
Not a full timer - mohamedhayibor
https://mohamedhayibor.github.io/blog/post/Not-A-Full-Timer/
======
esotericn
> Posted by Mohamed Hayibor on Sat, Aug 31, 31089

I mean, if I were a time traveller, I wouldn't be spending my limited output
on this sort of stuff ;)

More seriously - to me this guy seems a bit.. I dunno, try hard? Like they
want to prove something about how aggressive they are.

You don't need to be all "gogogo" to do contracting.

The last bit is kind of illustrative. I think they've had bad experiences in
the past and are perhaps recovering from burnout in some way. This post
doesn't look like a good sign to me in that context.

~~~
mohamedhayibor
I did burn out and recovered. And I write from 1st hand experiences, not
speculations.

If you're young and insecure you might fall into the low pay downward spiral
trap. You'll burn out.

And I'm not advocative anything "gogogo"or aggressive, in fact I said that you
should be aiming to work less hours...

Finally I'd be interested in knowing what life experiences you had to think
that this post was "aggressive" or "try-hard".

------
weeksie
I feel like I'm reading half of an argument here. Is this a response to
something? Who in the world works for free when they're doing contract work?

~~~
fareesh
It happens all the time.

The development scope is feature X with A,B,C. Customer asks for D and E.
Technically D and E will add maybe 3 hours and Y cost to the total.

Your choices:

a) Bring it up which almost always leads to some haggling. Emails turn into
calls, calls turn into meetings. Meetings turn into negotiations, negotiations
lead to some compromise, in the end you have spent 3 hours just reaching an
agreement, which nobody will reimburse you for. If you don't reach an
agreement you stand your ground in numerous ways, most of which result in
getting stiffed or losing business.

b) Spend the extra 3 hours.

A lot of times it's just simpler to choose (b), and like the author says, give
in to tyranny. It's a genuine problem.

~~~
hobofan
If you follow the authors other advice of not charging to little (which is
strongly connected to how much your client values you), that's rarely a
problem in my experience. My client knows my hourly rate, so when I tell them
that the extra features take 3 additional hours they know exactly how much
that would cost them. No haggling, no negotiations, no meeting.

Of course that only works with time-based billing, and a lot of people would
advise against it, but it's one of the reasons why I love it.

~~~
fareesh
This is definitely the case with "good"/recurring clients, and it's very
painless. Not so much with others.

~~~
codingdave
Then you don't want those others. I know it is hard to turn down work when you
are getting a consulting business going, but there are "good" clients, and
"bad" clients. You are not doing your future self any favors by rewarding bad
clients with free work.

------
EliRivers
_80% of my clothes are sportwears for a long time. It gives the feeling that
you are a pro. A professional athlete, and a professional at your career, your
performance totally relies on you._

Nothing looks more professional than someone sitting at a desk in yoga pants
or a tracksuit. Yes indeed.

You know what else looks professional? A military or public services uniform.
This guy should get a firefighter outfit to wear while sitting at a desk
typing code. Then he'll feel really professional.

~~~
esotericn
I'd go for the blue jumpsuit. Throw in a couple of spanners for good measure.

------
mnm1
> A quick litmus test: if you’re getting paid by the hour. You’re not a full
> time employee. You’re a contractor.

That's utterly ridiculous. There are so many jobs where this is not true from
flipping burgers to civil engineering. Clearly the author hasn't thought this
out at all.

------
botto
It never feels like the contractor is an "expert" in a field, is any more
efficient than another employee and is nothing more than another person that
has been hired to do programming with less HR/employment overhead.

So not sure which audience this article is aimed at.

Maybe my experience in London doesn't reflect other places but as a contract
and as someone who has looked for contractors it never felt like we got anyone
special. They were another person and they took just as long to on board and
become efficient.

~~~
wolco
Your not paying for the best you are probably paying a similiar amount for
your fulltime employees. What you get is all of the people who couldn't find a
fulltime role who have to take this without any benefits so the quality is
lower.

Now if you remote sourced the role gems will be found.

~~~
nagrom
You have completely misunderstood the UK market - note that the OP talked
about London. Perhaps as a way to get past the recruiting problem, UK
corporates pay a premium for exerienced programmers on the basis that if they
cannot do the job, they are let go immediately without severance. Most
contractors are 30+, don't want to be 'in charge' (at meetings, giving
interviews, being trained in the latest corporate 'values') and are happy to
be given a product to build or maintain.

Every contractor I know resigned from a permanent position in their early
thirties to go contracting and make 1.5x-2x as much money as a contractor.
Businesses regularly offer contractors full-time positions and are regularly
turned down.

