Reply to: How many contracts have you done where...

[Old Hack]

Only once. I was 'given' a recalcitrant contractor who had been on site for 7 years, and apparently had aquired some kind of role protection. He was effectively unmanageable. I tried hard to work with him, but he let me down hugely on a project, so I gave him both barrels. He claimed I had racially abused him, which I hadn't, and wouldn't, but this was dismissed by HR as he had previous, and, luckily, someone heard the conversation (at a pub after work). I was told, if I wanted to continue, I had to make it work with him.

I found a new role within a week, and resigned, with immediate effect, leaving the team in the tulip. Ironically, he resigned to move back up north. Never felt bad about it either.

Other than that, nothing. As someone else has said, I am a contractor or fiscal nomad (thanks Norr), I go where the money is, perform my role and move on when it is done. Sookie permies are simply wound up by me telling them how much I earn, and what I spend it on. No point shouting, much better ways of upsetting the puerile tulips.

[psychocandy]

Thanks for the comments - my conscience is clear in that I have the full support of my reporting line, who are also my contract renewers, in what I am trying to do. Without their support I would definitely keep me head down and am now anyway consciously starting to step back and fitting in with the norm.

EXACTLY mate. If possible keep the ones who renew your contract happy!!!!

Sometimes, unfortunately, not always possible because whatever you do it wont be right and you'll get the boot because you get blamed for someone else screw up. but thats contracting!

[nomadd]

We're used to being despised for making people do radical things like following process.

Worked on a contract many years ago where I was the only contractor. Management were pushing heavily for change, and I'd been brought in to implement it.

Permies despised me from day one. Constant jibes of "You'll fail... This place will never change... You'll be out on your arse inside of three months... Etc., etc." Every day was a new argument with them.

Within a year, all of those permies had been "let go." Young blood was brought in. I ended up working on three projects for the same client lasting 4.5 years in total.

Strange to deal with permies who think they are "safe for life." Guess it takes life biting them in the ass before they finally wake up.

[robgibraltar]

Scope creep = contract extension in my experience.

Contractor-hating permies are laughable, only had a run in with one serious one, there are usually a few passive agressive comments from people either too timid or incompetent to go the contracting route.

All my contracts have been change and release management. The old bill of the IT world. We're used to being despised for making people do radical things like following process.

[kaiser78]

Kaiser. OK so first off you sound like a decent fella who knows what hes doing.....

BUT, seriously, IMHO you're onto a loser every time here mate. You say you've put a few noses out of joint? Lets just hope none of these are responsible for renewals..... know what I mean. You might be right but if you've upset a permie manager who thinks hes right then you never know. Better to let the permies think they;re right and get on with it.

I agree with you though. It is annoying when people do things stupidly and its obvious to you it should be done properly. Unfortunately, having worked for a multitude of multi-nationals, in my experience, the bigger the company the worse they are.

Dont get me wrong - you're paid for your technical opinion or whatever. Give it but I certainly aint gonna get myself stressed or get into arguments with the client about things. There can be only one loser in this situation.

Thanks for the comments - my conscience is clear in that I have the full support of my reporting line, who are also my contract renewers, in what I am trying to do. Without their support I would definitely keep me head down and am now anyway consciously starting to step back and fitting in with the norm.

[suityou01]

[psychocandy]

I have put a couple of noses out of joint in current contract due to various suppliers being totally amateurish and me trying to get them to do things properly, which is in my nature and really cheeses me off when they don't.

Kaiser. OK so first off you sound like a decent fella who knows what hes doing.....

BUT, seriously, IMHO you're onto a loser every time here mate. You say you've put a few noses out of joint? Lets just hope none of these are responsible for renewals..... know what I mean. You might be right but if you've upset a permie manager who thinks hes right then you never know. Better to let the permies think they;re right and get on with it.

I agree with you though. It is annoying when people do things stupidly and its obvious to you it should be done properly. Unfortunately, having worked for a multitude of multi-nationals, in my experience, the bigger the company the worse they are.

Dont get me wrong - you're paid for your technical opinion or whatever. Give it but I certainly aint gonna get myself stressed or get into arguments with the client about things. There can be only one loser in this situation.

[darrenb]

In my experience - admittedly shaped by probably too many Banking clients - if you take the approach of "I'll just sit here quietly and invoice" then you simply make things worse for yourself. If you don't confront problems head-on, and early, then you just leave yourself in a world of grief from a bunch of psychopaths. I've found that by confronting these people, strongly and early, they always clear off and hassle someone else for the rest of my stay on a contract. I'd much rather things didn't have to get this inflamed, but with some people it's the only approach - or at least the only approach I've found that works!

