Priorities in life and employers/clients

[Mich the Tester]

Joking aside though, it sounds like you're working for a bunch of complete tulipheads and you need to get out. If they don't have the basic human decency to cut you some slack when your wife's ill then they're not worth the trouble. I suggest you refuse the next extension, especially if that dumps them in the poo.

[psychocandy]

sorry forgot to mention that we were so lucky Mrs V so far has been fine, do sympathise with your situation its stressful enough with just the pregnancy.


Dicks, if they wanted unlimited availability they should have hired a full on consultancy at four times the price. FFS life is important, business is not all the time. Sounds like he is just grand standing. Pregnancy & Illness count as 'Force Majeure' surely?

Tell me about it. She aint been in work since Jan. Lost count of number of GP, hospital visits etc. And this is her 2nd admission to hospital in the last three months.

Luckily, client is 10 mins from hospital so its not too bad. So I can nip to the hospital to see her etc. **** knows what would have happened if I'd been away from home working.

Still a bit of a logistical nightmare too with client/school run/hospital etc.

Tempted to point out that a permie in my situation would have just taken time off on leave or special leave and you wouldnt have seen them for a few days!

[psychocandy]

Easy. Copy and paste the relevant parts of this text;

Dear Mr Clientco

It has come to my attention that you will be requiring my presence during the coming weeks. While I am personally committed to doing what is necessary to make a success of your project, I am not in any position to grant your request as Psychocandy Enterprises has a strict procedure of deferring to management decisions. My line manager is the CEO of Psychocandy Enterprises, Mrs P Sychocandy. I kindly request you to forward your request to her.

regards

Mr P Sychocandy

PS; she's having the longest and worst rag week in human history right now, so you might choose to wear a crash helmet when you call her

I do jokingly tell them that any decisions about my availabilty have to be referred to a higher authority i.e the mrs.

[psychocandy]

Joking aside though, it sounds like you're working for a bunch of complete tulipheads and you need to get out. If they don't have the basic human decency to cut you some slack when your wife's ill then they're not worth the trouble. I suggest you refuse the next extension, especially if that dumps them in the poo.

Im sure NLUK will be on here soon telling me to stop moaning and dump them too!

All well and good but I'd rather not be on the bench just as child is born. Money is money. Of course, you can only take it so far.

As it is I've told them the score - they don't like it. It will happen as I say though. If they then choose that they don't need my services any more or that they don't think I have the right attitude then that's their prerogative to let me go.

[jmo21]

All well and good but I'd rather not be on the bench just as child is born. Money is money. Of course, you can only take it so far.

As it is I've told them the score - they don't like it. It will happen as I say though. If they then choose that they don't need my services any more or that they don't think I have the right attitude then that's their prerogative to let me go.

This is where a decent war chest would have came in useful, and you could have told them to shove it.

Hope health concerns and the birth all go to plan!

[vetran]

Is there someone important in the client organisation you can talk to informally at the coffee point - Director similar, drop the pregnancy & wifes situation into the conversation and say how sorry you are you might let them down but family is family.

The PM may well be told to lay off if you get the right director (HR ones are best normally).

[Scoobos]

As bob and many have said I'd be looking to get out , full stop - never to return.

Get your notice in, they are idiots.

I've had it before and told them to forget it before i even started, as I was told in interview (at 8:30pm in London with people still in the office) that "As a contractor we'd expect you to be the first in and last out, nothing worse than seeing a contractor leave bang on when his hours are up".

Yep.. ta ra idjits.

[bobspud]

To be honest, my skills are mainstream also. Similar to you - mainly solaris and I do need to get into red hat more.

The niche stuff is just an extra on top of this.

Hi,
Sorry I'd missed this. In your position I would get into Linux and get your head around openstack and KVM. Takes about 20 minutes for a good Solaris admin to get their head round Linux. I did both for donkeys years

I hope your mrs feels better soon.

[SueEllen]

Tempted to point out that a permie in my situation would have just taken time off on leave or special leave and you wouldnt have seen them for a few days!

A company like that probably treat their permies like sh*t.

I've worked for two in my past.

In the first one they treated all employees like sh*t. Contractors were fine.

In the second one it ended up they were just openly nasty to all the fathers as they expected their wives to do all the childcare/medical appointments. They were too scared to treat the few women like that though managers did openly make sexist comments that annoyed the men more than the women. Contractors got sh*t as well.

Oddly as a contractor I've not had a client treat me as poorly then again it may be that I simply don't put up with it anymore.

[psychocandy]

As bob and many have said I'd be looking to get out , full stop - never to return.

Get your notice in, they are idiots.

I've had it before and told them to forget it before i even started, as I was told in interview (at 8:30pm in London with people still in the office) that "As a contractor we'd expect you to be the first in and last out, nothing worse than seeing a contractor leave bang on when his hours are up".

Yep.. ta ra idjits.

Yeh. That'd put me right off.