OK, so what's happening?
I've been a little quiet here, as my projects runneth over, and I'm starting something new on Monday. I spent one day in the British Library (best quality of silence in the city, I say), but didn't get much writing done. Thinking, though, was good.
Got a little connundrum: I'm starting a project for a regular client Monday. Fourth project. I've made them a lot of money, so they do come back. The last project, there was a huge amount of to-age and fro-age on the contact with the HR Director: he was convinced that I was a short-contract employee, me and the MD said I was a consultant. HR Director got out all sorts of examples of how I wasn't managing my own work: we countered with how I was. It took a month into the project, was a right royal waste of time, and kinda pissed everyone off. Not least because at the end of the project there was a currency exchange issue which none of us had considered and I was out of pocket big time.
Everytime I do something for them, at the end of the project they say, "Sasha, we love working with you, we get great work, but it's really expensive and we should just hire more full-time staff." So everytime they call me for something new, I'm surprised. But I know I deliver.
So I've been talking to the MD about this project for a couple of months, and he confirmed about three weeks ago. We agreed we would do the same contract as last time, as the HR Director was happy with it, and there's no currency angle on this one.
Yesterday, 5pm, I get a call saying the HR Director says I'm an employee because (a) I spent too long in their office last time (this was what the MD wanted), and (b) I'm using their equipment. He wants be to bring my laptop. I say fine, but I don't massively want to carry it around every day for six weeks, and what's their insurance position. I also say I'll need a PCMCIA network card, and to sort out email.
He says fine. I think odd - I know the IT people are going are going to go 57 shades of purple before they hit the roof at his request.
Today he emails me and says he is going for a PC in their office - so I was right about IT. I email back and say fine as long as I'm in the office all the time, otherwise it does have to be my laptop, so I can see all my sent mail in one place, and manage email (probably a couple of thousand sent/received mails on this project).
I think they'll have to forward my [client] address email to my own work email, and I'll use an alias to send. Then I'll have to use IMAP (if their server allows it, and IMAP doesn't break) to collect my mail, whether I'm in their office or not. I think I'll do a different-account Outlook setup on my laptop, because it took long enough to get it working.
The collective tech brains of my buddies offered these suggestions:
1 - I leave my laptop on all day at home and VNC (or XPpro equivalent) into it to get mail, so I am working off my computer.
2 - I use the yahoo mail advanced ($20) setup, and BCC everything to myself. Then I have a rule that moves anything from that address into my sent mail... so I have it.
I remember the halcyon days of having an IT department that did this sort of stuff for me.
Any more for any more?
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