back to article You need a list of specific unknowns we may encounter? Huh?

The CIO flew in the other day. I am just a contractor so I only hear stories but so mythical is this fellow that I get the impression he must have flown in by winged chariot and would be trotting across town to our office on a company-funded unicorn. His arrival would then be announced by a fanfare of trumpets and a team of …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sooo true....

    Ah... you have just captured the essence of project & strategic consultancy in once swell foop :

    "When asked to point out where a project is going wrong, don’t for god’s sake try to tell them."

    Why did they not teach me that in my (bogus but expensive) MBA ????

    ~~

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sooo true....

      At my MBA school one of the first things they taught us in our "consulting" class, was that you must immediately make sure you recommend more consulting services, as any problem that can be solved on the first take is not big enough to pull down a big paycheck. You made it look too easy. So you need to make the problem bigger!

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    2. Fungus Bob
      Trollface

      Re: Sooo true....

      He should ice that foop so the swelling goes down

  2. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit

    So familiar

    I used to be just like you Mr Dabbs, it used to drive me potty the wasteful ways in which things are done and then done all over again each time a PHB tweaked the requirement spec for his own aggrandisement. Trying to care was giving me no end of headaches and blood pressure that at my age now would be a problem. Over the years I have developed a credo that helps keep me sane. The long version is:

    I am paid as much to rub out as I am to write.

    The short version is:

    DILLIGAF kerching.

    1. Semtex451
      Pint

      Re: So familiar

      "Foolishly, I would try to help them curb the waste and suggest ways of improving their productivity and profitability. Oh yes, I truly was that naïve."

      Wish I'd read that 15 years ago, I might have had some hair left.

  3. AbortRetryFail

    Brilliant

    So totally true. I was nodding all the way through that one.

    These days if a client wastes my time, I just console myself in the fact that they're paying me by the hour.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Brilliant

      "These days if a client wastes my time, I just console myself in the fact that they're paying me by the hour."

      Exactly that. I learned that giving 150% and being highly efficient is much like kicking the ball into your own goal. If the client feels like arranging tons of meetings for absolutely no outcome... fine. Most of the time you don't need to listen, as very little is going to come out of meetings with too many participants. Just nod, look interest, throw in some related but mostly random thoughts to give them more food for thought...

      Extra brownie points if somebody comes up with a power point presentation. Make sure to feign interest by checking early on that it's available on the company's intranet or is forwarded to you by email afterwards. At that point you could actually take a nap and it wouldn't matter. (If you miss anything important, you can still catch up later.)

      Otherwise, enjoy free coffee and cookies, and look forward to being a few hundred quid richer at the end of the day (with a new highscore in your favourite tablet-based game).

      I seems to work a lot better not to ever suggest big changes (they're just not ready for it, and likely never will be). Instead, make small improvements here and there and wrap them into big and impressive lingo which nobody grasps anyway. So it must be great!

      Also: Never fix anything immediately, if it can be delayed. Ask for deadlines, importance in relation to all the other things you've been postponing, make it sound more work than it actually is! It makes you look very busy and avoids that anybody of those paying you might think they pay money for somebody who hasn't got enough to do!

      Companies don't like to end a contract if you're still in the middle of something they think is important (because you made it sound like that). So better make sure that they think you haven't finished all tasks, ever.

      Then you get away with 50% of your energy left to spend on your hobbies after hours, and you keep the contract longer (because, well, you're not actually working that much any more).

      And when shit hits the fan and you actually have to deliver something very quickly because it's critical, do it, but point out the other deadlines and ask for them to be pushed forward.

      Kept myself with a corporate client on a contract for over 4 years that way... and now they are still paying a retainer, because they think they might need me for urgent stuff. (They don't actually, but that doesn't matter.)

  4. cracked
    Terminator

    Scary Man

    I was once told by a boss that is was best to shout only when it wasn't necessary ...

    1. AbortRetryFail

      Re: Scary Man

      Blackadder: Tell me do you ever stop bullying and shouting at the lower orders?

      Wellington: NEVER! There's only one way to win a campaign - shout, shout and shout again.

      Blackadder: You don't think that inspired leadership and tactical ability have anything to do with it?

      Wellington: NO! It's all down to shouting. BEHHHHGGHH!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Scary Man

      This is true. After my own foray into management, one of my employees (with whom I stayed on good terms) told me people only started to worry when I went very quiet and very polite.

      But I knew it was time to retire when I started talking like Mr. Dabbs n his "before I got sensible" phase. At some point in the industry you may reach a point at which your house is paid off, your pension fund is big enough, and suddenly you have this urge to tell it exactly like it is. At this point senior managers avoid you, and junior staff ask you if you want chocolate biscuits with your coffee.

