Barclays' DOUBLE DIGIT contractor rate cut? Not for us, say PPI bods

Good for them!

Hahaha, so all that talk by the exec that if people choose not to accept it we will simply re hire, no problem at all. Has clearly been found to be bullshit.

From what I hear the contract market is pretty buoyant at the moment. I suppose Barclays see this as a good time to slim down their contract staff by cutting the rate. A proportion of contractors leave. Trouble is, those are the ones you need to stay. OK, sack the remainder and hire the good ones back again. What could possibly go wrong?

I'd love to have heard the conversation between the suits and the senior suits..

s) Half my team is going to go..because you cut the rates

ss) Fair enough they're only hired help get some cheaper ones

s) They're the only guys(& gals) that understand PPI refunds

ss) Are those the guys that send me spam texts.. good riddance

s) No they are the guys pulling your arse out of the fire stopping us being fined another few billion

ss) Oh.. skilled talent like my friends the traders Ok they can stay..

< door closes with a relieved sigh>

ss 2 ss) Shall I add their names to the list for later..

OK I might have made the last line up..

Thank you PPI team

You did it for all of us!

Seriously, a virtual beer to you all.

"only for contractors deemed critical to delivery of some key projects"

So, they're paying contractor rates for jobs that aren't critical, and projects that aren't key. Wouldn't it be cheaper to use in-house staff for that ?

More short-term thinking from the banking 'industry' ? Quelle surprise.

Like many others at Barclays...

I'm keeping quiet for now.

I've accepted the cut, because I don't deem it worth the hassle. My CV is up to date and with several agencies. I'll take the next good offer that is made.

Why isn't it worth the fight? Because it is not worth staying and it is not worth the principle to be unemployed while looking for the next job. I'd rather be on 90% of my rate (still more than 90% of the country earn) while putting in about 30% effort for the month or so it will take to find something better.

This link is worth a read: http://www.egos.co.uk/contract-breakers.htm

Now listen up, Fungible Typing Monkeys

Lottie Dexter, with a quite surprising grasp of the subject, has already explained how, if you have fingers, you can learn to code in a day, and really 'do, like, literally nothing in a very short space of time'. We can all post to Facebook now. We're all coders really.

The banks, those great organisations that have made this country what it is today, need to save money to pay their top risk takers to not go to other banks and then come back again. And as coding is like writing a letter, except Auntie Doris won't send you a tenner, it's just typing, so why not do it all in Bangalore, where the time difference means you can chase the sun and actually get closer to it. There are bits of abroad where you're ahead of the sun, so you're in tomorrow today, so you should've completed everything, and we don't need to pay you because you weren't here today to collect your money. That's what the 10% is really about.

I agree with Lottie: if we can all learn code in a day, and we all started this year, them what the hell were all you Fungible Typing Monkeys (that's what I call contractor resources) doing on January 2nd? Are we paying you to not learn on the job? Or are we paying you to constantly do the same job every day? What are we paying for? And don't tell me about skills and experience - I didn't need any of that to become what I am today (CIO at a bank).

You don't rewrite a letter once it's sent, so why rewrite code? So called 'coders' just look blankly at me when I ask them that. No answer, you see. So a 10% rate cut is more than justified, and should be applied every day.

Seriously: stop whining, prioritise your priorities, sign up to IR35 - no-one likes a tax dodger, unless they're earning money for UK Ltd., get your keyboards out, and at least try to look busy clicky clacking on them. And for God's sake buy a suit, a decent pair of shoes, and stop walking past my executive suite in your smelly Lycra at 10am, when I've already been sitting here in my Eames for 3 hours.