
The IT Contract from Hell - swombat
http://www.itcontractor.com/Articles_IR35_News_Advice/view_article.asp?id_no=4842
======
DanielBMarkham
E-gad. I wouldn't want to work with any of these jerks, including the author.
What kind of punk keeps a diary of how bad his contract is?

I've never had a bad contract -- and I've been in situations more stressful
than this. A good attitude, good people skills (fundies a problem? Yeesh. What
a piece of cake), and the ability to say "no" will fix about anything.

But I have worked with a lot of folks who were smarter than everybody else,
who kept a running list of grievances, who had to work with poor managers.

Contracts are like playing cards. Each time you get a different combination of
people, skills, and faults. I can imagine myself walking into a job with such
a piss-poor manager: you either convince them that you are working to cover up
for them and make them look good or you fold your cards and find another
contract. Sulking for 5 months isn't much of a life. Life is short.

It was a bad contract, yes. But it takes two parties to continue something
that painful. The author bears quite a bit of responsibility (and needs to
grow up), in my opinion.

~~~
thomasmallen
> What kind of punk keeps a diary of how bad his contract is?

An IT guy who has nothing better to do because they won't let him go online.
Somebody who's working in hell and has one place to truly vent. Someone with
self-restraint? This guy's unbelievably patient; I might've been out of there
in a week. Looks like the catharsis paid off...give him a break.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
There are two sides to every story, and all I got by reading this story is
that the guy learned absolutely nothing in all that time he was there -- not
how to respect others' viewpoints, not how to deal with insecure bosses, not
how to make decisions regarding money vs. job enjoyment, not how to make
allies of people who have different cultural/religious views than your own.

He probably has the ability to be a good worker -- there's too little to go on
here. But I'm seeing a lack of seeing both sides that is crippling for a
career. It just doesn't appeal to me. In fact, if anything it's sad to see a
waste of time and energy.

Sorry. I don't see any catharsis. All I see is a lack of evolution in
attitudes. There are a lot more bosses and jobs like this one. At the end of
all of that, I'd really hope he made some decisions/grew so not to end up
there again.

By calling it out in a harsh light, I _am_ trying to give him a break.

~~~
thomasmallen
> By calling it out in a harsh light, I _am_ trying to give him a break.

You just made my brain reboot. How does that make any sense?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Because the easy thing to do would be to simply laugh along with his story and
miss the larger problems he is skating around. That'd just reinforce the bad
attitude. He needs somebody to say look, crappy jobs are part of life, if you
want to have a better career instead of keeping a list of gripes learn some
interpersonal and professional skills and don't do this again. It's not
something to praise. You deserve better.

I guess why I'm harsher than usual on this article is that consulting is
basically being somebody's smart friend for money. They pay you, and you're
supposed to put their interests above your own for a period of time (within
reason, of course). Friends don't keep running lists of grievances against
each other -- it's counterproductive and it makes interpersonal progress damn
near impossible.

I have a good friend who I went to school with. He is a card-carrying
conservative evangelical holy-roller. Even became a minister. He also does
network and server administration. His current gig? Working as network admin
inside the beltway for one of the most liberal, anti-religious organizations
on the planet (You'd instantly recognize the name)

Does he keep a list of how offensive these people are to him? Not at all. His
job is to put their interests first and to take care of them as a friend. They
like him so much he's been there over ten years and moved up a couple of
spots.

You learn to deal with adverse conditions without holding grudges, keeping
logs, or keeping it all inside. That's not an easy lesson to learn, but it's
critical. I was trying to cut the guy some slack by pointing out that facing
your problems and growing from them is the better way long-term. You don't
want to get into a pattern where you're the smart genius and all the gigs
you've worked were full of barely functional morons. That's Dilbert, not real
life.

Sorry about running on so long. It just got under my skin as a professional
skills thing. Everybody has war stories, but you tell them knowing that from
the other side, _you_ were the moron. I didn't see that.

EDIT: "Giving somebody a break"= doing the harder thing for you to do which
results in the easier path for the person involved.

------
alecco

      2.The ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST. Usually a retentive drone (or rarely, a harridan ex-secretary) who
        has been forced into system administration.

~~~
evilneanderthal
as a sysadmin, i can only wish i had the power to kick people out of
meetings...

i guess i haven't tried shrieking.

------
trickjarrett
There's nothing worse than an insecure boss.

~~~
alecco
A horny boss?

~~~
swombat
I'd reply "a horny, insecure boss?", but then people will accuse me of turning
this place into another reddit - and they'll be right!

------
antidaily
The "digital service" comment takes me back to right after college when I took
a job full of idiots using odd and just-plain-wrong terminology like that all
the time. Made me feel really dumb until I learned they were all full of shit.
Ha.

------
Tichy
At least the payment was not from hell, from the sounds of it.

~~~
jcl
The sad thing is that the company was _not_ getting fleeced... They were
paying a premium for having made a bad hire that they couldn't get rid of. I
bet they settled on the high price after having found that anyone paid less
leaves right away.

------
SingAlong
Those guys didn't know about the DNS? Heck, I bet they had another contractor
setup their domain name too. :P

The statement below was right in the face!

 _"That's what I get paid the extra for"_

------
mattmaroon
Maybe I'm crazy, but that job sounds like fun. I love messing with incompetent
people.

------
aagnihot
Mail this to Scott Adams!!!

------
sharkfish
How does anyone with dev background bear a job for any length of time where
all you are doing is editing HTML and ftp'ing it?

~~~
ciscoriordan
The money was "that" good