  5. wolfetone Silver badge

    Similar Situation

    Except I'm not lucky enough to be a freelancer here any more, I'm on the payroll. I truly miss the days of being self employed/freelance. Sure I might have been a lot poorer but I had far more fun doing it than right now.

    Roll on finishing my own project, the one project to get me out of paid underlingship and hello to being my own boss.

  6. hplasm
    Thumb Up

    This might just be-

    the most truthiful article of all time.

    Including the bit about the shouty bosses...

  7. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    @Dabbsy

    Alistair, did you use an alias when being contracted to a now dead* project around here? Haven't seen your name listed as a team member, but I'm sure as hell you described our situation.

    *I killed it - that was probably my biggest achievement ever.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: @Dabbsy

      Bloody hell, you scared me for a moment, there. There are people who read my column who recognise who I'm talking about. I just hope it never gets read by people who recognise themselves.

      1. Evil Auditor Silver badge

        Re: @Dabbsy

        You shouldn't worry. The people you write about are commonly the same people who suffer a certain degree of loss of reality. No chance they'd recognise themselves.

        1. Anonymous Custard

          Re: @Dabbsy

          Quite - in my experience people like those referred to in the article would have trouble recognising themselves in a mirror, let alone in an anonymised tale.

      2. Don Jefe

        Re: @Dabbsy

        If one of your clients recognizes themselves just say you were talking about whoever it is they hate most. If you don't already know, make it a point to find out who they hate most. The enemy of your client is your patsy.

  8. MacGuru
    Pint

    I think your maybe me.. or maybe I'm you..

    anyway.. have a beer..

    nice to know I'm not the only one..

  9. Kubla Cant

    Familiar story

    They tell you they need a contractor in place ASAP, so you beg your previous client to let you off a few days early. There then follows a three-week process of reference-check timewasting*. When you arrive on site it's apparently a complete surprise to everybody: there's nothing for you to do**, and you idle around reading documentation while they think something up.

    * I recently had to prove my address for the past five years, so I sent a copy of my mortgage confirmation from 11 years ago, together with the confirmation that I'd just paid it off. Not good enough. I had to supply five years of utility bills to prove that I hadn't moved out and back in.

    ** Which is just as well, because there are no resources to do it with. In my latest (very highly-paid) contract, it took over a month before I got a desk and a computer.

    1. Franco

      Re: Familiar story

      Being a contractor is, in my experience, just like the Arabella Weir sketch in The Fast Show. The woman who has all the answers but it ignored because she is a woman. Similarly, no matter how many times you have stepped in the turd that is being proposed by a permanent member of staff, no one will cross to the other side of the road on the say of a contractor.

      I had to wait a month to start my current contract for the standard background checks etc, then 2 weeks for a logon to be created for me, another week for an admin account and another for a laptop. Would be frustrating were I not paid a daily rate, regardless of how much work I do (or don't do!)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Familiar story

        That is because contractors tend to breeze in and give recommendations ignoring half of the spec, constraints and budget, then proceed to sit back and assume that since another solution chosen was hard that theirs couldn't possibly have had any problems whatsoever.

        Paid twice as much to do half as much work. Never have to deal with the consequences of technical debt that they create or tie up the loose ends that take 90% of the time and effort. Who doesn't hate them? :P

        1. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

          Re: Familiar story

          Paid twice as much to do half as much work. Never have to deal with the consequences of technical debt that they create or tie up the loose ends that take 90% of the time and effort.

          It's funny, you say that like it's a bad thing.

        2. Alistair Dabbs

          Re: Familiar story

          >> That is because contractors tend to breeze in and give recommendations ignoring half of the spec, constraints and budget, then proceed to sit back...<<

          I fear you may be confusing contractors with consultants.

      2. keithpeter Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: Familiar story

        What is it with these accounts you all have?

        Like most colleges, we have a floating population of sessionally paid staff. They get a log-in same as us contracted ones. Usually ready for when they rock up needing to print stuff and use the photocopiers. A matter of a day rather than weeks.

    2. AbortRetryFail

      Re: Familiar story

      This Dilbert is particularly apt...

      (Link to safe for Work picture)

  10. Hollerith 1

    I laughed, I cried...

    Oh, yes, yes, yes. All true. I know, for me, it's the beginning of the end when I read the latest in a long line of emails or slide decks and start screaming with unbelieving laughter. It tells me that my kool-aid tolerance has been used up and it is time to move on.

    I have accepted that big business (big multinationals, especially financial services) are in existence only marginally to do what's on the tin (banking, investment, whatever); a good 80% is a self-sustaining boxing ring for senior chaps to wrestle for power and prestige. So projects are about their, um, manhood, size and swing-worthiness, and not actually about business value. Once I got that, I was able to play nicely. Until that moment of unbelieving laughter arrives...

