Re: Shoddy Treatment

[Jonathan Baker <jbaker2525 -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Umm, is he asking you to be available whenever they get organized, but not
paying you for your availability? If yes, then go elsewhere. Seriously.
Fast. Companies like this rarely get their act together. Plus, if they are
bringing new people, those new people will bring their own people with
them. The likelihood that you will continue there is slim and this
disorganization has to be making you miserable.

Or, you could ask for a retainer. That is, they pay you to be available at
some point in the future. This might mean you might have to put other work
on the back burner, so you would have to be straight with other clients in
terms of schedule and the possibility of an interrupt in their work. I do
not recommend this practice, though.

Jon Baker



.

On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 2:07 PM Tony G. Rocco <cityfeller55 -at- gmail -dot- com>
wrote:

> Greetings, dear tech writers,
>
> I've been contracting since 2006 and I've seen some lousy clients and bad
> managers, but this one beats all. I've never seen so much managerial
> ineptitude in one place in my life.
>
> I've been working for a major Bay Area software company remotely from San
> Diego since last August. Halfway through, the project I was hired for fell
> apart due to a lack of SME resources - poor planning on their part - and my
> lead contact unexpectedly left on a six-week sabbatical. I've been left
> hanging ever since, with only makeshift busy work to keep me occupied on
> less than a full-time basis. After initially trying to help me, my boss
> became indifferent, defensive and blaming, imploring me to "take charge" of
> a nonexistent project.
>
> Oddly, my boss has asked my recruiter to renew my contract, but has told me
> privately that due to an impending reorg, he doesn't know if/when he'll
> have any actual work for me to do. In fact, he doesn't even know if funding
> for my position will be available. I've informed my recruiter of the
> situation, but they are not allowed to contact my manager directly to get
> clarification or sort things out. They have never had a client ask to renew
> a contract without know if funding is available.
>
> I resent being left in limbo, waiting to find out how this situation is
> going to play out, and have started looking another opportunity. But remote
> gigs are hard to come by for some reason and I'm not willing to take a job
> that doesn't let me work independently. I plan to travel and I can't travel
> while tied to a desk.
>
> Any thoughts about how you would deal with a situation like this? Ever been
> in a situation like this before? Any feedback is welcome.
>
> Tony
>
> --
> I am a freelance technical writer and author of fiction, biographical
> non-fiction, first-person journalism and essays. My work can be found on
> the BrooWaha.com online community newspaper
> <http://www.broowaha.com/search-author/tony-g-rocco> under my own name and
> my pen name, cityfeller.
>
> *No Regrets: Memoirs of a Punk*, my first ebook, is available from
> Smashwords Publishing. It recounts my early days on the San Francisco punk
> scene, and tells the tale of a young Catholic boy who escapes his
> conservative Texas upbringing to live the life of a free-spirited punk
> rocker in the San Francisco of the 1970's. Download it at:
> https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/315495.
>
> My first novel, *On the Steps of St. Dymphna*, is due out in the Spring of
> 2019.
>
> View my professional website at: http://tonygrocco-com.webs.com.
>
> View my LinkedIn profile at: www.linkedin.com/in/yourperfectwrite/
>
> Follow me on Twitter at: yrprfctwrt and trocco
>
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> 01/25/19,
> 10:49:53 AM
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