Contractors may not be particularly special technically, but they will focus
on doing what they're told in the team and not attending training, seminars,
workshops or HR meetings. I'd much rather build a product with a team of
suitably incentivised and managed contractors than a team of permies.

~~~
botto
True, when I was contracting I did attend less meetings although it always
felt like too many and the pay was good (not so much now).

But I always found it a little bit of a lie when the idea of a contractor
coming in and working on a problem from day 2 or 3.

Granted this usually was because the problem was poorly defined and/or limited
but even when I joined teams that had really good project managers it still
was not as simple as "work on this in isolation".

I have since ditched contracting in UK, too much of a mess with the taxman.

~~~
nagrom
Well, there are very few projects where someone can make a real difference
from day 2 or 3. But given that there are numerous permie developers who want
either to be a) Product Owners, b) Software Architects or c)professional
Youtube viewers, getting a contractor in means you can cut your losses at the
end of a 4 week period if you want to and firms do. While it's possible, I've
never seen a permie cut during the probation period.

What did you do instead? There is a wave of people looking to get out of
contracting in the UK right now exactly because of the messes HMRC keep
making.

------
brianpgordon
> If you can’t do a “one shot, one kill” email. Then call the person.

Please don't do this.

~~~
mohamedhayibor
Have you tried it and gotten a 1st hand experience? Tell us about it?

~~~
brianpgordon
[https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/91kw4d/just_call_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/91kw4d/just_call_them_oc/)

------
Jedd
I find the term 'full time' unnecessarily ambiguous.

Certainly 'employee' suggests something contra to 'contractor', but there's no
reason someone working 40 hours a week can't or shouldn't be considered full-
time regardless of their permanent / contractor status.

I can't tell if this is irony, in the context of being 'precise in your
communications' and advice to 'edit ruthlessly':

> You must ruflessly cut out bullshit, bloat, ...

~~~
soneca
I believe it is just an unimportant mistake from someone that might not be a
native English speaker. I do those all the time, something like a _" phonetic
typo"_; I write things as they sound in my native language and don't realize
it.

~~~
Jedd
Perhaps.

Note that the author asserted:

> It helps to actually take time 6 hours, 12 hours before a reply. Meditate on
> the email. Write the email by hand on your notebook. Edit ruthlessly. Type
> it up on your computer. Only then, send it.

So, a) they knew how to type ruthlessly at least once, and/or b) had spell-
check pick them up on that one.

But the gist of the particularly prescriptive advice was to word your missives
carefully lest they be misunderstood.

In good faith, let's assume it's an unimportant mistake.

So let's consider:

> Fuck “working for Free”

> If you work for free. You are contributing to tyranny. You are facilitating
> the spread of tyranny. Nobody in their right mind and right intentions work
> for free.

I'm typing my considered and reasoned response on a computer that's running
almost exclusively free software, the authors of which I'm eternally grateful
to.

Because I'm currently employed (full time, contractor) for an agency that's
doing good work (by my assessment) I'm quite happy to perform occasional non-
billable work.

Certainly, in my time I've worked in places that made me feel something
approaching TFA's emotional response, but it's not a set of rules that I feel
can or should be casually applied to all contractual engagements.

------
remotecool
I'm a contractor and make more than I would as a full time employee. Companies
also don’t tend to overwork me because they need to pay for every hour.

------
namanaggarwal
>If you’re a full-time employee who must go to the office, you have to dress
the part. If you look different than your peers, you look ridiculous and out
of place.

I have been full time employee in my whole career, no one had really told me
what to wear. I have been to office in sportswear and no one seems to mind
that. I don't think this point is necessarily true at least in tech.

------
mathattack
It depends on the firm. At some non-tech firms, being an independent is the
only way to get higher cash. (Not universal) In this case an expert developer
who doesn’t want to manage people escapes junior level salary bands.

~~~
softwaredoug
In the US, it's a cash vs benefits trade-off. I am happy to sacrifice a lot of
salary to get the Cadillac healthcare my company offers to me and my family at
no cost.

~~~
ivanhoe
Why not just buying the healthcare package yourself and paying for it from
more cash you make as a contractor? Honest question since I live in a country
with a very different healthcare system...

~~~
softwaredoug
It’s usually much more expensive to buy as an individual compared to a group.
Health care economics are weird.

------
madamelic
> Posted by Mohamed Hayibor on Sat, Aug 31, 31089

We're living in 2019, Mohamed is living in 31089 apparently. How's the future?
;)

~~~
rvz
Well, he must be a very experienced senior software engineer with centuries of
experience then. Therefore, this confirms the 10x programmer / contractor
legend. /s

------
newshorts
I had to stop reading at “ruflessly”, I can’t trust someone’s opinion if they
can’t take the time.

~~~
madamelic
I am assuming the author has English as a non-primary language, which is
totally fine almost all the time...

Except the author talked about making sure communication is succinct and the
article has a lot of unnecessary fluff and indirectness.

This article could be really great with more polish.

