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Do you work? ... In work?

ryo.jodeci

Hi All,
I've gone re-reg for this because I know that some of my colleagues know my true username here and I'd rather not share this dilemma with them.

Do you work in work? Because I don't. There is literally nothing for me to do.

I work in IT for a global company. I was hired to code in Python/SQL as part of my job.

I've been in my place for 2 years, and out of those two years, there has been a couple of hectic days where I earned my money. Aside from this, I literally sit on BBC, RTE, Udemy, and stack exchange all day. I sit beside my manager, who is on her phone all day (facebook mostly, or some other social media sites)

At the beginning of my career, I spent about 4 years working in an international bank, and god did they work us. I worked some nights until 4/5am. Everyday was crazy, nothing was good enough. Strangely I think I enjoyed it.

Eventually, because of the lack of money through internal promotions, there were people on the level below me earning more money, so I left.

I went to a similar company (my previous company) for 2 years, and that's when this "problem" started to present itself. There was nothing to do there. The managers kept talking about how stressed they were, but none of the 15 resources under them were doing anything. Actually none of the managers were doing anything, except talking about how busy it was.

I moved again. That was 2 years ago. And here I am, logging in at 9am, sitting in the chair all day, and then going home at 5pm.

Should I stay? The only thing that's keeping me there is the day rate of 625 euros. But I'm losing my coding skills. I'm losing my mind. Is this normal nowadays in IT?

The thing is the manager keeps renewing all of our contracts because she doesn't want to lose knowledge in case something comes along, and it's not out of her pocket, so she doesn't care. Also, I should note that as a contractor, there's no internal projects/societies or things for us to do. They actively keep us out of those.

I know it sounds lovely on the outside because the money and the lack of work. But it's been so long. I'm worried, say for example, they don't renew my contract someday, and not only will I have lost my skills, but I'll have lost the ability to put in a hard day's work.

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ryo.jodeci

I have heard of some guys with PHDs and over 15 years of experience on 1200 a day. But it is for very specific AI stuff in Financial Services (like the Citi's and the Goldman Sachs) and for a way shorter timeframe. They aren't allowed to hang about, I know that much.

evolving_doors

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

How do you get onto this coding malarkey?

https://santatracker.google.com/codelab.html

Don't mention it..

rd1izb7lvpuksx

ryo.jodeci wrote: »

I have heard of some guys with PHDs and over 15 years of experience on 1200 a day. But it is for very specific AI stuff in Financial Services (like the Citi's and the Goldman Sachs) and for a way shorter timeframe. They aren't allowed to hang about, I know that much.

Specialists working on short timeframe are usually consultants rather than contractors, and can reach €5,000 per day for certain niches. That said, consultants tend to sell a lower percentage of their time, and spend more time on bizdev, so the rates aren't directly comparable.

khaldrogo

ryo.jodeci wrote:

Correct. Sounds great (until of course the contract isn't renewed, and you're turfed out to the job market with 15 other coders at the same time).

But surely I you are gross 12000 a month you could put some aside for such an event???

seannash

ryo.jodeci wrote: »

Not bitching, and I'm sorry if the text came across like that. I wouldn't have spent two years there if it was something to bitch about. This is purely advice seeking only. I haven't brought in a laptop yet because nobody else has and it would raise serious alarm bells with senior mgmt if they saw someone sitting with a laptop when no one else on the open floor plan has one. As boring as the day can be, it's better than have that conversation with a senior.

I understand you don't want to bring in your own laptop but surely if you did and were seen you could say your working on something on your lunch or even working on a task that might benefit the company but you need access to X y and z.

ryo.jodeci

khaldrogo wrote: »

But surely I you are gross 12000 a month you could put some aside for such an event???

Yes, only the newbies live as if they're actually worth 150k a year. Which is madness.

Aside from the in-between-jobs bit, the fact is that there will be a downturn in the economy at some time and companies will be firing, not hiring, and contractors will go first. It's during that time that the finances balance out between the contractors and the permys. The responsible contractors should have arranged their finances to (hopefully) make it through that time.

rd1izb7lvpuksx

khaldrogo wrote: »

But surely I you are gross 12000 a month you could put some aside for such an event???

