Thursday November 24, 2022

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I had an interchange with someone at my work, who works in the offshore team, but wants to put me on site with a client less than 50 miles away from me.  Only issue is that nobody from my company is working on site, so I would be the first, and I would either need to get all my training from the client, which usually doesn't happen, since clients in this area who hire my company like to have their contractors be fully autonomous or I would need to train with the team in India.  So it doesn't seem promising.  So I guess I'm going to pray for another on-site role where I can work remotely and get help from on-site folks who work at my company.  I felt that I set good boundaries with her by telling her what rate I wanted, expressed what kind of training she'd need to offer, told her I have a holiday the next two days, and that it's late at night.  She has a lot of questions she needs to ask of the client and does not have a project code yet, b/c it's a brand new client we never worked with before.  Honestly feel nervous about this situation, b/c I feel a sense of obligation to accept the project b/c my employer wants me to accept any project asap regardless of whether I have the wherewithal to do it, b/c they're not concerned about how switching clients/relocation/commuting uproots my life, nor are they concerned that there isn't anyone present on-site to train me.  But I know it's going to be important long-term to the client, my company, myself, my success and the success of the project that I have someone to train me; so it's a non-starter at this point. She really should have established an on-site technical architect from her offshore team (at least one) and confirmed with the client that they even wanted an on-site resource before messaging me with this brainstorm of a role opportunity.  The other thought I had as I logged off is that I do not have to do anything regarding this conversation.  I don't have to feel obliged. I need to take care of myself first.  On Monday when they ask me for an update, I can just say that I do not have one yet, unless Angel asks me for one from a specific client, and I'll wait to hear which client she expects me to have heard from.  I didn't hear from our established client Citi yet, so I am going to let them know I don't have an update.  I appreciate my employer for what it is, but I'm seeing the indicators for why it's so important I work with an on-site organization full-time. I need to have an in-depth understanding of what I'm doing and to be doing real work in order to be helpful for all stakeholders.  I deserve to work for a company where they offer stipends for the real certificates and a salary commensurate with the work they're asking me to do.  Honestly, if I have to commute a bit south to this electronics organization, they should be paying me at least 20% more than what I'm earning, which they won't, because my company never requires that of them.  So this is a nonstarter, and I need to have a plan for getting an F/T role starting now, which is why I wanted to work remote. Working 8 hours a day, commuting two hours a day, attending training with the offshore team at night, studying for my internal/external certs over the weekend will not give me enough time to study for interviews.  I need to set myself up for success, and it is very important that I set boundaries with people.  I think the only reason I responded to the outreach was b/c I was worried it was a policy issue, but it wasn't.  Next time someone leads with, "Hello," instead of telling me what project they're with.  I'm going to hold off. One thing that bugs me about this and the folks who contacted me from the team in Colorado is that they didn't even tell me what project they were on, they were just nebulous, refused to answer my initial questions about the project and merely said, "Can we talk?".  I do not like it when Principal Consultants are not straightforward.  That's exceedingly odd.  I don't know why she couldn't have led with something direct like, "I need someone with Oracle PL and Java experience to work in person at City X/State Y.  They will need to learn from the offshore team entirely for Z amount of hours a week, for A weeks, and be the first person on the project; the client hasn't agreed to someone on-shore yet.  Tell me your rate."  Honestly would've been so much better than her saying, "It won't make sense unless we talk."   That being said, if I were the PC, I would've asked the client, if they were open to starting an on-shore team first, and put the prerequisite leadership in place, before bugging someone who is on-shore.  So she was disorganized, and I need to guard my time better by only replying to folks who a) are announced by my practice manager or b) tell me what project they're on (and ideally what they're looking for).