90 days later — observations in contracting

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Abstract

market at the moment and because I can remember times when opportunities did not flow so readily, it’s great to have so much work floating around. It is also astonishing how difficult it is to get funding for anything inside the government, but see considerable hikes in contractor rates outside the government. As a contractor — this is obviously amazing, but as a citizen it’s horrifying. Not to mention the distinctly dubious behaviour of a recruitment firm that manages your contract and simultaneously tries to poach you for other government work. I don’t understand how pay freezes for Civil Servants can be justified when vast amounts of money evaporate through a complex web of recruitment ‘noise’. It’s also telling to see government departments (not my own) struggle to recruit and hike up daily rates accordingly (from £550, to £650, to £770). Service designers talk to each other and if you have a reputation for a hostile work environment, we’ll avoid you like the plague.</p><h1 id="8bd3">Looking for a clear signal</h1><p id="7ae4">I had a really inspiring meeting just over a week ago with the head of the department, where I showed the team’s work, stated what we needed from leadership and thought we had the green light to go ahead. Then I had another meeting, which was distinctly more ambiguous; lots of people said very little. By this I mean, they said stuff, but not much that really confirmed or denied support of the work. In a culture promoting a flat hierarchy (there is always hierarchy), I find it stressful reading silence remotely. Are you busy? Are you sick? Is this a bad week? Should I follow-up? Should I leave you alone? I daresay I am not as busy as some of my colleagues, but I find the lack of engagement frustrating and perplexing.</p><p id="0cc9">When a colleague shared a job posting on LinkedIn, I re-shared it with a testimonial of what had pleasantly surprised me about immersion in government. A few people commented, some celebrated my insight, but nobody with whom I actually worked. With the flickering signal of “I love this place”, “I’m confused by

Options

this place”, I deleted the post.</p><p id="582d">It’s too soon to say this is home.</p><h1 id="02a4">The chaos of remote work</h1><p id="d55c">I am developing a real antipathy for the propaganda of “Agile” ways of working and have a blog post brewing on this, but in the spirit of bringing a solution with the problem (every manager’s t-shirt slogan), want to pour it out online in way that’s constructive and interesting to read beyond a soapbox rant. Whilst “Waterfall” was unhelpful, so too are stand-ups where we just talk about our days of meetings, retrospectives that don’t drive change and the mantra of “light documentation”. There is nothing worse than having to get to grips with a complex subject by comparing a thousand Miro boards , often abandoned by owners and essentially views of needs frozen in time. Worse, when you ask where to save stuff, the response is a shrug of the shoulders— in part because your colleagues have bigger priorities and in part because there’s no future-orientation. We are in a constant state of “just make it work now”.</p><h1 id="d61d">What do I want?</h1><p id="1f55">I want to know I’m doing meaningful work, solving actual problems with data-driven design. I want ongoing feedback, nothing too onerous for the team, but gentle “getting warmer, getting cooler” comments with the work produced.</p><p id="3533">I’d like a permanent contract. I want to make a commitment. I want to put down roots and allow life to slowly seed my headspace. I’d like to get back to attending classes, meetups, workshops, theatre, cinema, dance — sensorial over social content. I don’t want lots of people, but I am desperate to move beyond the screen.</p><p id="4241">I am currently going through clearance for said permanent role, which also involves someone behind the scenes reviewing my social media. Because this process is opaque (there’s no GDPR or UCD in security clearance), I wonder whether writing about work in this way is poking the bear. That said, in the spirit of developing a regular writing habit — I’m publishing the reflection anyway.</p></article></body>

More bang than buck

For years I’ve heard people speculate around contractors as money-grabbing tourists who fly in and out of organisations, committing the least amount of effort for the maximum amount of cash. Sure, the pay is reasonable, but it hasn’t enabled me to bring my retirement forward. I confess I still don’t fully understand the exact implications of being inside and outside of IR35, except that outside of IR35 you have more flexibility on how you structure and route your income. E.g. you can pay yourself a smaller salary, redirect a lot more money into a pension fund and subsequently pay a lot less tax. This also comes with a lot more homework around settling yourself up as a Ltd company, with personal liability insurance and a degree of life stability. If you want to work outside of IR35, it’s a career choice, not something you do for a couple of months. In 2021 I pursued status and money in my career, in 2022 I just want a life.

