Dave Chaplin, CEO, ContractorCalculator:
Non-contractors, particularly those in government and the civil service, plus those in many client organisations, too, don’t appear to understand what a contractor really is. And because most contractors use and work via agencies, they can be erroneously branded as agency workers, or even ‘temps’.
This is as far from the truth as you can get. Agency workers and temps are told what to do and how to do it and there is no doubt about the ‘master and servant’ relationship between the temp and client.
Contractors, on the other hand, are specifically recruited to achieve a specific objective or complete a particular defined project for their client. They achieve it using their own skill set, knowledge and experience and then move on to the next client and the next project.
Contractors of a certain age will remember a cult children’s TV series of the 1970s and 80s, called the Littlest Hobo (younger readers can read more by visiting the Wikipedia entry – you don’t know what you missed). The hero was a German Shepherd dog who moved from town to town solving problems and helping people in need. And in each story the ‘dog with no name’, or the Littlest Hobo as he became known, was the same; but the supporting cast of human actors and their problems were different.
Although similar in concept to Lassie, who always seemed to have a thing about her owners and loitering around their graves looking for attention, the Littlest Hobo resisted all attempts to own him and went onto the next town at the end of each episode to solve a new problem for a new bunch of humans.
You can see where we are going next. Contractors might look a bit like permanent employees, but they don’t have an owner despite the best efforts of many clients to adopt them. Contractors prefer to be on their own, and head off by themselves at the end of each project to find a new bunch of humans to help.
Is everyone with me on this?
Dave Chaplin is a former IT contractor in the City of London, and is founder and CEO of ContractorCalculator, and author of the Contractors' Handbook.
Started in 1999, ContractorCalculator (this site) is the leading independent website for the UK contracting industry – most of whom are highly skilled knowledge workers.
Read Full Profile...
View all our commentators
Published: Tuesday, January 13, 2009
© 2012 All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Please see our copyright notice.
If you want to use any content you have seen on this site then
please request our media pack and
ask for details of our Content Licencing Service.