Ethics of Jumping To Another Contract Job

[James Barrow]

>Lauren Tariel wrote:
>>John Posada said:
>>
>>The rate was agreed on for the term that was agreed on. When the term
changes, >>why shouldn't the rate be considered?
>
>In my case, it was 1997 and rates were rising in the market.  I agreed to
the short->term contract because it was not a job that I wanted to keep for
a longer term. When >rates went up, I wanted a raise.
[]
This really isn't anything that you can use as leverage.  This is the same
as buying a house at a 10% interest rate and, when the rates drop, telling
your lien holder that you want to renegotiate the mortgage for a lower rate.
[]
>I began as one technical writer and more projects came in, so two new
writers were >added.  I was the defacto lead and the project manager for all
of the documentation >projects.  Project management and team leadership were
not in my original contract.

Now *this* is a bargaining chip.  

>As it turns out, I had a medical issue that required the medical insurance
that the >company provided, so I didn't argue about the rate.

You've mentioned this previously and, unfortunately, this falls into the
'not a bargaining chip' pile.  I worked with someone recently who wanted to
ask our director for a raise because he had incurred additional debt.  I
could imagine our director saying, "Not my problem."
[]
>I think that now, if PM, or some other issue, comes up for a non-PM
contract, then I >will mention that we can re-write the contract and adjust
the rate accordingly, if that's >what the client wants.

Absolutely.  It's all in the numbers.  What's the going rate for a project
manager these days? $80,000? If your manager pays you an additional $5 per
hour, that's ~%10,000.

- Jim