Cluster-F (Or, Good Intentions Gone Wrong)
Well, that was a craptastic day.
For those of you who actually read this (I'm looking at you, Mom. Just kidding, my mom doesn't read this) I have spent the past couple of weeks working an IT contract. The contract wasn't anything special, just upgrading a company's IT assets (re: computers) to Windows 7 from WindowsXP. Yes, some companies are apparently still on XP.
The idea was simple: I was hired as a 1099 independent contractor by Company B, who has a contract with Company P to work on computers at Company C. My job was to arrive at the various site locations at 8:00am, perform the work as prescribed by the SOW (scope of work, for those of you who don't know what 'SOW' stands for) and then send an update on the progress at the end of each day.
However, we persevered, rolling with the punches and completing all the computers in two ten hour days instead of our allotted three.
The second site was somewhat prepared for us, but the employees became upset with us at their productivity downtime and then their office's network became overloaded with all the updates, they blamed us contractors again for their loss of productivity.
The third site again had mass confusion. While they were expecting us, our work orders had roughly 10 PCs to update, but only three were available for the procedure.
The fourth, the office manager was prepared for us, and verbally added an additional two PCs to our list. Again, we rolled with it, completing the work and the additional assets before COB (close of business for those of you who have never been in an office).
Ms. T called to tell us, Way to go, guys! Our feedback was extremely positive. She also informed us, via email, she would be out of the office the following week, Mrs. J would now be our POC for any issues that arise.
The fifth location was an hour drive away. Again, the work order did not match the conditions on site, but nothing preventing us from completing the work.
The sixth location is where we have problems.
Also an hour away, I arrive on site at the prescribed time, 8am. Neither the GM nor the office manager were expecting me. When I showed the office manager my work order, she could not identify 3 of the 5 computers to be updated to Windows 7.
I start with the first one of the two she did know about, the second needed to be backed-up of all documents and programs and the status bar indicated at least two hours for the copying of files to be completed.
As the software installed on the first PC, the office manager walks me around the building looking for any other computers that might need to the upgrade from XP to 7. In the end, she adds an additional four PCs to my workload, resulting in a total of 6 to be updated. Since I am restricted to updating two at a time, and the slow start with no one knowing which PCs needing updated, I am now rushed for time to complete 6 assets in 5 hours, each taking about 2 hours.
However, I push on, skip lunch, and continue to get as many of the computers updated as quickly as possible. In the end, there was only one I was unable to get to before COB. About two hours before the end of day, I informed the office manager I would not be able to complete all the computers in time and asked her to prioritize the remaining PCs in order she would like to get them finished.
The final, incomplete PC, was the one she determined the most inconsequential and since it was not on the original work order, I did not feel the need to stay later and start the re-image. Per the situation, I'd already completed more than was required, more than I had agreed to perform for that location.
Remember, I was subcontracting. Inventory analysis and control was not a part of my SOW.
The following day, Mrs. J called me and asked me why I did not complete the 6th and final computer. I informed her the WO had 5 PCs to be updated to Windows 7 and three of those five were not on site, however the office manager found three additional and I competed them on a one-for-one basis, considering that a fair assessment.
She also agreed and asked me to return to the site later in the week to finish the one asset. I told her I would not drive 60ish miles for a mere 2 hours of work at the same rate. A new service order required a new pay rate. Besides, at 120ish miles round trip, I would need nearly 9 gallons of gas. Those 9 gallons of gas would cost me about $24. The rate for the rest of the project was only $22/hr. When I was on-site for 8, 9 or 10 hours, $22 was good enough (buying in bulk as it were), but for one computer upgrade, $22/hr x 2 hours ($44) - $24 ($20), means I would essentially be working for $10/hour. Take into account the two hour drive time and we're talking about my time being worth only $5/hour. I gave her a flat rate that I felt comfortable with, enough to cover gas and compensate me for roughly four hours of time at a reasonable rate.
