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You could always call the on-site supervisor as I mentioned in above post. If he/she doesn't pickup and doesn't return your VM, then don't get stalkerish and call back over and over.
Try to remember when that person was usually at their desk and call then and hope they pick-up.
You can also ask is there any way that you can get hired there as a full-time/non contract employee. It might be possible if they were happy with you. In one of my employers, the company was willing to hire contractors full-time(meaning they were currently contractors working there already). However, the contractor had to approach the company first to ask about hiring full-time/perm. The company was not allowed to say this to the contractor first.
I just don't think it's that something wasn't clicking...as I mentioned, the person from the staffing agency told me he got nothing but positive feedback and that I got along well with everyone. If something wasn't clicking, wouldn't the staffing agency have told me to get my act together?
No they wouldn't. They just don't operate that way. Think of snakes. Then think even lower than that. That is the level of professional you are dealing with when you are working with an agency and a client company. You can have all the warm fuzzy impressions in the world, but the reality is you are no longer at that company and no one (NO ONE) will ever be upfront and honest about the reason(s) why.
It's a sad fact of being a temporary or contingent worker. Even if you're on the most important project the company has ever attempted, you are not irreplaceable. You are there on someone's whim. It's not fair, it's usually never fair. Don't look for truth or justice, as neither will be found. Keep reminding yourself you have useful skills that can benefit several employers and if not that one, then someone else! I had to get all metaphysical about it and tell myself it was the Universe's way of forcing change because either something better was ahead for me OR I was ultimately escaping from a current or future toxic environment.
When I was a manager I did this all the time. There are rules about treating contractors like employees. Even if you call them contractors and pay them on 1099 if they do the work like an employee and are treated like an employee the company can be liable for paying them benefits and paid time off, etc. So every once in a while I had to just terminate a contractor and hire a new one. Sometimes this also happened because the contracting company would come asking for a higher hourly rate for the contractor since they had been there a while even if the person on contract didn't know anything about it and wouldn't get a raise.
It comes with the job. More flexibility but also more uncertainty. Being on contract you can be terminated at any time with no reason. If you really did good work then your agency should have no trouble placing you again.
During the 2 times I contracted (once for 15 months, the other for 10 months), I never took a day off of work other than days the company was closed, since I only got paid for the actual hours I worked. So 'flexibility' was more of an illusion for me because I was determined to make hay while the sun shone. In both cases my contract was cut early, though I did have the benefit of 2 or 3 week notice.
I hope to never have to contract again -- it really was not for me. It suited the purpose of staying employed during those years, but being treated as an outsider was difficult.
Contract or Full-time work, just make sure you are compensated appropriately.
As a contract worker, I am not keen on the outlook of American employment in general. Full-time work does not mean happier work life or job security. In many cases it is worse than contract work in terms of work life balance. As a contract worker, job security is always an issue that you need to have enough to weather through any loss of contract. But overall I feel more relieved as a contractor than full-time. I don't have to worry about over-time, off hour support is billed, and I don't have to worry that much about the in-office "Game of Thrones" politics.
I expected to have more balance as a contract worker but what I discovered was the full time employees at the 2 companies I worked, worked far fewer hours than I did, were not nearly as invested in doing a good job, and were fairly passive-aggressive. Not everyone, of course, but more than you might imagine, and at all levels of the organizations. There are companies who employ hundreds and sometimes thousands of contract workers and it is those folks who are doing the bulk of the operational work at corporations (at least the ones I personally witnessed).
I expected to have more balance as a contract worker but what I discovered was the full time employees at the 2 companies I worked, worked far fewer hours than I did, were not nearly as invested in doing a good job, and were fairly passive-aggressive. Not everyone, of course, but more than you might imagine, and at all levels of the organizations. There are companies who employ hundreds and sometimes thousands of contract workers and it is those folks who are doing the bulk of the operational work at corporations (at least the ones I personally witnessed).
I've seen this happen and I was at the end of that particular run as the company was slammed by security audits and red flags were everywhere. They end up laying off 1/4 of the IT full-time staff and started offering full-time jobs to some of the contractors and also cutting many loose including me.
Any company that uses a lot of contractors and then not letting their own workers take ownership will get hit with some issue and force management to do a major restructuring at some point. You can only milk the company so long in IT. Other industries like accounting and finance you could sit on doing crappy work and then get let go around retirement because companies are afraid that you may work for a competitor and give away their financial data.
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