Contract Termination
A reader sent us this article about contract termination and what happened to him.
Here is his story.
How tides can turn in the fraction of a second.
I was recently contracting for a large telecoms company. The contract, initially 6 months, was going very well.
First Few Months of the Contract
In the first few months of the contract I had really started to shine. I proved that my code was robust and functional, and implemented new standards of documentation.
They gave me a project to work on with permission to edit their live corporate database, something which they allowed very few to do.
After the first 6 months, as the company was cutting back and moving development work to India, they extended my contract by 3 months. I expected further extensions.
Then it happened.
Contract Termination – Working on a Project
I had been working on a project which involved distributing free gifts to new customers as an incentive. For every new customer we needed to send an order file to the shipping company that would deliver the gift.
The project started in trouble as we where 6 months behind getting some of these gifts delivered, but I was sorting it out.
Last Friday, while the QA department was testing a completely different area of functionality, one of the testers inadvertently generated 500 orders for gifts that never existed.
To make matters worse the files where made available to the logistics company for delivery.
When I noticed this I took it a bit too personally. I was only trying to save the company money by not sending these gifts out.
Tracking Down the Culprit Leads to Contract Termination
While tracking down the culprit, I interrupted a meeting between two managers, one of whom was blatantly not happy about me interrupting, despite my motives.
After telling off the tester, he took the high road and insisted that he did not make a mistake. Because he did not admit it and apologise for the extra work he had caused I went a bit over the top.
I then sent an email to the entire department informing everyone of the mistake, in order to avoid it happening again. I also wanted everyone who heard me ‘lose it’ that I was wrong and apologize.
Three hours later, they called me into the IT Managers office. There had been complaints. There was nothing he could do. They cancelled my contract. It was contract termination time.
The moral of the story, is to do your best, but do not take it personally.
In the end it is not your business. You are only a contractor.
Don’t risk getting your contract terminated for something like this.
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