Mrs. J agreed to the price for this new call out and I drove down there to update the final PC. The office manager welcomed me back and directed me to the PC for update. I should note, I was not issued a new work order until I'd been on site for about 30 minutes. By this time I'd already formatted the HDD and was in the process of re-imaging the drive.
I noted the work order arrived via email from my phone, but did not open the PDF file since I couldn't print it out until after the computer's upgrade was completed.
Once the re-imaging was complete I logged into my GMail and printed the work order. It was only then I noticed the serial number for the PC I had just updated was not the same as the SN on the WO. I immediately called Mrs. M and informed her of this discrepancy. She asked me if I could stay and complete the other computer. I told her I needed to call Company B to confirm this was okay. When in fact, I needed to confirm or re-negotiate an additional fee for the additional time on site. Remember, I originally negotiated based on one computer at two hours of work.
I was unable to make contact with Mrs. J, leaving a voicemail message describing the predicament. Roughly 10 minutes later I call her again. This was enough time for her to check her VM and call me back, and considering the urgency of the situation, I needed a confirmation sooner rather than later. I was still unable to reach her and left her another voicemail.
Mrs. M called me back and asked me for a status update. I informed her I was still waiting to hear back from Company B. I also informed her the one remaining PC on site did not have an end-user (who was out of the office) and I could not complete one of the steps without the EU to log in and confirm their account could reach the Exchange Server.
I waited for a another 10 minutes or so then called Mrs. J again. Nothing. So, now it's been nearly 30 minutes since my first call into her and I had yet to make contact. The outgoing voicemail for Mrs. J states, "If you need immediate assistance, please contact my boss, JB, at xxx-xxx-xxxx." The next time I call, I write the number down and call it instead. No answer. I leave a voicemail. About 10 minutes later I call Mrs. J again and again no one answers. Again I leave a message. I then call JB again with the same results, no answer, no return call.
At the end of JB's outgoing VM message is a disclaimer, "If you need immediate assistance, please call my supervisor, JB2, xxx-xxx-xxxx. So, I call JB2. Also no answer and I leave a voicemail.
Mrs. M calls me back and informs me that she cannot reach the computer's end-user either and to go ahead a leave the site.
Not wanting to leave the office manager in a bind, I call Mrs. J one more time. I leave a message, "This is Jason again. I really need an immediate call-back to discuss the situation. If I don't hear back from someone at your company in the next 15 minutes, I am leaving the site."
I called, JB and JB2 with the same message.
I will admit, my voice was a little frustrated when I left these messages. I was now about 40 minutes beyond the two-hour window I was being compensated for, and for each minute I was there, I was losing money based on the flat-rate, not an hourly compensation.
During this time, I logged back into the computer I'd updated using the administrator account and, logged back into GMail sending an email to Ms. T and Mrs J, the only two for whom I had an email address. My email stated the situation and the frustration at not being able to reach anyone at Company B.
I decide to leave after giving Mrs. J, Mr. JB and Mr. JB2 one more call, leaving them another voicemail letting them know I haven't heard from anyone and that would be leaving the site, an hour later than planned and an hour later than I was being compensated.
That means I gave them an hour of my time for free. Remember, I am a 1099 contractor and not responsible for behind-the-scenes confusion and logistics.
The office manager signs the paperwork agreeing to the fact that I updated one computer, as required by my contract, and that I was on site for a little over two hours. I did not add the additional hour I tried contacting Company B to the paperwork. She then informs me the final computer to be upgraded did not belong to her inventory, but instead belonged to another division and another manager's inventory. That's why she was unconcerned with getting that computer upgraded to Seven.
I leave.
This also put the rest of my day more than an hour behind schedule.
As I pull out of the parking lot I receive an email from Mrs. J stating she was on a conference all this time and couldn't just leave the call because I had an issue. For an hour. She offered to change the rate from flat-fee to hourly, if I needed to stay longer. And I might have, had I not already left the site and had I not had other plans for the afternoon. Remember, this was not originally part of the project and I had other plans for the day, plans which I had to move around as a result of this return to site and additional hour.