You have to as a contractor, but I find that people always underestimate the advantages of being a permanent employee in Ireland. As a self employed contractor, you have fewer tax credits, a lesser safety net, no paid holidays, health insurance, pension contributions, stock options, et cetera.

As mentioned by someone else in this thread, not every worker gets these benefits, but skilled professional developers do, and as a contractor, you are always going to be comparing your pay and conditions against those that you'd earn in a permanent role.

Being a contractor at €625pd, or €13,750pm, is not equivalent to a permanent position at €165,000pa, either is net terms or quality of life. The rule of thumb is to charge 50% more when contracting, so it's roughly equivalent to a salaried role at €110,000pa. Obviously that's a good wage, but it's very attainable in software development and won't have you living the high life in Dublin.

Subcomandante Marcos

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Sorry but what do you mean by the day rate of €625?

He means he earns about 150-160k a year.

ryo.jodeci

seannash wrote: »

I understand you don't want to bring in your own laptop but surely if you did and were seen you could say your working on something on your lunch or even working on a task that might benefit the company but you need access to X y and z.

Maybe.. 100% during lunch it would be fine. Aside from that, I've just never done it so it doesn't sit right with me! I think for the couple of days the boss is working from home it would be ok.

I think the decision I was more trying to tease out was whether to look outside the door and see if there's other opportunities out there. I think I have decided that now, and if things don't finally arrive from this pipeline they keep talking about, then I will make a move in April. I think if it was a permanent role and great money, it could be different. But the fact is, at some point we will be let go eventually and I wouldn't feel sharp or confident on the job market. That would mean that I might have to work in a job I hate because I wasn't sharp enough to get the interesting roles.

ryo.jodeci

Griffin Large Jackal wrote: »

You have to as a contractor, but I find that people always underestimate the advantages of being a permanent employee in Ireland. As a self employed contractor, you have fewer tax credits, a lesser safety net, no paid holidays, health insurance, pension contributions, stock options, et cetera.

As mentioned by someone else in this thread, not every worker gets these benefits, but skilled professional developers do, and as a contractor, you are always going to be comparing your pay and conditions against those that you'd earn in a permanent role.

Being a contractor at €625pd, or €13,750pm, is not equivalent to a permanent position at €165,000pa, either is net terms or quality of life. The rule of thumb is to charge 50% more when contracting, so it's roughly equivalent to a salaried role at €110,000pa. Obviously that's a good wage, but it's very attainable in software development and won't have you living the high life in Dublin.

100% agree. For example, when family life comes along, depending on the shape of the business account, I could see myself taking that 50% cut and going permanent. Small things like mortgages/healthcare/benefits like working from home the odd day are all permanent staff features. I'd hate to go back to appraisals and goal setting though:pac:

[Deleted User]

If I could get €12 per hour doing a job that required me to simply show up, I'd be there for the rest of my life.

Teyla Emmagan

I worked with a guy who was on 1600 a day once. Into his own pocket, not via an agency or consultancy. He was worth every penny of it. IT Delivery manager.

Everyone in my department is a daily rate contractor. We're busy enough now but about 6 months there was about 20 of us sitting around ever day doing nothing. Like having 2 hours of work to do a day. So maybe 10k a day being spent just keeping bums in seats waiting for the next project to come along. It is definitely not unusual in big companies. But it is horrific when you are the one with nothing to do all day. I used to read my kindle via my browser, godsend.

_Brian

ryo.jodeci wrote: »

Hi All,
I've gone re-reg for this because I know that some of my colleagues know my true username here and I'd rather not share this dilemma with them.

Do you work in work? Because I don't. There is literally nothing for me to do.

I work in IT for a global company. I was hired to code in Python/SQL as part of my job.

I've been in my place for 2 years, and out of those two years, there has been a couple of hectic days where I earned my money. Aside from this, I literally sit on BBC, RTE, Udemy, and stack exchange all day. I sit beside my manager, who is on her phone all day (facebook mostly, or some other social media sites)

At the beginning of my career, I spent about 4 years working in an international bank, and god did they work us. I worked some nights until 4/5am. Everyday was crazy, nothing was good enough. Strangely I think I enjoyed it.

