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Subject:Shoddy Treatment From:"Tony G. Rocco" <cityfeller55 -at- gmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 25 Jan 2019 10:56:11 -0800
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.