On my drive back I receive a call from Ms. T. Ms T, who was out of the office for the week, but apparently able to check emails and call me when Mrs. J, Mr. JB and Mr. JB2 were not able to contact me.
She asked me what happened. I explained to her the situation upon leaving the site with one computer remaining, the terms of returning to the site to complete that one computer's upgrade, and the ensuing Cluster-F that happened due to Company C's office manager wanting one computer upgraded, Company P's work order for an entirely different computer to be re-imaged, and Company B not responding to any calls for over a hour. I informed her how I had to tell Mrs. M that I could not continue working on site until I verified with Company B the change in circumstances.
Somehow that explanation was turned into me telling Mrs. M (Company B's customer) that I would not work until I changed my pay rate. I was very careful not to make any statements to that affect. My relationship was with Company B and neither Company P nor Company C should be privy to that information, just as Company C and Company P's relationship or Company P and Company B's relationship was no concern of mine.
On top of that, suddenly JB is replying to my email that I behaved in an unprofessional manner by my leaving the on-site location. His email signature has his title as Vice-President. If you've ever met me, you know, titles don't scare me. I've held the title of Vice-President before -- anyone can do it if they're so inclined. So now, after "atta boys" and nothing but positive feedback from Company's C, B and P, I am a pariah due to a paperwork miscommunication between Company C and Company P as well as Company B not returning my calls.
Could I have completed the work at my own expense? Absolutely and Ms. T asked me why I didn't just do that instead of leaving the location. For three reasons, I told her: one, Mrs. M already excused me, the POC for the site was satisfied and three, I am an independent contractor who completed his obligation per the agreement between Company B and myself. The relationship between Company B and P, or P and C were not my concern.
That means (and Company B made it very clear) I am not a company employee and do not retain any rights or privileges as a full time employee. My role was explicit: upgrade one computer at Company C's location. It just so happens, the one computer Company P wanted updated was the one computer the on-site point-of-contact for Company C didn't care about. And I didn't discover this until after the other PC was completed. Everyone seems to be looking for someone to blame and I seem to be that someone.
For those of you who actually read this (I'm looking at you, Mom. Just kidding, my mom doesn't read this) I have spent the past couple of weeks working an IT contract. The contract wasn't anything special, just upgrading a company's IT assets (re: computers) to Windows 7 from WindowsXP. Yes, some companies are apparently still on XP.
The idea was simple: I was hired as a 1099 independent contractor by Company B, who has a contract with Company P to work on computers at Company C. My job was to arrive at the various site locations at 8:00am, perform the work as prescribed by the SOW (scope of work, for those of you who don't know what 'SOW' stands for) and then send an update on the progress at the end of each day.
My Company B point of contact was Ms. T, her boss, Mrs. J.From the first day there were problems. At the first site (of 7 locations) the asset list for the update procedure went from 23 to 13 computers, only 4 or 5 of them were on the original list. The others were all verbal adds to the existing work order. Not only that, but many of the computers were laptops or Microsoft Windows tablets and were not on site, requiring us to wait for the employees to arrive with their computers.
My Company P point of contact was Mrs. M.
My Company C point of contact was the office or general manager on-site.
However, we persevered, rolling with the punches and completing all the computers in two ten hour days instead of our allotted three.
The second site was somewhat prepared for us, but the employees became upset with us at their productivity downtime and then their office's network became overloaded with all the updates, they blamed us contractors again for their loss of productivity.
The fourth, the office manager was prepared for us, and verbally added an additional two PCs to our list. Again, we rolled with it, completing the work and the additional assets before COB (close of business for those of you who have never been in an office).
Ms. T called to tell us, Way to go, guys! Our feedback was extremely positive. She also informed us, via email, she would be out of the office the following week, Mrs. J would now be our POC for any issues that arise.
The fifth location was an hour drive away. Again, the work order did not match the conditions on site, but nothing preventing us from completing the work.
The sixth location is where we have problems.
