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Subject:Re: FWD: Contracting where you used to work From:"Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 26 Sep 2001 06:48:42 -0600 (MDT)
On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Mark L. Levinson wrote:
> The biggest difference was that as an employee I'd been in the
> middle of a long and bitter tangle during which my boss had
> been relaying messages that hq "can't print the manuals from
> PDF files, they want Microsoft Word files" and I kept saying
> "nonsense, all they want is the chance to screw around with
> the content," but as a freelancer I no longer felt the
> obligation to save the company from itself by arguing about
> the format of the deliverables.
Mark hit the nail on the head here--that's one of the
best (or worst, depending on which side of the fence
you're on) angles of switching from employee to contractor
in the same position. When I did it, I _loathed_ my
full time job because the company was really messed
up in many ways. At the time, I felt the obligation
to try to fix stuff that couldn't have been fixed
by anything in the world. With the change to contractor,
I was able to be purely mercenary about it, do my
job as paid and assigned, and let the company eat
itself from the inside. It was liberating. I liked
working there as a contractor, 'cause I could (and
did) just walk away from the stupidity.
(The company is still around, much larger, and
with an abysmal reputation as a place to work.)
Eric
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Eric J. Ray ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com
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