A lot of contractors (good ones) know how to play the game. You can get away with a lot when the companies vertically integrated sales app that only they can fix goes belly up. Saw this before where an easily replaceable manager goes up against a long time contractor (ya know, with a contract) and leadership gets to decide how to resolve the situation…
I’ve been in similar situations. It boils down to “You hired contractors to do this work because you don’t have the skills internally.” I cancelled a customer’s quarterly release because they didn’t hand over their requirements doc by the due date (after 2 months of prodding). The customer got really nasty with me. Got a call from my own VP after a few hours. He started to chew me out for not “working with them”. I showed him the dozens of emails and several meetings I had with them being clear about their responsibilities and timelines. He just said “Oh… I’ll talk to them.” The call with the customer’s PM the next day was hilarious. After he had chewed me out in front of 100+ of his people, he had to fall on his sword and take responsibility for messing up their release since it was his responsibility to manage their requirements and get them to me.
I know nobody cares, but it feels good to get that story out!
Oh, that doesn’t matter. This screenshot of a chat posted to a social media platform is probably fake as well. It’s still fun to read and talk about it.
Depending on the work and the contract, it may be the company burning a bridge. Specialized labour can be both difficult and expensive to find.
A lot of contractors (good ones) know how to play the game. You can get away with a lot when the companies vertically integrated sales app that only they can fix goes belly up. Saw this before where an easily replaceable manager goes up against a long time contractor (ya know, with a contract) and leadership gets to decide how to resolve the situation…
I’ve been in similar situations. It boils down to “You hired contractors to do this work because you don’t have the skills internally.” I cancelled a customer’s quarterly release because they didn’t hand over their requirements doc by the due date (after 2 months of prodding). The customer got really nasty with me. Got a call from my own VP after a few hours. He started to chew me out for not “working with them”. I showed him the dozens of emails and several meetings I had with them being clear about their responsibilities and timelines. He just said “Oh… I’ll talk to them.” The call with the customer’s PM the next day was hilarious. After he had chewed me out in front of 100+ of his people, he had to fall on his sword and take responsibility for messing up their release since it was his responsibility to manage their requirements and get them to me.
I know nobody cares, but it feels good to get that story out!
Good reminder to CYA.
Good read, I care
I care. I like it. 😁
Nah, everyone here says experiences like yours are “fake”. The good ol’ Reddit cynicism.
Heh, people seem nice here, but I still have that PTSD from interacting on Reddit.
There was a story posted on Reddit about 2 years ago, long as fuck but worth the read, about why you don’t piss off specialized contractors.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/nrnf5j/part_1_of_2_an_absolute_epic_entitled_ahole_gets/
It doesn’t have a happy ending, but not for reasons you’d think.
I remember that one. It was a fantastic read…but IIRC it turned out to be fake.
Oh, that doesn’t matter. This screenshot of a chat posted to a social media platform is probably fake as well. It’s still fun to read and talk about it.
For sure.