Reply to: How long have you been contracting?

[suityou01]

At the beginning of my contracting career I used to have issues of being over ruled by directors or watching someone go down the wrong route. More times than not I was right and they were wrong. Sometimes I was wrong.

Now as an experienced contractor I find that my soft skills, influence, communication etc are significantly better than all of those around and above me. My technical skills are significantly lower, but I can recognise issues and through influence and approach always get a project delivered and everyone on board. It is with those skills I have been offered a Perm position not my technical skills or petulance.

As a contractor you should steer using influence. Where it is not taken you should prepare a backup plan but you should not covertly change the direction of the resource. Wait for said person to hang themselves and in their moment of need offer them a way out(even if you're not finally acknowledged for it).

That's great advice

[MarillionFan]

At the beginning of my contracting career I used to have issues of being over ruled by directors or watching someone go down the wrong route. More times than not I was right and they were wrong. Sometimes I was wrong.

Now as an experienced contractor I find that my soft skills, influence, communication etc are significantly better than all of those around and above me. My technical skills are significantly lower, but I can recognise issues and through influence and approach always get a project delivered and everyone on board. It is with those skills I have been offered a Perm position not my technical skills or petulance.

As a contractor you should steer using influence. Where it is not taken you should prepare a backup plan but you should not covertly change the direction of the resource. Wait for said person to hang themselves and in their moment of need offer them a way out(even if you're not finally acknowledged for it).

[suityou01]

Just gone 5 years

And I'm doing really well in this gig. Possible 15 month extension on offer for team lead role on this SAP project I keep running rings round.

They have succumbed to the fact that having consistently outclassed an entire consultancy for months it might be easier to sack a few of there own and just get me to sort it

Top of my game, after a serious doldrum.

Now unlikely to happen. I can't work it out. Or I can work it out but just don't want to accept the facts.

Facts are, the SAP project is going down the toilet. It is going down the toilet because the team implementing it aren't that experienced. The sponsor is also the architect and project exec and has been hands off for months. They frigged the data for SIT and now they are trying to get to UAT with proper data they are realising they have significant problems with data loads.

The senior architect has proposed a solution, which doesn't work. I have been asked for my opinion, and given it. I also gave a very simple solution which does work, and the data migration team loved it.

The architect overruled me, told everyone I was wrong, and that he was in control. They are now implementing his solution, which has lead them to a whole world of pain.

Behind closed doors they have now secretly switched to my solution, while telling everyone I was wrong and they are carrying on with plan A.

The problem I see is that as they are so inexperienced they will still **** it up even though they are now doing it my way.

And with 3 weeks left on the contract, and the entire SAP programme wanting me on their project except, you guessed it, the project exec, it aint gonna happen.

I can just imagine this exec playing with his trainset as a 3 year old not sharing with his siblings. Childlish little chunt, that puts his own ego and political spin and career bollocks ahead of delivering a project which is currently bankrupting one of the oldest companies in the UK.

Absolutely ******* disgusting.

[mudskipper]

You make no argument. You compare the macro with the micro, and apply the rules of the micro to the macro. But with no argument. Yes, it's an analogy. It is an analogy based on the fallacy of composition.

Ergo, sas is right about you.

[nomadd]

Nowadays, I just want a nice easy long-term contract, little stress, much cycling and motorbiking to keep fit and to pay the bills.

+1

[speling bee]

No, composition implies that i'm saying that the whole has the same properties as the parts it is composed of because it is composed of only those parts. I am saying the nation is the part in this analogy, and the globe is the whole.

The fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole (or even of every proper part).

Oh look, i am right again, and you are wrong again, what a surprise.

Irrespective, if the analogy is flawed then you should be able to say how, but you can't because you are wrong about that too.

How do you align 'only those parts' in the first quote and 'of some part' in the second.

Keep trying.

[hyperD]

13 years but 8 of those were fixed price/working from home office.

I'm in a traditional contract now as my fixed priced client work for major oil has dried up a tad due to a bit of an oil spill a few years ago.

Nowadays, I just want a nice easy long-term contract, little stress, much cycling and motorbiking to keep fit and to pay the bills.

Totally disenfranchised with IT now, it's a young person's game, can't be bothered to keep up with the tech and just simply blag as much as I can with more focus on people skills to keep the contract going. Which I suck at, to be honest.

Just want to drink wine and cook if I'm totally honest.

Christ, that's like a CUK confessional!

Sorry, normal hyperD nonsense will resume after this break.

[nomadd]

I walked out of permiedom 01/01/2000 without a contract to go to.

It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

12/12/2012 would have looked nicer. But you'd be a lot poorer.

[cojak]

How long have you been contracting?

I walked out of permiedom 01/01/2000 without a contract to go to.

It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

[doodab]

Barring a year of permiedom that was my first proper job, and a few cash in hand jobs as a teenager / student, my entire working life.

[Robinho]

Wrong again. In your case Google is your friend.

The fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole (or even of every proper part).

Oh look, i am right again, and you are wrong again, what a surprise.

Irrespective, if the analogy is flawed then you should be able to say how, but you can't because you are wrong about that too.

[MarillionFan]

Where's the retired - glad to be out of it option?

AndyW is retired. Click that one.

[eek]

Where's the retired - glad to be out of it option?

Is that attached to the why on earth does Sas still visit here option?

[xoggoth]

Where's the retired - glad to be out of it option?

[speling bee]

No, composition implies that i'm saying that the whole has the same properties as the parts it is composed of because it is composed of only those parts.

Wrong again. In your case Google is your friend.