Also an hour away, I arrive on site at the prescribed time, 8am. Neither the GM nor the office manager were expecting me. When I showed the office manager my work order, she could not identify 3 of the 5 computers to be updated to Windows 7.
I start with the first one of the two she did know about, the second needed to be backed-up of all documents and programs and the status bar indicated at least two hours for the copying of files to be completed.
As the software installed on the first PC, the office manager walks me around the building looking for any other computers that might need to the upgrade from XP to 7. In the end, she adds an additional four PCs to my workload, resulting in a total of 6 to be updated. Since I am restricted to updating two at a time, and the slow start with no one knowing which PCs needing updated, I am now rushed for time to complete 6 assets in 5 hours, each taking about 2 hours.
However, I push on, skip lunch, and continue to get as many of the computers updated as quickly as possible. In the end, there was only one I was unable to get to before COB. About two hours before the end of day, I informed the office manager I would not be able to complete all the computers in time and asked her to prioritize the remaining PCs in order she would like to get them finished.
The final, incomplete PC, was the one she determined the most inconsequential and since it was not on the original work order, I did not feel the need to stay later and start the re-image. Per the situation, I'd already completed more than was required, more than I had agreed to perform for that location.
Remember, I was subcontracting. Inventory analysis and control was not a part of my SOW.
The following day, Mrs. J called me and asked me why I did not complete the 6th and final computer. I informed her the WO had 5 PCs to be updated to Windows 7 and three of those five were not on site, however the office manager found three additional and I competed them on a one-for-one basis, considering that a fair assessment.
She also agreed and asked me to return to the site later in the week to finish the one asset. I told her I would not drive 60ish miles for a mere 2 hours of work at the same rate. A new service order required a new pay rate. Besides, at 120ish miles round trip, I would need nearly 9 gallons of gas. Those 9 gallons of gas would cost me about $24. The rate for the rest of the project was only $22/hr. When I was on-site for 8, 9 or 10 hours, $22 was good enough (buying in bulk as it were), but for one computer upgrade, $22/hr x 2 hours ($44) - $24 ($20), means I would essentially be working for $10/hour. Take into account the two hour drive time and we're talking about my time being worth only $5/hour. I gave her a flat rate that I felt comfortable with, enough to cover gas and compensate me for roughly four hours of time at a reasonable rate.
Mrs. J agreed to the price for this new call out and I drove down there to update the final PC. The office manager welcomed me back and directed me to the PC for update. I should note, I was not issued a new work order until I'd been on site for about 30 minutes. By this time I'd already formatted the HDD and was in the process of re-imaging the drive.
I noted the work order arrived via email from my phone, but did not open the PDF file since I couldn't print it out until after the computer's upgrade was completed.
Once the re-imaging was complete I logged into my GMail and printed the work order. It was only then I noticed the serial number for the PC I had just updated was not the same as the SN on the WO. I immediately called Mrs. M and informed her of this discrepancy. She asked me if I could stay and complete the other computer. I told her I needed to call Company B to confirm this was okay. When in fact, I needed to confirm or re-negotiate an additional fee for the additional time on site. Remember, I originally negotiated based on one computer at two hours of work.
I was unable to make contact with Mrs. J, leaving a voicemail message describing the predicament. Roughly 10 minutes later I call her again. This was enough time for her to check her VM and call me back, and considering the urgency of the situation, I needed a confirmation sooner rather than later. I was still unable to reach her and left her another voicemail.
Mrs. M called me back and asked me for a status update. I informed her I was still waiting to hear back from Company B. I also informed her the one remaining PC on site did not have an end-user (who was out of the office) and I could not complete one of the steps without the EU to log in and confirm their account could reach the Exchange Server.
At the end of JB's outgoing VM message is a disclaimer, "If you need immediate assistance, please call my supervisor, JB2, xxx-xxx-xxxx. So, I call JB2. Also no answer and I leave a voicemail.
Mrs. M calls me back and informs me that she cannot reach the computer's end-user either and to go ahead a leave the site.
