… my OH is going back to work next week, in his old job as a contractor for 12 months. He should have gone back in August but the agency it was put out to messed up the negotiations, then they said they could only give him a 2 month contract as that’s all this client ever offers, yet his ex employers told them back in June 12 months minimum as he’s worked on the project for 10 years and needs no training.
I’m on a course learning about CBT techniques at the moment and looking forward to not having him under my feet, shouldn’t say this but it’s becoming a drag with him at home now and I just want peace to get on with the reading I have to do for this course between attending the sessions. I’m trying to get on quietly with study and he keeps wanting to me to help do stuff like clearing out cupboards
Today he’s decided to move the livingroom furniture round
I’m ecstatic today, it’s also the thought of no more snooker on TV during the day, it’s like watching paint dry and the commentators just drone on like a bunch of irritating old farts
Get the OH some headphones. The sennheiser stethoscope type ones work very well. And he gets his own volume and balance settings so when you both watch tv at same time you both can be happy.
He cycles but at the moment he’s not able to go for long walks with varying gradients as he has a torn meniscus at the back of his knee. He’s having a combo of physio and medical gym work for this.
He hasn’t been swimming in about 20 years. At the moment he’s taking the advice of his physio and a knee specialist he’s been to see. They’re trying to avoid him needing an op as it’s often not a great success for this condition.
Well the agency have messed up again and rang him yesterday to say the process for him restarting hasn’t been completed despite the fact he signed his contract on Thursday. He tore them off a strip and asked them if they knew how incompetent they are (agency is in India). One guy he was dealing with insisted he was based out of London, we found out it’s Delhi.
His old boss went mad when he told him and started chasing things up, of the 2 people within his company who are handling things here one has gone on holiday until 3rd week of November and her deputy resigned and left on Monday.
This has been going back and forth for 3 months now and has gone beyond farce. It was supposed to be handled in house but somebody overruled that (we think the person who told him he had to retire) and the company put it out to agency. Another division of the company are getting rid of this agency as their head has decided they are totally useless.
I think if it’s not sorted out by the end of next week he’ll walk away from it as 3 months of negotiating has been ridiculous. The agency keep coming back with the same questions all the time and he keeps telling them he’s already given them the info. What hasn’t helped is the agency subbed out bits of the contract process to 2 other companies, one dragged their heels on background checks.
He’s got a p/t project (unpaid) on the go at the moment that has the potential to be lucrative if they can get it off the ground in the right way. He’s also had contact from other agencies looking for his skills.
Worst case scenario is returning to Scotland, he’s been in contact with people he worked with there when we had our own company.
My experience of managing outsourced activities for mulitnationals was our senior management was only interested in seeing lower costs, whether the outsourcer performed or not was irrelevant - mostly they did not - there were some first class exceptions.
I assume the senior management simply lied about relevant KPIs or never reported them.
Sounds like it, his ex employers had a choice of 3 agencies that tendered, they went for the one who were the cheapest and unfortunately they also had the worst reputation.
The start date on the contract he signed is 27th and they’ve shipped out a laptop which hasn’t arrived yet, but he doesn’t have the security permissions in place to be able to do his job and this is the problem. They suggested he might be able to start Wednesday or Thursday but he said he wasn’t prepared to go in for just 2 days as none of his former colleagues are in the office those days and he needs to have meetings and liaise with them to know what he’s going back into. It’s like he can’t win at the moment.
Today’s effort was contacting him to ask for a scan of his degree. He asked why it was relevant as he graduated 44 years ago and the answer was “it’s just procedure sir”.
It’s become worthy of Kafka (the agency his former employers are using is one in India because they’re the cheapest).
