Hi all,
First post - please be kind!
So, I've been working for a client for the last ten years, providing a regular monthly service for a set fee. This service involves planning, design, production and management and accounted for about half my billable hours, most months.
Last year, they let me know that they'd be taking the role in-house, due to "costs". It's taken them ten months, but they've finally found someone, so they gave me official notice that our contract would finish at the end of June.
I immediately found a six-month full-time contract and had planned to polish off the remaining contracted work for this month during evenings and weekends. However, they're now asking that I help the new person with the transition: "In terms of the handover, it would be great if you could go through what you do from end to end, and help to explain the [redacted] style? ...go through the technical side of uploading [redacted] too?" When I explained that I'd try to find time but can't guarantee availability during normal working hours, they acted as if I was leaving them in the lurch.
To clarify, they haven't asked me to quote for this transition period, or even asked me if I have availability for anything over and above my usual work. Perhaps I've been too flexible for them in the past, so they've come to expect that I'll be able to fit things in and bill at an hourly rate. But in this case, I don't see that I have any obligation to provide a detailed handover to this person. I was imagining a quick meeting over a lunch hour. I certainly wasn't expecting to have to train them on the CMS.
To make matters worse, looking at the new person's CV, they're basically asking me to transfer fifteen years' experience. This person is about as junior as you can get. Three "freelance" roles for agencies, none longer than a few months. Potentially internships gussied up a bit for LinkedIn. I've looked at their professional blog and there's only university work in the portfolio, plus some poorly designed personal work.
What would you do?
On one hand, there's the fact that I've enjoyed working with some of the people at this client, and they're the ones who are likely to have to pick up the slack if someone in the team isn't able to do the job independently. And on the ethical side, I always try to leave things better than when I found them.
On the other hand, upper management haven't been that great. They only told me the contract was ending once I'd agreed to work over a weekend to fix an emergency of their own creation. And they have a pattern of employing very early career (very cheap!) people to key roles in order to save money, forcing others to work around them.
(I've just written back to them to ask about the level of experience of the person involved, so that I can get a sense of what would be needed in order to transition the work. They don't know that I've researched the person's CV, so I'm keen to find out how they frame this one!)
First post - please be kind!
So, I've been working for a client for the last ten years, providing a regular monthly service for a set fee. This service involves planning, design, production and management and accounted for about half my billable hours, most months.
Last year, they let me know that they'd be taking the role in-house, due to "costs". It's taken them ten months, but they've finally found someone, so they gave me official notice that our contract would finish at the end of June.
I immediately found a six-month full-time contract and had planned to polish off the remaining contracted work for this month during evenings and weekends. However, they're now asking that I help the new person with the transition: "In terms of the handover, it would be great if you could go through what you do from end to end, and help to explain the [redacted] style? ...go through the technical side of uploading [redacted] too?" When I explained that I'd try to find time but can't guarantee availability during normal working hours, they acted as if I was leaving them in the lurch.
To clarify, they haven't asked me to quote for this transition period, or even asked me if I have availability for anything over and above my usual work. Perhaps I've been too flexible for them in the past, so they've come to expect that I'll be able to fit things in and bill at an hourly rate. But in this case, I don't see that I have any obligation to provide a detailed handover to this person. I was imagining a quick meeting over a lunch hour. I certainly wasn't expecting to have to train them on the CMS.
To make matters worse, looking at the new person's CV, they're basically asking me to transfer fifteen years' experience. This person is about as junior as you can get. Three "freelance" roles for agencies, none longer than a few months. Potentially internships gussied up a bit for LinkedIn. I've looked at their professional blog and there's only university work in the portfolio, plus some poorly designed personal work.
What would you do?
On one hand, there's the fact that I've enjoyed working with some of the people at this client, and they're the ones who are likely to have to pick up the slack if someone in the team isn't able to do the job independently. And on the ethical side, I always try to leave things better than when I found them.
On the other hand, upper management haven't been that great. They only told me the contract was ending once I'd agreed to work over a weekend to fix an emergency of their own creation. And they have a pattern of employing very early career (very cheap!) people to key roles in order to save money, forcing others to work around them.
(I've just written back to them to ask about the level of experience of the person involved, so that I can get a sense of what would be needed in order to transition the work. They don't know that I've researched the person's CV, so I'm keen to find out how they frame this one!)
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