  11. Chozo

    "I have been told I lack respect. I call it an inability to brown-nose."

    Could of so used that line during my school days

    1. captain veg Silver badge

      school days

      You could have paid attention. Then you might realise that "could of" is illiterate.

      -A.

      1. Graham Dawson Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: school days

        It is grammatically incorrect, but not illiterate. Illiterate implies a lack of ability to read or write. Since he's apparently capable of both, he's not illiterate. Just wrong.

        1. herman

          Re: school days

          He is neither illiterate nor wrong. He is American. They actually speak like that.

          1. Darryl

            Re: school days

            No, even in America, 'could of' is still wrong. At least for now.

          2. Irony Deficient

            Re: school days

            herman, we do often pronounce “could’ve” for “could have”, but “could of” for “could have” remains wrong here.

          3. Graham Dawson Silver badge
            Pint

            Re: school days

            They also speak like that in Essex, Herman.

          4. Bloakey1

            Re: school days

            I cud ave <sic> agreed with you but you are obviously a foreign chap with no understanding of textual exegesis and common idiom. Gawd blimey Mary Poppins.

            I agree with M. Dabbs though. I worked for a multinational that was bought out by a huge US concern. I refused to sign a contract and their hatchet woman called a meeting for all staff and told us we had to sign new contracts. I said "I would make a better rentboy than a H***** employee [1]" I finally surreptitiously got them to give me gardening leave and flew the coop. It was truly awful and eventually their hatchet woman got wise and topped herself. Shame really but if you dance with the devil.

            [Think game manufacturer / Intellectual property rights holder]

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: school days

          > It is grammatically incorrect, but not illiterate

          Graham, there are different degrees of (il)literacy, it's not black and white.

          1. DropBear
            Headmaster

            Re: school days

            It is grammatically incorrect, but not illiterate

            Oh but yes, yes it is. As in uneducated. "Illiterate", from the Oxford Dictionary:

            1 Unable to read or write;

            1.1 Ignorant in a particular subject or activity;

            1.2 (Of a piece of writing) showing a lack of education; badly written;

          2. Bloakey1

            Re: school days

            <snip>

            "Graham, there are different degrees of (il)literacy, it's not black and white."

            Or indeed monachrome. One man's Pudenda is another man's Cnut (1).

            1. King of Denmark, Norway and "England"

  12. leon clarke

    To be fair to the CIO...

    I can't remember ever going on a mandatory training course on a new system that imparted any useful knowledge about anything, let alone how to use the new system. So, in my experience, he was proposing a quality level far higher than the industry standard.

    1. herman

      Re: To be fair to the CIO...

      Bingo. That is how I understood it too. That CIO actually knows something.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: To be fair to the CIO...

      This actually reminds me a bit of the observation that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Sometimes it takes someone with a lot of organisational clout to ask questions like "does this work" or "do people know how to use it?", because they have the power to demand answers.

      1. Martin Budden Silver badge

        Re: To be fair to the CIO...

        Mr Garrison of South Park said: "There are no stupid questions, only stupid people".

        Mind you, he's not known for his wisdom.

    3. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: To be fair to the CIO...

      I can't remember ever going on a mandatory training course on a new system that imparted any useful knowledge about anything, let alone how to use the new system.

      Absolutely. Conversely, I, as a developer, being given 'user training' on a product in order to have the required understanding to work on the product (which is a rare enough as it is), have been in training sessions where the trainer has demonstrated plenty of screens and menu options but has managed to impart zero actual information about what the product is, what it is for, or how to actually use it.

      One of the big problems with this sort of situation is that the trainer will usually hand out some sort of feedback form, but it is impossible in practice to give honest feedback about how bad it was, especially if you are within the same organisation, as the feedback will not be anonymous (they may nominally say it is, but it isn't exactly hard to work out whose handwriting it is out of a pool of six people). If you say something negative, that person knows it was you, and you will have to face them in the knowledge that they know you were the one 'badmouthing' them. Most non-psychopaths tend to naturally shy away from conflict.

  13. The Man Himself Silver badge
    Devil

    Back in my past

    I remember when I was working at a place where temp contracted labour such as myself definitely had second-class citizen status...and I also remember the moment when I realised that contracted labour such as myself wasn't constrained in the same way as staffers.

