What's the worst gig you ever had?

[suityou01]

My last gig was horrible. Ended in November. PM (permy) was a real nasty piece of work. Day one when I started, the PM (that was) greeted me, and then told me he had been shoved out. He was a contractor. He warned me they were not that contractor friendly. Nice start.

I served 4/6 months, and just got fed up with being shouted and sworn at. Even the testers pushed me around. No amount of "please can you show me some professional courtesy" and "you don't see me shouting and swearing do you?" seemed to work.

Horrible horrible time. I had put it behind me. A pimp rang me today (Saturday) and I told her I had a gig to go to. Then she started asking me all sorts of weird questions, including "tell me what happened at your last gig, why did that end sooner than expected". I asked what she meant, and she said, ok fine you don't want to talk about it.

Really given me the eeby jeebys. I know I left under duress after being treated EXTREMELY badly, but how did she know? And how would you handle future queries from pimps.

Quite freaked to think that not only having endured all that tulip as professionally as possible, that the pimps are smearing my good name. Could only have come from old ClientCo, who I would honestly never go near again.

[NickFitz]

A pimp rang me today (Saturday) and I told her I had a gig to go to. Then she started asking me all sorts of weird questions, including "tell me what happened at your last gig, why did that end sooner than expected". I asked what she meant, and she said, ok fine you don't want to talk about it.

Really given me the eeby jeebys. I know I left under duress after being treated EXTREMELY badly, but how did she know? And how would you handle future queries from pimps.

Quite freaked to think that not only having endured all that tulip as professionally as possible, that the pimps are smearing my good name. Could only have come from old ClientCo, who I would honestly never go near again.

It's possible that she's got a contractor in there who's complaining to her about their treatment, and she's trying to find out if other people have had similar problems in the past, or if it's the contractor's fault.

If that's the case, your reticence will probably have led her to draw her own conclusions about the place.

[HairyArsedBloke]

Way back in the stoneage when I was a proper contractor; I always found that the quality / price(!) of the coffee and the state of the toilets were a very good sign of if there was going to be any problems at the gig. Any doubts with either of them and you'll find all sorts of trouble is on the way.

[suityou01]

Way back in the stoneage when I was a proper contractor; I always found that the quality / price(!) of the coffee and the state of the toilets were a very good sign of if there was going to be any problems at the gig. Any doubts with either of them and you'll find all sorts of trouble is on the way.

Wowzer. They regularly had no milk as they kept refusing to pay the milkman. There was never any paper towels in the loos, and the loos were in a right state.

And really rank coffee.

Spot on. Thanks for your comments (all).

[Liability]

My last gig was horrible. Ended in November. PM (permy) was a real nasty piece of work. Day one when I started, the PM (that was) greeted me, and then told me he had been shoved out. He was a contractor. He warned me they were not that contractor friendly. Nice start.

I served 4/6 months, and just got fed up with being shouted and sworn at. Even the testers pushed me around. No amount of "please can you show me some professional courtesy" and "you don't see me shouting and swearing do you?" seemed to work.

Horrible horrible time. I had put it behind me. A pimp rang me today (Saturday) and I told her I had a gig to go to. Then she started asking me all sorts of weird questions, including "tell me what happened at your last gig, why did that end sooner than expected". I asked what she meant, and she said, ok fine you don't want to talk about it.

Really given me the eeby jeebys. I know I left under duress after being treated EXTREMELY badly, but how did she know? And how would you handle future queries from pimps.

Quite freaked to think that not only having endured all that tulip as professionally as possible, that the pimps are smearing my good name. Could only have come from old ClientCo, who I would honestly never go near again.

Didnt you take him aside somewhere and have words?

Anyone that swears or treats me like that - gets a nice little quiet word. Only needed to do that twice in 12 years but on both occasions it cleared the air and never caused me issues.

[threaded]

Way back in the stoneage when I was a proper contractor; I always found that the quality / price(!) of the coffee and the state of the toilets were a very good sign of if there was going to be any problems at the gig. Any doubts with either of them and you'll find all sorts of trouble is on the way.

WHS

I've seen the pattern too.

When I go to a prospective client I say 'yes' to the coffee, and afterwards I ask to use the loo being as it's along drive home...

You can save yourself a lot of grief doing such simple checks.

[suityou01]

Didnt you take him aside somewhere and have words?

Anyone that swears or treats me like that - gets a nice little quiet word. Only needed to do that twice in 12 years but on both occasions it cleared the air and never caused me issues.

No. I am too soft. I just took it. I don't really do confrontation. Once every twelve years will do me fine.

[TheVoice]

Has to be the client who, despite contracting us to supply 3rd line services in their Wintel environment, insisted on using both the engineers we sent in (of which I was one!) as 1st & 2nd line support & at the worst point couriers...until we put a stop to it & pointed out that we were there to do the 3rd line stuff & nothing else!!

Oh & current client who complains when we provide service remotely due to 8 inches of snow!

*sigh*

[Fred Bloggs]

I had a job in Coventry and I lasted 6 weeks before bailing out. The lead guy sat back to back with me in the office but instead of talking sent an email. never said hello or good evening or anything to me. The open plan office was a very poisoned atmosphere towards contractors. It seems apparent that agents know that office is poisoned since when I get a call about going back there, when I say no way! nobody has so far been surprised. Word does get round about places. I have since worked for that same firm in another location and it was fine because we were all contractors except for the office manager.

[chris79]

Had the same situation as Fred, team of contractors, permie boss who would come in the office (open plan) brown-nose the next 2 in line, then leave at a night without even bothering to say bye to us (the team she was responsible for).

I could tell there was something up by the fact we were branded 'scummy contractors' and told on a regular basis "stick in hard, and there could be a perm job for you".. was always tempted to reply with "Why, so I can take a +50% drop in wages and have you as my boss?.." managed to bite my tongue though.

Over a period of time she did become quite acquainted with one of the contractors in our team.. one day when the sh*t hit the fan I discovered through another team member this person had been bad mouthing me to her, and soon enough I got an email questioning my conduct and commitment to the team.. almost sounding like I should be on my way purely from what she's heard. I called her up direct and after putting my case across I called her bluff and offered to hand my notice in there and then, if that's what she wanted. Result was a big U-turn, followed by 'even if she wanted me out she wasn't in a position of authority' blah blah.. she tried the old 'stick in/perm job' crap, to which I did politely tell her I was happy being a contractor for tax purposes.

A week later she was replaced by a someone else for reasons unknown and it was all happy ever after.