? You are worth 500 GBP /day.

[bobspud]

I worked on a transition project around the end of 2010 -11. It was a tough ask (timescales/knowledge/cultures)... The programme was rough, even abusive some days. The client was a screamer so at some point in any given week in addition to the day job, I would find myself on calls to the Outsourcing Co's chief exec explaining why the IS director was after my head yet again (the normal answer was that I wouldn't give him stuff for free when it wasn't in the design or contract) His own guys would then grovel in a separate meeting and give the guy what ever he wanted...

Anyway at one point the commercials were looking less than impressive (15million down on a 25million contract.) the finance team were being burned out almost as fast as the budget. But the powers that be were convinced that they would have the money back in the BAU and change control phase of the project. So the transition finished after all the little jobs were mopped up and its almost at BAU. I finally rolled off after completing my phase (building the new DC and migrating the service/infrastructure.) The Permanent TDA then took on the transition into BAU pieces.

Just had a quiet sniff from the end client on linked in. They are about to serve notice on the Outsourcer and take the whole thing back off them on a contract technicality and would I like to come back as the EA... They would have ended up having a messy transition done for almost nothing and got two new data centres as well.

First thing is that I can now see they had this planned from day one. I can also see the dead bodies of past flavours of the month strewn all over the clients site.
More importantly I spent most of my time arguing flat out with the Director in question, and wonder how long it would take him to boot me out in a fit of rage... I am also sat here thinking that the Outsourcer has been more than fair to me, and for me to do a runner to the dark side would leave them more than exposed when it came to unearthing their issues...

for that reason I'm out. Would anyone else Jump on this ship?

Or has anyone else come up against clients that were this crafty?