Reply to: Boring Contract...

[bless 'em all]

Not uncommon to be honest for client to take ages to sort anything out.

Gets boring after a bit though. Perfect contract is enough work to keep ticking over, and make yourself look good but not too much that it cuts into internet time! :-)

WHS. I'm 6 weeks into a 13 week gig and have done feck-all (I did have a desktop and log-on from day one though). I finally cracked today and asked wtf was going on ..... answer to follow ..... maybe by Monday

[psychocandy]

I do find it amazing how much money these companies have to throw away. What's the benefit to them hiring somebody in and waiting 2 months before starting the work?

One my former colleagues found a gig where he spent 8 months doing absolutely nothing and they kept extending him. £350/day to do jack sh*t. Then there are people who would love to make half that for at least some benefit to the company.

Bonkers

Not uncommon to be honest for client to take ages to sort anything out.

Gets boring after a bit though. Perfect contract is enough work to keep ticking over, and make yourself look good but not too much that it cuts into internet time! :-)

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Not only is it nearly a month and still no Lappy and still no login, this week there's hardly any fecker in to give me pointless tasks to do like reading yet another design doc or topo...

Had seven coffees too and can't sit still....

Still, keep on invoicing and all that. At least there's the hotel bar later to get lashed...

I do find it amazing how much money these companies have to throw away. What's the benefit to them hiring somebody in and waiting 2 months before starting the work?

One my former colleagues found a gig where he spent 8 months doing absolutely nothing and they kept extending him. £350/day to do jack sh*t. Then there are people who would love to make half that for at least some benefit to the company.

Bonkers

[shaunbhoy]

I start a new contract on the 14th, and the new laptop was delivered by courier this afternoon. Quite impressed.

Wow, that IS impressive. You must be the only Lollipop Man in Somerset with a login!!

[psychocandy]

Oddly enough, Clipster despite the Bank IT lot being a bit crap, the 1979 desktop I have is pretty well locked down internet wise, I've had about 300 warnings about .exe, .msi, forums, social networking, even from IBM or Oracle sites...

So no putty to home boxes, dyndns it knows about, but Oracle Secure Global Desktop (aka Tarantella as I knew it) beats it, so I'm there if I hadn't done my iMac SSD/SATA fusion drive upgrade and let it go back to sleeping so the VM its running in sleeps too. Schoolboy error - I'll migrate it to the Sparc T2000 at weekend I think!

I used to work on list X site and even argos.co.uk was blocked. Dodgy site that argos mind.

[psychocandy]

Six months on my highlight of the day is playing WarCraft on ClintCo's time...

How do you manage with anyone seeing?

[psychocandy]

I worked in a permie job where I got bollacked for trying to hack the corporate proxy/firewall. Bit disappointed in myself for allowing myself to get caught by IT drongos mind...

Anyway, as a punishment, my line manager took my laptop off me and relegated me to desktop for 6 months. Told me having a laptop was a privilege! LOL Yes it was that sort of company. Bit like taking my toys away...

Didnt give a toss anyway cos I never went anywhere with laptop anyway and it just stayed on the desk. Glad to take voluntary redunancy in the end....

[stek]

Six months on my highlight of the day is playing WarCraft on ClintCo's time...

Oddly enough, Clipster despite the Bank IT lot being a bit crap, the 1979 desktop I have is pretty well locked down internet wise, I've had about 300 warnings about .exe, .msi, forums, social networking, even from IBM or Oracle sites...

So no putty to home boxes, dyndns it knows about, but Oracle Secure Global Desktop (aka Tarantella as I knew it) beats it, so I'm there if I hadn't done my iMac SSD/SATA fusion drive upgrade and let it go back to sleeping so the VM its running in sleeps too. Schoolboy error - I'll migrate it to the Sparc T2000 at weekend I think!

[Cliphead]

Week five and no further!

People are great, atmos great but I think it's time and assess this and look around! We have:

1. No laptop (shiity desktop)

2. Access to email etc but not to Unix which is what I do

3. Using 1. Colleagues account for the odd bit, and 2. my predecessors account which I hacked do to poor sudoers controls. Not happy about either. However despite it being a Bank everyone seems fine with it...

4. Working on an EU required bank thing which UK have to implement by 2016, so might be worth hanging on and getting a head start for then..

5. Contract till Aug 2013, at this rate if things start to happen now, will be 2014 easy - rate is decent for Ireland but had better...

Dunno! I like the place, feels good, nice to be able to circumvent the rules without being hung drawn and quartered and the fact I'm doing little productively is still ok.....

But I like being busy and when away from home it's worse, cos the hotel bar and moan is the only respite.

Gut feeling is stick it out but look around and carry on as if looking - if I get an better offer, worry about it then....

Six months on my highlight of the day is playing WarCraft on ClintCo's time...

[stek]

Week five and no further!

People are great, atmos great but I think it's time and assess this and look around! We have:

1. No laptop (shiity desktop)

2. Access to email etc but not to Unix which is what I do

3. Using 1. Colleagues account for the odd bit, and 2. my predecessors account which I hacked do to poor sudoers controls. Not happy about either. However despite it being a Bank everyone seems fine with it...

4. Working on an EU required bank thing which UK have to implement by 2016, so might be worth hanging on and getting a head start for then..

5. Contract till Aug 2013, at this rate if things start to happen now, will be 2014 easy - rate is decent for Ireland but had better...

Dunno! I like the place, feels good, nice to be able to circumvent the rules without being hung drawn and quartered and the fact I'm doing little productively is still ok.....

But I like being busy and when away from home it's worse, cos the hotel bar and moan is the only respite.

Gut feeling is stick it out but look around and carry on as if looking - if I get an better offer, worry about it then....

[psychocandy]

I had a lucky exit out of sun work. I got a contract as a general unix architect and when I turned up the client said right then about this VMware design... I thought bugger id better RTFM and quick... By the end of the week had knocked out a design for 1000 server migration

Good work if you can find it! :-)

[Epiphone]

What happens when the client says we don't need you this week but at the same time we don't want you getting another job while we think about what to do next?

They are under no _obligation_ to provide work or I to take it however both parties are making a business decision to stay in an arrangement and await the longer term solution...

That's common sense. I fear HMRC would view it another way, sadly.

[bobspud]

No work to do but getting paid eh. Sounds like an ir35 fail to me.

What happens when the client says we don't need you this week but at the same time we don't want you getting another job while we think about what to do next?

They are under no _obligation_ to provide work or I to take it however both parties are making a business decision to stay in an arrangement and await the longer term solution...

[Epiphone]

No work to do but getting paid eh. Sounds like an ir35 fail to me.

[bobspud]

Time for me to get some AIX and/or Red Hat methinks before Solaris goes totally down the pan....

I had a lucky exit out of sun work. I got a contract as a general unix architect and when I turned up the client said right then about this VMware design... I thought bugger id better RTFM and quick... By the end of the week had knocked out a design for 1000 server migration