Eventually, because of the lack of money through internal promotions, there were people on the level below me earning more money, so I left.

I went to a similar company (my previous company) for 2 years, and that's when this "problem" started to present itself. There was nothing to do there. The managers kept talking about how stressed they were, but none of the 15 resources under them were doing anything. Actually none of the managers were doing anything, except talking about how busy it was.

I moved again. That was 2 years ago. And here I am, logging in at 9am, sitting in the chair all day, and then going home at 5pm.

Should I stay? The only thing that's keeping me there is the day rate of 625 euros. But I'm losing my coding skills. I'm losing my mind. Is this normal nowadays in IT?

The thing is the manager keeps renewing all of our contracts because she doesn't want to lose knowledge in case something comes along, and it's not out of her pocket, so she doesn't care. Also, I should note that as a contractor, there's no internal projects/societies or things for us to do. They actively keep us out of those.

I know it sounds lovely on the outside because the money and the lack of work. But it's been so long. I'm worried, say for example, they don't renew my contract someday, and not only will I have lost my skills, but I'll have lost the ability to put in a hard day's work.

With such free time and access to the web why not go on some of the contract sites and do some side work ??
You’ll earn a wee bit more, keep your skills, be able to choose what you get involved in AND still be at your desk shoukd am emergency come up at work that needs you to step in.

I don’t do a job near to the level of my abilities, it pays a decent wage, I get to work from home and set my own appointments, and my boss is a really decent bloke, yet we have only spoken for maybe 5 minutes in the last three weeks and even that was mostly abkut Christmas shopping. .

Few times I’ve been offered better positions with better money, some much better money, but I really don’t want back into the rat race.

tedpan

Oasis1974 wrote:

Python language coding is very advanced and most sought after for big pay checks.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, I've done some python courses and found it's one of the simplest and easiest to use platforms?

Berserker

You are in a very tricky position OP. I'd try my best to learn something new and keep up to speed with SQL/Python during your working hours but you need to thread carefully. Some people might take exception to you doing that.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Surely somebody in that company would question the contracting cost. Pretty good money I must say.

People notice but they probably don't want to be the person to pull the plug on it in case something goes wrong and they get blame when the knowledge to fix the issue has gone elsewhere at their request.

runawaybishop wrote: »

Not to be the bearer of bad new but if you are a contractor after 2 years you need to be made permanent so if the 2 years isn't up I would be be expecting them to not renew. If the two years is up you should be permanent though.

I know a number of RPG programmers who've been daily rate contractors at the same company for 20 years. It's impossible to find people who have knowledge in that area, so they keep renewing their contracts. I know .Net developers who've worked as daily rate contractors for the same company for upwards of three years. Are you sure about this?

Berserker

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Wow €625 a day, different world.

With absolutely no benefits and security? I worked on a project a few years back where we hired six .Net daily rate contractors on six month rolling contractors. One month into the project, the CEO of the company resigned. All of those contractors were let go that same day. Back to the market for those lads. It was the middle of the summer, July iirc. Not exactly the best time of year to be job hunting.

s7ryf3925pivug

You could use hackerrank. Just small scale problem solving, but fun.

rd1izb7lvpuksx

Berserker wrote: »

I know a number of RPG programmers who've been daily rate contractors at the same company for 20 years. It's impossible to find people who have knowledge in that area, so they keep renewing their contracts. I know .Net developers who've worked as daily rate contractors for the same company for upwards of three years. Are you sure about this?

The very longest a fixed-term contractor can work without being made permanent is 4 years or 2 fixed-terms, whichever is shortest. Contractor on short-term contracts are permanent after two years, irrespective of their contracts.

unit 1

Wandered into this for a while as I thought it was about council workers, then I saw the bit about the money:eek:

ryo.jodeci

tedpan wrote: »

Correct me if I'm mistaken, I've done some python courses and found it's one of the simplest and easiest to use platforms?

That's correct, in comparison to other platforms or languages it's great. But when you're getting into complex neural networks, it requires more than just knowing the basics of code. Still though, the reason behind pythons success is its usability and great number of easy to use libraries.

ryo.jodeci

Berserker wrote: »

With absolutely no benefits and security? I worked on a project a few years back where we hired six .Net daily rate contractors on six month rolling contractors. One month into the project, the CEO of the company resigned. All of those contractors were let go that same day. Back to the market for those lads. It was the middle of the summer, July iirc. Not exactly the best time of year to be job hunting.

