contracting = more stress?

**eek** · 8 June 2011, 09:46

I think you're on a losing battle against a tulip manager.

Personally I would be contract hunting...

**kingcook** · 8 June 2011, 09:47

I'm on my 3rd contract since starting almost 2 years ago.

Apart from the travel sometimes, the actual work is less stressful than when i was a permie!!

I think maybe you got a bad gig (or i've been incredibly lucky)

Hope your current (and future) gigs work out ok!

**MarillionFan** · 8 June 2011, 09:52

Originally posted by bluedrop View Post

People, I've just started my second contract. This one is very different from my first one (A scotland based bank -eveyone knows the name) ... Lots of stress... 3 people were told they are not doing enough work....1 left in her first week, 1 on the verge of quitting any moment...1 was crying today (in the ladies loo) .... I was told last week one of the deliverables I produced was rubbish (not litterally, but almost meaning that)...

Wondering if its a general contracting thing everywhere or if I just got unlucky..I am not the kind to run away...also the rate is really good so I plan to fight it out...

Does sound like poor management. In the case of deliverables(especially documentation), ask for copies of their standards if yours is not up to scratch.

Number of times I have been asked for a BRD/PID/SOR/SOW etc which to be are all extremely similar where one client is OK and another thinks they want something else.

**craig1** · 8 June 2011, 10:06

The biggest stress for most contractors I know is constant change.

The best thing about being a contractor is that if you get a tulip manager, you know that you'll be off to your next role while he/she is still festering away in their tulip job and tulip life. That's the approach I take anyway when I get the inevitable tulip manager once every few years.

**NorthWestPerm2Contr** · 8 June 2011, 10:12

3 contracts so far in my contracting career:

1st one: awful, worst place I can imagine working but still a hell of a lot better than what you got.

2nd one: much better, more relaxed, nice people, decent place

3rd one: best by far, so relaxed and easy going

Next one I am starting next week and its really close to home.

Lesson from above:

The more experience you have the more picky you can be and the better the roles you land. Just stick with it

**norrahe** · 8 June 2011, 10:13

Sometimes the money just isn’t worth it. If your manager is so crap that people are leaving then don’t stay because you feel you have to, as another poster said the beauty of contracting is that you can move on. We’ve all had crap managers and some of us have taken the decision not to bother staying on and finding something elsewhere that suits us.
When your job is stressing you out so much that you are getting upset then its time to leave, you owe them nothing, just be professional, hand in your notice and breathe a sigh of relief.

**BlasterBates** · 8 June 2011, 10:33

Is this a bank in London?.

Sounds fairly typical. Just need to keep your head down, and don't take it too personally.

Good experience if you can actually get used to it. If they don't actually walk you off the premises you must be doing rather well.

I would look it like this, whatever the PM says about your deliverable, do they actually use it? If they do then it's good, regardless of what he says. I would only get worried if they were to delete it and write it again from scratch, but if they'd done that you wouldn't be there. So the fact that he says it's rubbish is just the usual instinctive reaction of any bozo programmer that reads any code he hasn't written himself.

**Lumiere** · 8 June 2011, 10:33

contracting in banks = more stress

HTH

**NorthWestPerm2Contr** · 8 June 2011, 10:35

Originally posted by Lumiere View Post

contracting in banks = more money
HTH

FTFY

contracting = more stress?