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> >Also, you're always just a few weeks away from being free of idiots. When you
> wind up with some micromanaging twerp who torments you night and day, you can
> always walk out at the end of the contract. Ahhh, that is also really nice. I
> like being free of idiots.
And THAT is truly one of the joys of contracting! As I've gotten older, I've
found I'm even less willing to suffer fools gladly. Which makes dealing with
managers/developers/engineers who don't know what they're doing very difficult -
tact is, for me, a learned skill. What keeps me sane in those circumstances is to
silently remind myself that they're paying me by the hour.
> Of course - you could start your own consulting company, like I did and become
> a prisoner of a new type. That's another story.
Again, as president of a consulting company of my own, I've learned ways of
getting even with clients who turn out to be idiots. While we strive to give our
clients the best we can, there is a certain satisfaction in looking at a very
large check and realizing that the money tends to make up for a lot of grief. On
more than one occasion, I've taken the team assigned to a difficult client out to
a special dinner or given them extra time off or some other benefit.