Saw a different post about a contactor holding a client to the terms of their contract over some pastries and that reminded me of my own little tale of holding a company over the fire.
A few years back, I found myself in the contracting space after being laid off after working for a well known Russian software company, and I was recruited by a bio-tech firm who was looking to revamp their helpdesk.
I was given a 1 year contract and set out to evaluate what they had and what they would need, and well, I found a nightmare, no ticket SLA, a fractured helpdesk and a “Sysadmin” with all certs, no experience who was blowing up AD every other day. At the end of my first 90 days, I submitted my finding and pretty much advised them to cut 75% of the current staff and replace them with people who could actually do the job.
The higher ups actually took my action plan to heart and began shedding and replacing the techs, as well as sending my “Paper Champion” packing as well. I picked up what little slack he left behind, and did interviews and replaced the staff with a good set of hardworking, though mostly newbie, techs.
That being said, the company had a very fractured security setup in regards to the doors, as they had leased a large office in the main complex, and then as they grew, leased 3 other smaller offices to put different departments in. Now these were all in the same building, but some of them were a good 10+ minute walk away, and for some reason, all 4 offices had different door software, and getting a single PAN card to work on 4 different systems required a convoluted spaghetti system of using different codes for different systems in order to get that seamless door action that they wanted. This setup wasn't super hard, but it was super exact, you had to use the correct SN, or portions of the SN depending on the system, and you would need to enable the doors in a particular order or for some reason, some doors would straight up refuse to unlock.
This was the most annoying part of the job, and when the team was ripped to the frame and then rebuilt, I was the only one they trusted to do it.
It's now midsummer, and I get an email saying 'COMPANYNAME's big summer outing is here! please reply letting us know how many tickets to “Awesome farm with rides and games in the area” you need! up to 8 per family! Now I've got a wife and 2 kids at home who absolutely love this place, so I immediately reply thanking them and asking for 2 adults and 2 children, that night, I tell the family and they get excited!
About midday the next day, HR Replies to let me know the “Good” news “I'm sorry Devilotx, this event is for employee's only, You and your family are not invited”
Like… I get it, Contractors are not employees, but my email is Contractor.devilotx@Companyname, and you sent it to me, to top it off, outside of the MSP techs, I am the ONLY contractor and I've been here a few months now, I know all of you on a first name basis, but ok, I'll break the news to my kids and we'll do something else that day.
Now 8 months into the contract, the entire IT team has been gutted, and rebuilt, with a small inhouse IT team to handle the management and (against my recommendation) a contracted MSP who would send 3-4 techs on site per day.
A few weeks go by, and I'm pulled into a meeting and I'm told that they love what has been done, the team is doing great, and the people I've recommended are not only doing the job right, but 10x faster then the absolute cabbages that were in those positions before, but since the work is winding down, they are going to end my contract early, 2 weeks from that day. I'm not surprised, they had been transparent that I was just there to fix things, I wouldn't be retained for the position, so I was happy to no longer need to make the commute. As I wrote up my paperwork and began to catalogue for the CIO I made to sure to let him know that while I had “documented” the door setup, it needed to be taught and tested, and someone would need to manage the whole thing.
That never happened, and 2 days into my final week, they panic, and give me on the contractors to teach, the tech did not care, he did not take notes, he was on his phone the whole time. I passed the info to the CIO and the next day.
The next day, the MSP who I trained on the doors, sits down with me to program his first keycard for the day, he doesn't ask any questions, and I have to correct him multiple times, but we get through the first card. I have to step away, and I ask him to not do anymore cards til I get back.
I take care of what I need, and I go to get back into the lab and… my badge doesn't work, Well, that was fun, guess I'm getting tossed out a few days early. I knock on the door to the lab and my guy lets me in, and he's looking pretty damn proud of himself, he tells me that he followed my notes and he's added the cards to 3 out of 4 systems, but the 4th is giving him trouble.
The fourth is the one that needs to be done 2nd, and this is 10000% why my card doesn't work, he's now blacklisted the entire door database.
He skipped steps, added cards out of order, adding incorrect information, did not backup the database before adding the cards, did not add the cards correctly, basically he couldn't have done more damage even if he had attempted to type the commands with his ass.
I get authorization for OT, and I set out to restore the 4 doors, luckily there was a backup from the day prior, so only about 16 door cards were lost, plus the 20 or so that were requested today.
The next day (Day before my last day), I come in early for a debrief, I explain the situation and the site manager tells me that he wants to extend my exit date by a couple of weeks, but I am already checked out of this place, I don't like the commute and I'm still smarting from the summer outing thing, so I tell him that I'm not interested in extending the contract as is, but I would be willing to amend it to stay on. I tell the site manager that I would require $15 more an hour, permission to take interviews on company time no more than twice a week with the caveat that the contract can run until either they no longer require my services, or I am hired in a full time capacity here or elsewhere.
I was told that there was no way they would do that, and I said “Well, tomorrow is my last day so, good luck”
On my last day, I was finishing my final tasks and the CIO came to say goodbye, and he commented that he knew they were trying to retain me for a bit longer, but that I had told them there was no way for me to stay.
I laughed and told him that wasn't true, reiterated my terms, and he asked if I was serious, I confirmed that I would require that in order to stay past today.
More meetings with HR, the CIO and a few other involved people and my terms were accepted, I returned to the office on Monday morning and was met with a very angry site manager who saw me going to the CIO as going over his head, I didn't care, but I did advise him that per the terms, I would be leaving at 1pm for an interview somewhere else.
Needless to say, I had that interview, landed that job and put in my 2 week notice that friday.
I spent the next week training the CIO how to configure the doors, and by the following Friday, I was gone.
I may not have been able to cash in big, but I got enough back for me.