    Annoying boss: We're busy doing staffy things - go and make tea

    Me: OK. [Exit stage left ]

    < some time later >

    Me: [Enter stage left, bearing tea] Tea's up

    Annoying boss: <Splutter> Yuk! You've put loads of sugar in this

    Me: I used my initiative - you look kind of overweight, so I assumed you'd want a few spoonfuls in there.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Back in my past

      Heh. Reminds me when one of the shouty bosses was visited by HIS American bosses one summer and I was asked to prepare some teas, coffees and "a water". No-one had asked for plain water before. The water cooler's cooler hadn't worked since long before I started there, so I duly served up a plastic cup of warm water, which she impressively spat out on the meeting room floor.

      Cue a bit of admonishing etc from the shouty man... then, when no-one else was looking, he sidled up, whispered an apology, thrust some cash in my hands and asked me to nip down the newsagent and buy a bottle of chilled Evian. Sorted.

  14. Hank Waggenburger III

    Does my budget look big in this

    <i>When asked to point out where a project is going wrong, don’t for god’s sake try to tell them.</i>

    Rube. I bet you also misinterpreted half life wife's "let's not get one another gifts this christmas" although I guess not many times since you claim to still be married.

    --

    Connect with me on ButtPlugg!

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Does my budget look big in this

      I completely forgot to congratulate the clever fellow this week who signed up to Twitter and LinkedIn as "Hank Waggenburger III" complete with public profile apparently for the sole purpose of inviting me to join his networks.

      Also props to the very real "Mr N Waggenburger" who also took the trouble to invite me.

      1. AbortRetryFail
        Thumb Up

        Re: Does my budget look big in this

        I completely forgot to congratulate the clever fellow this week who signed up to Twitter and LinkedIn as "Hank Waggenburger III" complete with public profile apparently for the sole purpose of inviting me to join his networks.

        Outstanding. :)

      2. JDM

        Re: Does my budget look big in this

        Great read as usual Mr Dabbs. Especially enjoyed reading the frustration of the "difficult" boss trying to get anyone to do anything how they want it to be done. Some of the best bosses I've had have been exactly like this and I could never put my finger on what it was and why I was praised for work I thought everyone was doing.

        "Connect with me on ButtPlugg!"

        Haha I would leave a comment along the lines of "Surely you have better things to be doing on a Friday afternoon" but here I am stuck in the office commenting on your comment so who am I to judge..

        1. Alistair Dabbs

          Re: Does my budget look big in this

          >> here I am stuck in the office commenting on your comment so who am I to judge

          That's both of our Friday afternoons wasted. I won't tell anyone if you don't.

          1. Martin Budden Silver badge

            Re: Does my budget look big in this

            here I am stuck in the office commenting on your comment so who am I to judge

            Obligatory:

            http://xkcd.com/1385/

  15. Machine Epsilon

    Re: Training

    Overheard yesterday:

    "It was a learning experience for everyone but the trainees."

  16. Timo
    Thumb Up

    If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

    There is a spoof site at "Despair Inc" that rips off the "Successories" management stuff of a decade ago.

    http://www.despair.com/consulting.html

    "Consulting: If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem."

    Not that the consulting is the problem in this case, but that there is more money to be made playing along with the problem, than there is in actually speaking your mind and trying to fix stuff.

    Most huge companies don't really want to fix things, they just want to perpetuate their golden silos of paper shuffling jobs.

    1. JimmyPage Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      @timo

      thank you for that site, I have only just got enough breath back to type ...

  17. FrankAlphaXII

    I must say damn. Dabbs, It sounds like the world of IT contracting is remarkably similar to the US Army in all the wrong ways except its harder to get fired. But there are way too many similarities, for a minute I thought I might be reading one of my Soldiers' facebook posts or the forums at Army Times or something like that.

    It is virtually the same set of legitimate gripes, from attempting to stop your organization from wasting huge amounts of cash on new and innovative ways to reinvent the wheel, while woe is you if you find and bring up a better and cheaper way to do the same function which costs a fortune for terrible results (like 15 crashes requiring a hard restart in the span of three hours), to sacred commandments from on high which usually make little sense, if any at all.

    Sounds like being a contractor in IT is like being a mid-level Warrant Officer actually. I sympathize.

    1. NullReference Exception

      It's probably slightly worse in the Army due to the leadership positions all being on ~3 year rotations. The new guy comes in and decides the previous guy was doing it Wrong and he's going to throw it out and do it Right. Three years later, when you're halfway through the new project, the process repeats. Meanwhile, the Beltway bandit support contractors are laughing all the way to the bank...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "It's probably slightly worse in the Army due to the leadership positions all being on ~3 year rotations."

        In the IT industry the cycle is now probably down to about 1 year? Firstly a very senior figure is recruited by a head-hunter or the old boys' network. He brings with him his new way of doing things - which has failed in all his previous positions. However at that exalted level such failure is no bar to being recruited - especially as the previous companies don't like to advertise their error.