Not wanting to leave the office manager in a bind, I call Mrs. J one more time. I leave a message, "This is Jason again. I really need an immediate call-back to discuss the situation. If I don't hear back from someone at your company in the next 15 minutes, I am leaving the site."
I called, JB and JB2 with the same message.
I will admit, my voice was a little frustrated when I left these messages. I was now about 40 minutes beyond the two-hour window I was being compensated for, and for each minute I was there, I was losing money based on the flat-rate, not an hourly compensation.
During this time, I logged back into the computer I'd updated using the administrator account and, logged back into GMail sending an email to Ms. T and Mrs J, the only two for whom I had an email address. My email stated the situation and the frustration at not being able to reach anyone at Company B.
I decide to leave after giving Mrs. J, Mr. JB and Mr. JB2 one more call, leaving them another voicemail letting them know I haven't heard from anyone and that would be leaving the site, an hour later than planned and an hour later than I was being compensated.
That means I gave them an hour of my time for free. Remember, I am a 1099 contractor and not responsible for behind-the-scenes confusion and logistics.
The office manager signs the paperwork agreeing to the fact that I updated one computer, as required by my contract, and that I was on site for a little over two hours. I did not add the additional hour I tried contacting Company B to the paperwork. She then informs me the final computer to be upgraded did not belong to her inventory, but instead belonged to another division and another manager's inventory. That's why she was unconcerned with getting that computer upgraded to Seven.
I leave.
This also put the rest of my day more than an hour behind schedule.
As I pull out of the parking lot I receive an email from Mrs. J stating she was on a conference all this time and couldn't just leave the call because I had an issue. For an hour. She offered to change the rate from flat-fee to hourly, if I needed to stay longer. And I might have, had I not already left the site and had I not had other plans for the afternoon. Remember, this was not originally part of the project and I had other plans for the day, plans which I had to move around as a result of this return to site and additional hour.
On my drive back I receive a call from Ms. T. Ms T, who was out of the office for the week, but apparently able to check emails and call me when Mrs. J, Mr. JB and Mr. JB2 were not able to contact me.
She asked me what happened. I explained to her the situation upon leaving the site with one computer remaining, the terms of returning to the site to complete that one computer's upgrade, and the ensuing Cluster-F that happened due to Company C's office manager wanting one computer upgraded, Company P's work order for an entirely different computer to be re-imaged, and Company B not responding to any calls for over a hour. I informed her how I had to tell Mrs. M that I could not continue working on site until I verified with Company B the change in circumstances.
Somehow that explanation was turned into me telling Mrs. M (Company B's customer) that I would not work until I changed my pay rate. I was very careful not to make any statements to that affect. My relationship was with Company B and neither Company P nor Company C should be privy to that information, just as Company C and Company P's relationship or Company P and Company B's relationship was no concern of mine.
On top of that, suddenly JB is replying to my email that I behaved in an unprofessional manner by my leaving the on-site location. His email signature has his title as Vice-President. If you've ever met me, you know, titles don't scare me. I've held the title of Vice-President before -- anyone can do it if they're so inclined. So now, after "atta boys" and nothing but positive feedback from Company's C, B and P, I am a pariah due to a paperwork miscommunication between Company C and Company P as well as Company B not returning my calls.
Could I have completed the work at my own expense? Absolutely and Ms. T asked me why I didn't just do that instead of leaving the location. For three reasons, I told her: one, Mrs. M already excused me, the POC for the site was satisfied and three, I am an independent contractor who completed his obligation per the agreement between Company B and myself. The relationship between Company B and P, or P and C were not my concern.
That means (and Company B made it very clear) I am not a company employee and do not retain any rights or privileges as a full time employee. My role was explicit: upgrade one computer at Company C's location. It just so happens, the one computer Company P wanted updated was the one computer the on-site point-of-contact for Company C didn't care about. And I didn't discover this until after the other PC was completed. Everyone seems to be looking for someone to blame and I seem to be that someone.
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