Being a consultant means having to deal with agencies, who go between the resources and their client companies. Sometimes, in order to get both the resources and the companies a lot of dealing and wheeling is done by these agencies and often the resource ends up in the wrong job and the companies pay a hefty price too.It is certainly my case. Initially I went for an interview for a contract lasting one year but, after I accepted the job, it was changed to 6 months and Harvey Nash Zurich, in particular the Director M. Casserini, didn’t want to change the rates (the shorter the contract the higher the rates should be). Eventually he agreed to raise them, marginally.Because the work location was far from my house, when offered a job I asked Harvey Nash if I could spend a day a week working from home and I was told I could. After I started though, the request was denied by the client and I was left wondering who was cheating.Never mind, I thought, it’s only a 6-months contract and I’ll have to put up with being far from home.Well, the job ended up not being fantastic, I didn’t get on with my direct manager and it all ended after 3 months. The client gave 7-days notice, par contract with Harvey Nash. Unfortunately, I had asked and obtained a contract with 30-days notice with the agency and here the trouble started. M. Casserini tried in many ways not to pay me the full amount due, accusing me unjustly of having been the cause of the termination of the contract by the client. Unfortunately for him the contract spook clearly – 30-days notice. He then began to make allegations that if I accepted less than full payment I would get paid sooner rather than later or possibly not at all, and that he would give me a good reference. Obviously he knew what he was doing and no doubt he had had ample opportunities to rehearse his tactics with other consultants.So, under pressure, I accepted less than full payment but more than the 7 days offered initially. The morale of the story is beware when dealing with agencies, they are never there to look after the interests of their employees. Ethics doesn’t even figure in their practices, apart from the “ethics” of making the maximum amount of money. In particular beware of M. Casserini at Harvey Nash Zurich.