        He next brings in his trusted lieutenants - and gradually they bring in their trusted acolytes - right down through the company tree - but not at the actual coalface. After a period of disruption at the coalface it is realised that his pet idea doesn't work - and he is paid off to go to another company. His henchman continue implementing his failed idea until they are summoned to his new company - and are replaced by the new senior man's henchmen implementing his new idea.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          You're doing it wrong

          A friend told me he hired a new guy for his company, and he had pretty good looking credentials, only to find out over the year he was a complete f*kw*t, and it was starting to affect the company's numbers (performance numbers were important public figures to get new customers). No easy way to get rid of him either.

          But, come a short while later, the guy expresses his feeling to move on, and actually might have a position in his former company, which actually was a big competitor.

          My friend proceeded to write a glaring reference letter for him "to whom it may concern", and after a week he was gone :-)

      2. Bloakey1

        "It's probably slightly worse in the Army due to the leadership positions all being on ~3 year rotations."

        <snip>

        Ahh the army. I joined as a young Harry Potter lookalike, I had technical qualifications and would have been great and less frightened to have been in a technical role. Where did it take me? they thought I would be great jumping out of things, climbing up high things, diving out of low (very low things) and generally conquering most of my neuroses. Now I look like a silver haired Harry Potter who has spent too long in a bar, with silly shoulders, is once again frightened of heights (under 100 meters) and would dive and go down on anything including that minger from Xfactor.

        Gawd bless the army.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not just contractors

    Most of the same gripes apply to pretty much anyone working in a big corporation, not just contractors. Who hasn't experienced that "Emperor's New Clothes" feeling on a regular basis?

  19. eldel
    Holmes

    Once learned - never forgotton

    After 17 years as a contractor (and now 13 years 'on the dark side') I was recently invited to mentor some junior engineers. The mid-level manager type nearly had a fit when I proposed the following exhortation "It's a commercial transaction, they rent your life for 40 hours a week, if they decide to waste that time that's their privilege and they will exercise it. Take every opportunity to plausibly add buzzwords to your resume because you will inevitably be deemed expendable when a PHB fouls up a project and you will be out with the trash because the bean counter's spreadsheet is more important than you"

    Apparently I also lack respect for the company. No shit sherlock - I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't told me. Now STFU and pay me.

  20. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Anyone familiar with the Peter Principle

    (the excellent book, not the dull sit-com) ?

    In any organisation, people rise until they become incompetent, at which point they stop. Therefore in any organisation, the real work is being done by people who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.

    I really cannot recommend this book enough. Despite being over 35 years old, it reads as if it were written today.

    1. cosymart
      Holmes

      Re: Anyone familiar with the Peter Principle

      The trick here is to recognise that point in your own career and swiftly take early retirement based on that pay level.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Anyone familiar with the Peter Principle

      heck. i wish we could bring back the days of the peter principle. in the past, people were good at something at least once in their career. Now days, these people were never good at anything.

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Anyone familiar with the Peter Principle

      "In any organisation, people rise until they become incompetent, at which point they stop."

      Stop? Oh no they don't.

      1. Jos V

        Re: Anyone familiar with the Peter Principle

        Yeah, I can't bother to look it up right now, but it was more along the lines of "In any company every employee tends to rise to their own level of -in-competence"

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Anyone familiar with the Peter Principle

      "[...] at which point they stop."

      Not sure about that. They are usually dislodged by being promoted. If they have reached a high enough level then they enter the charmed circle where they move sideways into different divisions, companies, quangos, or other government posts.

      There is also the PP corollary that people who have reached their level of incompetence will make sure that anyone reporting to them is similarly incompetent. The last thing they want is someone who might take their job by showing competence.

      There is also the PP rule of thumb that the only people who get fired are the supremely incompetent - OR the supremely COMPETENT.

    5. The Real Tony Smith

      Re: Anyone familiar with the Peter Principle

      A great book.

      I could also recommed 'The Art of Coarse Office Life' by Michael Green.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Anyone familiar with the Peter Principle

        Is this the one that says; "Any large organisation is like a cesspit only the big 'whatevers' float to the top"

  21. Tom 38
    Joke

    I have instructed my lawyers Mr Dabbs

    From this moment forward you will desist from recording my stand-up and planning sessions. If you immediately hand over the previous months footage which you used to write this amusing article as well, I will consider this matter closed.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: I have instructed my lawyers Mr Dabbs

      Sorry, I didn't realise you did stand-up. Are you sysadmin for The Comedy Store?

  22. Gannon (J.) Dick
    Pint

    Next time I'll drive you

    What a tragic waste of Beer Friday this is.

  23. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    "...a list of specific unknowns..."

    Known unknowns = risk budget $whatever

    Unknown unknowns = risk budget unknown, but assume same $whatever

    In other words, more accurate risk budgeting involves a Shift Left of one place (x2).