What are the disadvantages of reaching a local fitness peak? When does mutation beat adaptation?

[darrenb]

}catch(err){
// do nothing
} finally{
invoice()
}

FTFY

[kaiser78]

I have put a couple of noses out of joint in current contract due to various suppliers being totally amateurish and me trying to get them to do things properly, which is in my nature and really cheeses me off when they don't.

[jmo21]

I've never had any kind of stand up argument with someone in an office.

I've had keenly debated conversations that's for sure, but nothing like the OP and others have described.

Life is way too short.

I'll do my best for a contract I'm trying to deliver, if I see issues, I'll raise them. If these are ignored, I will try again, but after a couple of attempts I will stop.

[nomadd]

All of my banking hirers have been overjoyed with me and wanted me to take on Full Time roles with them; so I think it's appreciated. I've even had feedback saying the projects / infrastructure moves would have been disasterous without my input.

Very good point. Hadn't even thought of that.

For all my excessive ranting, literally every client I've ever worked for has begged me to stay and go permie with them. I don't know, maybe they just like the 'theater' of it all.

[Mich the Tester]

I think some of these responses need qualifying by how many years you've been in the game and how many clients.

I think as both numbers increase, so does the rage guage.

Once you've seen disasters, or things work really well, your tolerance of crap falls.

Yep. One client recently wanted me to reassure nearly 80 different test managers who worked for the stakeholders in their project that the testing approach was excellent and there was no need for 'negative testing' (which I don't believe exists) or stress testing. Seeing as I had played no part in writing the test plans and was not allowed to make any improvements to them, and they weere not acceptable to me, I wasn't prepared to defend their test plans so in the end I walked. Of those 80 or so test managers, about 40 know me, and there were about 10 that I myself had trained; my reputation among testers in NL ( a small world) was on the line, and if clientco were not prepared to make the changes I required, then I had to take my reputation off the line.

[Scrag Meister]

...the contract duration has been at least 6 months and you haven't argued with anyone.

I've been contract 23.5 years, and I don't think I've ever (actually, I know I've never) completed a contract where I haven't gone "ape" with at least one person. Now, it's been very, very rare that that person has been a fellow contractor, although I will admit it has happened once or twice.

Each time I start a new role I say to myself, "Nomadd, calm down. It's just a few weeks, it'll soon be over. Don't argue with anyone." And then the next thing I know is I'm in a fooking great argument with someone. List of reasons are:

1. Rude, pushy and arrogant Project Managers (I will simply not put up with this.)
2. Noisy twats in the office disturbing my ability to work (usually a person who doesn't work on my project, but likes to stand behind my chair shouting about his.)
3. Scope creep. And more scope creep. Especially after you'd warned them about scope creep several meetings back.
4. Foreign people who can't understand English - usually situated at the end of a very poor quality phone line.
5. Offshore support staff who can't follow simple cut-n-paste instructions - even after several attempts.
6. Offshore teams who clearly know what they are doing more than you do - even when you fixed their code for the hundredth time, and you've been doing the job 25 years or more compared to their 2 years.
7. Shirty PMs who refuse to sign timesheets until you've mentioned it too them ten times - and begun threatening.
8. Technology arguments with permies who are completely out of their depth, regarding stuff you've been doing for years (and they'd actually employed you for in the first place.)
9. Permies who simply hate contractors, and are vocal about it.
10. Hours keeping complaints - even when you are covering your contracted hours (i.e. they moan because you won't do continued unpaid additional work.)

And so on, and so on - please feel free to add any I've missed.

So, hands-on-hearts, what percentage of reasonable duration contracts have you done over the years where you've never had to take anyone to task? Ps. If you are a wuss who just sits there talking s-h-i-t from anyone, then please feel free to skip this thread; I'm only interested in responses from seasoned pros who are prepared to stick up for themselves and their project to make sure it's done right.

So, are you always sweetness and light, or does that dissipate after the first few days? Answers on a postcard.

You forgot to mention the extra scope-creep after the stage 1 and 2 scope-creep.

[slogger]

not once in 20 years

I would if I believed it did any good - however you lose credibility when you lose your rag - need to put arguments/disagreements in a positive well thought out manner - if clientco/pm still doesnt listen then thats there problem - if all people where brilliant then they wouldnt need the contractors in the first place :-)