Not a full timer
mohamedhayibor.github.io
mohamedhayibor.github.io
I mean, if I were a time traveller, I wouldn't be spending my limited output on this sort of stuff ;)
More seriously - to me this guy seems a bit.. I dunno, try hard? Like they want to prove something about how aggressive they are.
You don't need to be all "gogogo" to do contracting.
The last bit is kind of illustrative. I think they've had bad experiences in the past and are perhaps recovering from burnout in some way. This post doesn't look like a good sign to me in that context.
If you're young and insecure you might fall into the low pay downward spiral trap. You'll burn out.
And I'm not advocative anything "gogogo"or aggressive, in fact I said that you should be aiming to work less hours...
Finally I'd be interested in knowing what life experiences you had to think that this post was "aggressive" or "try-hard".
The development scope is feature X with A,B,C. Customer asks for D and E. Technically D and E will add maybe 3 hours and Y cost to the total.
Your choices:
a) Bring it up which almost always leads to some haggling. Emails turn into calls, calls turn into meetings. Meetings turn into negotiations, negotiations lead to some compromise, in the end you have spent 3 hours just reaching an agreement, which nobody will reimburse you for. If you don't reach an agreement you stand your ground in numerous ways, most of which result in getting stiffed or losing business.
b) Spend the extra 3 hours.
A lot of times it's just simpler to choose (b), and like the author says, give in to tyranny. It's a genuine problem.
Of course that only works with time-based billing, and a lot of people would advise against it, but it's one of the reasons why I love it.
I am an hourly contractor, and I prefer it to 'full time' employment. As with everything, there are pros and cons, but overall it is a net-positive for me and the way I wish to spend my time.
I sort of follow the point about respecting productive time. I do try to cut the bullshit. I do spend a lot of time thinking about the emails I'm going to send my clients (that I don't bill them for) so that my information is as efficient as possible. I've found an hourly rate that works for me and if I'm offered below that I just say 'no'. I don't consider that working for free. I don't find myself competing against 'full-time' employees in the way the article suggests. My experience is the opposite. I still think it might be satire...maybe?
Nothing looks more professional than someone sitting at a desk in yoga pants or a tracksuit. Yes indeed.
You know what else looks professional? A military or public services uniform. This guy should get a firefighter outfit to wear while sitting at a desk typing code. Then he'll feel really professional.
That's utterly ridiculous. There are so many jobs where this is not true from flipping burgers to civil engineering. Clearly the author hasn't thought this out at all.
So not sure which audience this article is aimed at.
Maybe my experience in London doesn't reflect other places but as a contract and as someone who has looked for contractors it never felt like we got anyone special. They were another person and they took just as long to on board and become efficient.
Now if you remote sourced the role gems will be found.
Every contractor I know resigned from a permanent position in their early thirties to go contracting and make 1.5x-2x as much money as a contractor. Businesses regularly offer contractors full-time positions and are regularly turned down.
Contractors may not be particularly special technically, but they will focus on doing what they're told in the team and not attending training, seminars, workshops or HR meetings. I'd much rather build a product with a team of suitably incentivised and managed contractors than a team of permies.
But I always found it a little bit of a lie when the idea of a contractor coming in and working on a problem from day 2 or 3.
Granted this usually was because the problem was poorly defined and/or limited but even when I joined teams that had really good project managers it still was not as simple as "work on this in isolation".
I have since ditched contracting in UK, too much of a mess with the taxman.
What did you do instead? There is a wave of people looking to get out of contracting in the UK right now exactly because of the messes HMRC keep making.
Please don't do this.
Certainly 'employee' suggests something contra to 'contractor', but there's no reason someone working 40 hours a week can't or shouldn't be considered full-time regardless of their permanent / contractor status.
I can't tell if this is irony, in the context of being 'precise in your communications' and advice to 'edit ruthlessly':
> You must ruflessly cut out bullshit, bloat, ...
Note that the author asserted:
> It helps to actually take time 6 hours, 12 hours before a reply. Meditate on the email. Write the email by hand on your notebook. Edit ruthlessly. Type it up on your computer. Only then, send it.
So, a) they knew how to type ruthlessly at least once, and/or b) had spell-check pick them up on that one.
But the gist of the particularly prescriptive advice was to word your missives carefully lest they be misunderstood.
In good faith, let's assume it's an unimportant mistake.
So let's consider:
> Fuck “working for Free”
> If you work for free. You are contributing to tyranny. You are facilitating the spread of tyranny. Nobody in their right mind and right intentions work for free.
I'm typing my considered and reasoned response on a computer that's running almost exclusively free software, the authors of which I'm eternally grateful to.
Because I'm currently employed (full time, contractor) for an agency that's doing good work (by my assessment) I'm quite happy to perform occasional non-billable work.
Certainly, in my time I've worked in places that made me feel something approaching TFA's emotional response, but it's not a set of rules that I feel can or should be casually applied to all contractual engagements.
I have been full time employee in my whole career, no one had really told me what to wear. I have been to office in sportswear and no one seems to mind that. I don't think this point is necessarily true at least in tech.
We're living in 2019, Mohamed is living in 31089 apparently. How's the future? ;)
Except the author talked about making sure communication is succinct and the article has a lot of unnecessary fluff and indirectness.
This article could be really great with more polish.