    Of course, there's still a risk it might go beyond even your doubled risk budget.

  24. Dr_N

    "It’s not fit for purpose"

    Did you really use that phrase at the time, Mr Dabbs?

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: "It’s not fit for purpose"

      No, I didn't say any of those things. But wouldn't I have looked smart if I had?

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You missed slagging off the sysadmin who must have been recruited because he was the only one with a computer competence qualification in the dole office queue and could type albeit with his two middle fingers & who could barely log into his windows machine in a company with a complex multi site mixed network, cisco networking gear, some random firewalls with ip chains running and a load of unix servers doing financials work. To the head of HR, who later turned out to be his lover. So after digging the enterprise out of the doggy doo, recovering all the passwords for the kit where the previous competent but malicious sysadmin had nuked all the docs on his way out, you got to hand all the works over to windows wonk with a paint by numbers guide to changing all the credentials on my exit and how to delete my remote access to the firewalls etc.

    Which he ignored and left them the same for years after according to some friends who stayed behind.

    Best thing about contracting, not having to play politics. Worst thing in the early days, not knowing at first who else IS. Now I just assume everyone is, get in, offer the best I can do and try to shower my upstream manager in praise while he claims all my ideas until he gets promoted and I move on.

    Ive seen worse, but another facet of being well renumerated is its a implicit rule of contracting to not crap on the company afterwards, and they may be a bit too easy to identify to some of the other lurkers here.

    1. Bloakey1

      <snip>

      you got to hand all the works over to windows wonk with a paint by numbers guide to changing all the credentials on my exit and how to delete my remote access to the firewalls etc.

      <snip>

      i actually disconnected my machine from the network and wiped it. In the mean time I was telling my replacement (actually a good'ish friend) how to delete me from all the systems. A few months later they asked me back on a consultancy basis. I thought of a number and trebled it and they went for it. Sadly I could not do the work and told them that my non existent cat had died.

      What a bunch of fools.

  26. Alan W. Rateliff, II
    Paris Hilton

    We are Alistair

    Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. This article is my life in a nutshell. Well, except that I still perform actions considered naive. That is, my Truth Filter(tm) is permanently stuck on the "ON" position. I try not to be a twat about it, executing what my friends endearingly call "Irish Diplomacy," but the truth comes out, nonetheless. I am also perfectly willing to set fire to the conference table and walk out laughing maniacally if it means the impending fuck-up and collapse will not have my name on it and I will not have to support, recover from, or dig out from under the massive amount of shit which will continue to fall unabated.

    I have developed the useful skill of planting an idea in the head of someone who is looking to steal ideas and make themselves look good. I will even happily speak with said brown-noser at length about the technicals and how-it-works-isms until his eyes glaze over. Particularly because he will usually buy me whatever food and drink I want during this ritual courtship. Whether or not he understands does not bother me in the slightest as I know once he has "stolen" the idea from me, I will become his in-the-shadow go-to guy to get things done. While he thinks of me as his prey, I am using his own selfish ambitions for Good.

    Mind you, this skill also includes the ability to detect when the schmuck is going to pass my idea off to his mate who will completely cock it up, meanwhile I get thrown under the bus while the jack-ass blurts out in tears, "Alan convinced me this was a sure thing!" This part took longer to develop than I would have liked, but experience is the best teacher if you are willing to learn. At the end of it, brown-noser climbs the corporate ladder until he reaches the level at which he can no longer usurp and re-brand the experience and knowledge of others, and I get to be "The Guy Behind The Scenes of X-Project" and a fat check or two.

    To be somewhat rhetorical, have you heard of me? Probably not, but you will more than likely get to hear of the guy who rode my train to his next stop. I am a doer and a facilitator; I get shit done so you look good.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Alistair:

    No doubt your article will be very popular with the readership here, but in case this is how you actually conduct business (as opposed to a bit of harmless fiction to amuse the audience), let me tell you what works for me when I wear my consultant hat:

    I do not try to sound more clever than anyone else, or get frustrated about things that I cannot (or haven't been hired to) realistically do anything about. Getting all confrontational might have some short-term therapeutic benefit, but very rarely does it actually help to sort out a problem, with the exception perhaps of a one-on-one with someone with a compatible sort of attitude. Never in front of an audience, in any case.

    We are there because we have been called to solve one or more specific problems, or contribute something specific to a project (or operations). Sometimes it happens that the goal is either realistically unattainable or probably misguided (difficult for us to say without having all the information), in which case one may make the decision to diplomatically retreat, or stay put and benefit from it even if we strongly suspect our work serves no real purpose other than us getting paid.