No benefits, no security. If they don't like the coat you wear or team you support they can get rid of you. But at the minute there's high demand for us so that gives a bit of security. Like I said, you open a business account, have the gross going in there, and draw down a modest salary every month. The rest in the business account is pension, healthcare, and security for when you lose the job (so that you can keep paying yourself the modest salary). There's a couple of tax breaks in there that you can learn as well, but the Irish system is pretty watertight.. as it should be in my opinion.

nim1bdeh38l2cw

Griffin Large Jackal wrote: »

The very longest a fixed-term contractor can work without being made permanent is 4 years or 2 fixed-terms, whichever is shortest. Contractor on short-term contracts are permanent after two years, irrespective of their contracts.

That's nice, but completely irrelevant as we're not talking about fixed term contractors here. We are discussing proper contractors.

ryo.jodeci

Aadhya Teeny Window wrote: »

You could use hackerrank. Just small scale problem solving, but fun.

Thanks for that, I'll check it out. Not sure if I can access it on my work pc, would be great if I could.

Stheno

Griffin Large Jackal wrote: »

The very longest a fixed-term contractor can work without being made permanent is 4 years or 2 fixed-terms, whichever is shortest. Contractor on short-term contracts are permanent after two years, irrespective of their contracts.

Op is essentially a self employed person the above doesn't apply

Berserker

Griffin Large Jackal wrote: »

The very longest a fixed-term contractor can work without being made permanent is 4 years or 2 fixed-terms, whichever is shortest. Contractor on short-term contracts are permanent after two years, irrespective of their contracts.

We are not talking about fixed term contractors. OP and the people I posted about are self employed, daily rate contractors.

runawaybishop

Berserker wrote: »

I know a number of RPG programmers who've been daily rate contractors at the same company for 20 years. It's impossible to find people who have knowledge in that area, so they keep renewing their contracts. I know .Net developers who've worked as daily rate contractors for the same company for upwards of three years. Are you sure about this?

It doesn't apply if the op is self employed, only if you are in a fixed term contract, which isn't the case here as the op clarified. The type of contract is important and I know a few lads who were on fixed terms and not made permanent who were able to get contracts of indefinite duration.

zephyro

ryo.jodeci wrote: »

I would love to get further into python and machine learning, building complex artificial intelligence tools (neural networks etc) but the problem is being able to access data in work. I was thinking about bringing in my laptop, but I think my manager would say that a step too far. It would be taking the mick in fairness. No, not a wind up, promise you that.

Yes as a fellow Python/SQL contractor, this is the future OP. As a self-employed contractor, they can't legally require you to come into the office, so just do what I did and tell them you won't be coming in unless there's work that you need to do there, and get started maybe on Kaggle at home!

ryo.jodeci

zephyro wrote: »

Yes as a fellow Python/SQL contractor, this is the future OP. As a self-employed contractor, they can't legally require you to come into the office, so just do what I did and tell them you won't be coming in unless there's work that you need to do there, and get started maybe on Kaggle at home!

Won't get paid though if I don't turn up! Doesn't matter if I'm sick, or in an accident, or working on Kaggle! No show, no payment.

[Deleted User]

zephyro wrote: »

As a self-employed contractor, they can't legally require you to come into the office,

Where did you get that from?

zephyro

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Where did you get that from?

From Revenue (backed up by several employment law cases). If OP is told when and where he has to work, legally speaking he's highly likely to be a fixed-term employee, not a self-employed contractor, regardless of what his contract says or how he is classified by the employer (employment law takes precedence over both).

ryo.jodeci wrote: »

Won't get paid though if I don't turn up! Doesn't matter if I'm sick, or in an accident, or working on Kaggle! No show, no payment.

They can't legally withhold payment from you on this basis if they're classifying you as a contractor. If they did, you'd have an easy case against them via both the Department of Employment Affairs and the WRC. However it'd obviously be better if you pointed this out to them first so you get what you want (i.e. work from home unless you need to be in the office) rather than going through the legal process.