Poly-accountability

I was a little shocked to discover that although I interviewed directly with a government organisation, following a verbal offer — I was still channelled through a recruiter. I essentially work for a government department, who outsource employee onboarding and contract management to PSR (a private company) and I get paid by my umbrella company PayStream. This has sometimes made it difficult to know how to direct payment-related questions and when there are issues with pay — to identify the point of the bottleneck. In short, there is little service design in service design contracting.

Citizen & contractor

All roles in the UCD space are enjoying a buoyant market at the moment and because I can remember times when opportunities did not flow so readily, it’s great to have so much work floating around. It is also astonishing how difficult it is to get funding for anything inside the government, but see considerable hikes in contractor rates outside the government. As a contractor — this is obviously amazing, but as a citizen it’s horrifying. Not to mention the distinctly dubious behaviour of a recruitment firm that manages your contract and simultaneously tries to poach you for other government work. I don’t understand how pay freezes for Civil Servants can be justified when vast amounts of money evaporate through a complex web of recruitment ‘noise’. It’s also telling to see government departments (not my own) struggle to recruit and hike up daily rates accordingly (from £550, to £650, to £770). Service designers talk to each other and if you have a reputation for a hostile work environment, we’ll avoid you like the plague.

Looking for a clear signal

I had a really inspiring meeting just over a week ago with the head of the department, where I showed the team’s work, stated what we needed from leadership and thought we had the green light to go ahead. Then I had another meeting, which was distinctly more ambiguous; lots of people said very little. By this I mean, they said stuff, but not much that really confirmed or denied support of the work. In a culture promoting a flat hierarchy (there is always hierarchy), I find it stressful reading silence remotely. Are you busy? Are you sick? Is this a bad week? Should I follow-up? Should I leave you alone? I daresay I am not as busy as some of my colleagues, but I find the lack of engagement frustrating and perplexing.

When a colleague shared a job posting on LinkedIn, I re-shared it with a testimonial of what had pleasantly surprised me about immersion in government. A few people commented, some celebrated my insight, but nobody with whom I actually worked. With the flickering signal of “I love this place”, “I’m confused by this place”, I deleted the post.

It’s too soon to say this is home.

The chaos of remote work

I am developing a real antipathy for the propaganda of “Agile” ways of working and have a blog post brewing on this, but in the spirit of bringing a solution with the problem (every manager’s t-shirt slogan), want to pour it out online in way that’s constructive and interesting to read beyond a soapbox rant. Whilst “Waterfall” was unhelpful, so too are stand-ups where we just talk about our days of meetings, retrospectives that don’t drive change and the mantra of “light documentation”. There is nothing worse than having to get to grips with a complex subject by comparing a thousand Miro boards , often abandoned by owners and essentially views of needs frozen in time. Worse, when you ask where to save stuff, the response is a shrug of the shoulders— in part because your colleagues have bigger priorities and in part because there’s no future-orientation. We are in a constant state of “just make it work now”.

What do I want?

I want to know I’m doing meaningful work, solving actual problems with data-driven design. I want ongoing feedback, nothing too onerous for the team, but gentle “getting warmer, getting cooler” comments with the work produced.

I’d like a permanent contract. I want to make a commitment. I want to put down roots and allow life to slowly seed my headspace. I’d like to get back to attending classes, meetups, workshops, theatre, cinema, dance — sensorial over social content. I don’t want lots of people, but I am desperate to move beyond the screen.

I am currently going through clearance for said permanent role, which also involves someone behind the scenes reviewing my social media. Because this process is opaque (there’s no GDPR or UCD in security clearance), I wonder whether writing about work in this way is poking the bear. That said, in the spirit of developing a regular writing habit — I’m publishing the reflection anyway.