    At any rate, I find that showing some genuine empathy towards clients and their employees makes life a lot more enjoyable for everyone involved. I also perhaps tend to be listened to a little better than if I went treating them as if they were all idiots who don't know any better. In reality, chances are than when a situation is looked at in its wider context, things start to make more sense than if you take the narrow, immediate view. Of course, as consultants we do not often have that strategic vantage point so then I tend to take Mark Twain's advice and keep my mouth shut.

    All the above in the spirit of constructive criticism and discussion.

    P.S.: When things get really frustrating, I silently recite Kipling's famous poem to myself.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Alistair:

      There is a much more appropriate poem by Kipling than If but it isn't considered politically correct nowadays.

      The White Man's Burden

      For the inhabitants of Borneo, just substitute modern corporations and government departments and see how appropriate it is.

      1. Bloakey1

        Re: Alistair:

        "There is a much more appropriate poem by Kipling than If but it isn't considered politically correct nowadays."

        <snip>

        A load of racist colonial claptrap and bear in mind that I am right of Genghis Khan at times and left of Stalin <insert smiley>.

        White man's fecking burden indeed.

        Just as an aside old chap, do you speak any other language than English?

  28. Burned Cycles

    Deja Vu

    I've contracted technical services and PM'd IT Projects for around 15 years now, and I've played with some of the biggest multinationals to the smallest start-ups. You, Sir, had me nodding and smiling the whole read through.

    Reading the comments afterwards was simply icing on the cake, and assures me that I'm not alone in my experiences.

    Contractors are generally brought in for their expertise in areas that cost too much to staff daily FT, or for their breadth of experience in a variety of corporate structures and project variables. They are generally paid well for this expertise - which makes it even more ironic, how almost completely their insights are ignored or dismissed.

    I've always thought it odd. Personally, if I need..say..an electrician - and I find a seasoned and well-recommended one, vet him, negotiations for a premium wage for his experience ensue, etc - I Don't tens to pay him and then ignore him to just "have a stab at it myself" after all.

  29. All names Taken
    Happy

    Dood!

    There are no such things as specified unknowns because if they were they would be specifiable therefore known variables.

    I mean, if something is unknown unknown it is unknown and not even on the radar, if it is a known unknown it really is a qualifiable known no?

    1. DropBear

      Re: Dood!

      Perhaps 'commonly encountered unknowns' would be a more precise term, but semantics aside, are you telling me you've never heard of supply chain delay-, equipment breakdown- or weather-induced setbacks that can hardly be exhaustively foretold but can reasonably be expected to occur...?

    2. Bloakey1

      Re: Dood!

      <snip>

      "I mean, if something is unknown unknown it is unknown and not even on the radar, if it is a known unknown it really is a qualifiable known no?

      1 1"

      I like known unknowns, they have a direct correlation to my concrete ephemera.

  30. groMMitt
    Facepalm

    It's not just in IT...

    At my workplace (in a busy operating theatre suite in the NHS) we have to use a new form which is useful in that it helps protect patient safety (right person, right operation, all that stuff that the patients like to hear) called a WHO form (as it's a World Health Organisation product, to be used in all theatres all over the world) and among its many sensible questions is the one that asks the surgeon if there are likely to be any unexpected events during the procedure.

    I have the greatest respect for said surgeons (even though I work in anaesthetics and am aware of the real meaning of the blood-brain interface - the blood's over there, the brain is over here) but this question taxes even their immense intellects (well, maybe not that immense in orthopaedics...)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's not just in IT...

      > I work in anaesthetics

      You, Sir, put me to sleep.

      ⁠

      ⁠

      ⁠

      ⁠

      ⁠

      (I'm awfully sorry, I'll leave now)

  31. Jamie Jones Silver badge
    Pint

    Dabbsy...

    My hero!

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time for a....

    Me 2!

    Posting.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Blind leading the sighted

    While I aspire to being 'freelance technology tart' at some point in my career, I'm currently in voluntary vendor enslavement dealing with 'customer escalations' at exotic locations round the world (and occasionally Bracknell). The variety and range of ways in which senior management in every industry are able to motivate large teams of people to shovel crisp fifty pound (euro, dollar, rupee, etc) notes directly into the shredder is the primary motivation for remaining in the job. True, it is necessary daily to walk the tight-rope between brown-nosing and self-esteem but it pays the bills and keeps me entertained.

    Success remains in short supply, fleeting and largely unremarked upon - most recently we managed to convince a client to do some actual planning, some actual testing, and follow our few sage recommendations, which resulted in a small but flawless rollout activity. Sweet joy.

    At this point, the tumbleweed may continue rolling absent the fanfare heralding dawning realisation on the root cause of most of the troubles over the last three years.

