Starting a New Contract
Starting a new contract is difficult and often you are going in blind hoping it is a good one.
Ten Factors
You are so much looking forward to starting your new IT contract, but there is a little bit of trepidation.
Here are 10 factors that you just don’t want to find when starting a contract:-
1. You’re the first IT Contractor ever to be at the site or department. They’ll expect you to be not just another project body but will expect you to be a guru, a whiz, and several times better than any of them.
Why else would they be paying you all that money? You can’t even hope to be as good as they expect for the money they are paying.
2. There is a ‘Strictly No Talking’ rule during work hours
3. There is no company restaurant, or they don’t allowed you to use it. So you have to eat every day at a greasy spoon, or at an expensive crowded restaurant.
Project Using Old Skills
4. Although they told you that it was development work using some fancy new skill, the Project hasn’t started yet. They will assign you ‘in the meantime’ to some dreary work using old skills.
5. They sit you next to a really dull bore, who keeps talking to you about subjects in which you have no interest.
6. They sit you next to someone who doesn’t like contractors, thinks the company shouldn’t hire you, and ignores any attempt to try and get on with him.
Replacing Sacked Contractor
7. Your boss tells you on the first day when starting a contract (but not at the interview) that you are replacing someone who is going to get the sack. You should, therefore, get as much info out of him or her as possible before they break the news to them.
8. Alternatively, the guy you are replacing is a much loved member of the permanent staff. He is going to be laid off but has been told that has to stay on for a month to pass his work and knowledge over to the contractor. All the permies will hate you for taking the job of one of their friends.
Project Manager Doesn’t Want Contractors Advice
9. Your Project Manager is extremely youthful. However, doesn’t want any help or advice from an experienced contractor. You know that the project is going to go belly up even when starting a contract but no one wants to listen. It’s very de-motivating and you really are just taking the money.
10. You turn up on the first day and no one knew you were coming. The guy who interviewed you the month before is on holiday, or worse still, was seen off the premises the week before, without mentioning he had hired you. It’s even worse if the contract is away from home, or worse still, in a foreign country.
I must say that all of these have happened to me or have happened to a contractor that I know when starting a new contract.
I have had some of these too. I am currently signed up to a contract but have not been given any work I can bill so am looking for a new one. I must say the best emploxers I have come across to date are German, but I also love to work in Italy where the people are great and the food and lifestyle are good. Since I live in Germany it is good to get jobs here. Hamburg is my favourite city and where I chose to live.