    Ironically the only commentary from our own leaders was a phone call a week later asking why the brown stuff plus spinny thing were still in close contact in another part of the same customer and had we actually been doing anything constructive.

  34. Stoneshop
    Mushroom

    So familiar

    There was one contract job that was absolutely brilliant. Just two questions in the intake meeting: "Can you start tomorrow, and do you always wear those silly clothes?" Lots of leeway, they knew what I was capable of and that I would get things done.

    But there have been others.

    Manager: "Why is the backup still running when people come in and need to start working?"

    (logins are disabled during backup)

    Me: "Lessee, <poke, poke> oh, it could start right when the database extract is done, but instead it starts at $fixed_time, which is well over an hour later, usually. That's easy to fix. Then we could tweak some backup parameters to speed things up. We can also make sure the important files get done first so that in case we have to kill the backup for still running too long, we'll just miss a few odds and ends."

    Manager: "Right, take your suggestions to $permie for approval"

    Me: "OK"

    Me: <type, type, print>

    Permie: "I'll look into it"

    [time passes]

    Manager: "The backup is still running into office hours. This is unacceptable"

    Me: "I handed my improvements to $permie, but he hasn't given the nod yet."

    [more time passes]

    Manager: "The backup is still running into office hours. This is unacceptable"

    Me: "I handed my improvements to $permie right after we discussed the problem the first time, but he still hasn't given the nod yet."

    [even more time passes]

    Manager: "The backup is still running into office hours. This is unacceptable"

    Me: (inner voice) "Then let me fucking FIX the problem, or get out of my hair"

    Me: "Let's ask $permie what he thinks of the modifications."

    Permie: "Your script is incomprehensible. We can't maintain it when you're gone"

    Me: (inner voice): "WTBF? They're YOUR OWN backup scripts, with a handful of lines to start the actual backup right when the extract is done, plus a watchdog that tells it to wrap things up ten minutes before people need to log in again. And the actual backup now consists of two steps, Important and OtherStuff"

    Me: "Sorry, but that's just the way these jobs can be synchronised. It's a standard mechanism exactly for this kind of problem, provided by the OS itself. Nothing unsupported or undocumented"

    Manager: "You need to do it differently, in a way that we can maintain when you're gone"

    Me: "Sorry, if you think that using $OS_provided_method is unmaintainable, I can't help you"

    [exit, stage left]

  35. Nuno trancoso

    Earlier on i learned to split The Powers That Be into two groups, A and B. A wants the job done FOR REAL. B wants something that sort of works so they can also show some work done. A is great to work with because though they want the real deal, they're willing to cut you some slack so you can get it done proper. B is great to make money from because they only want some half baked solutions that eventually needs more fixing and maintaining than it ever needed implementing :) Brownie points if you can sell them some "holy grail" features that can't be realistically achieved but will keep you working until it's scrapped as "can't be done".

    p.s. There's a really small fringe C group that actually would like the real deal but are under time/budget constraints that won't allow for it. Very sad to work with those cause the poor sods actually know what they want/need but also know they can't get it and are stuck with "as good as possible".

    1. DocJames

      I don't know, the group that accepts "good enough" can be quite large. They can be found in most functioning organisations.

  36. Northumbrian
    Megaphone

    And then there's Big Government Projects

    I had not previously seen Iain Duncan Smith a PHB, but it figures.

    Seriously, though, does anyone with inside contacts in the DWP have the nerve to tell the story of the project management of Universal Credit?

    The one that was going to be "all online" - all applications to be done by yourself on a computer, for a benefit with a high proportion of those with a learning disability, the dyslexic, the genuinely illiterate, the partially sighted, the ones with severely arthritic fingers, the clueless, the thick and the intellectually bone idle. All of whom, for different reasons, may find it hard to get work - especially properly paid work - and may need UC.

    Then they point out that anyone with enough benefit / capital to afford a computer is getting too much money from the tax payer.

    Then they reduce library funding so no one can have more than half an hour on library computers and has, anyway, to type in all their details (including bank accounts) into a system which they have to leave, but without any understanding of the phrase "log off."

    Finally, you have a PHB who will lecture anyone who says the system doesn't work, won't work, couldn't work - even on an IT basis. And that's before you factor in real users. That, insists the PHB, is a form politically-motivated destructive lies. IT IS WORKING - IT IS WORKING WELL - IT WILL WORK BRILLIANTLY.

    So here's something from one of those poems which management types despise:

    And on the pedestal these words appear:

    "My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings.

    Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!"

    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

    Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,

    The lone and level sands stretch far away.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    great stuff....

    ...keep fighting the good fight Al. Despite our transtory status my experience is that us contractors are more committed to genuinely improving the businesses we work for than their own permanent staff are.

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