Consultants and Agents (was: What to do about a disgruntled employee)

Mark,

OK darn it.  I've stayed out of this discussion because David asked for
volunteers to run a consulting forum and received no takers.  I would moderate
the consulting forum myself, but I already run the BPCS list and risk divorce
if I spend any more of my very limited "off" time working on computers :(.  On
the one hand, I agree that these discussions are off topic as they don't
relate to operating, programming, or influencing the future direction of
midrange systems themselves.  On the other hand, discussions of this sort are
germane to the midrange community as a whole, especially in the career arena
IMO.  Herewith my only response to this, and let's take it "off list" from
here:

In a message dated 3/19/99 11:39:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
oleblighty@home.com writes:

> Your points are well taken...but.......
>  
>  "You make a wild assumption here.  Two in fact.  Why would you assume she
is
>  an agent based upon her words?  And why would you say such a wild thing as
>  "...you are probably taking advantage..."?  Agents serve a good purpose and
>  work hard for their money.  I use agents regularly and they are a boon to
>  me.  There are a whole lot of client problems that just disappear when an
>  agent is involved."
>  
>  How else would I presume she was an agent other then based on her
>  words....last time I checked I wasn't psycic in any form.  FYI..it was her
>  use of the word "consultant" that made me (falsly) presume this.  I am
>  pleased that you have found agents to be of a boon to you.  That is just
not
>  my personal experience.  They are money grabing low-lives with no more
right
>  to live on God's green Earth then a Weasel (just my and most of the
>  Consultants I know of opinions...in fact, out of the 20-30 consultants I
>  speak to on a regular basis, only 1 is completely happy with their agency).
>  I completely agree that a lot of client problems disappear when agents are
>  used..i.e. getting paid on time etc.  But that does come at a price.

I don't know who _you're_ talking to, but most of the people I speak with use
agents on a regular basis.  Could be because I work primarily with large
clients that require "approved vendors" that most of my "independent" contacts
do so.  ESC has gotten on several approved vendor lists in the past, but it
was _NOT_ easy by any means.  Yes, most agents _are_ money grabbing (two "b's"
there) low life who take advantage of those that LET THEM.  The secret is to
manage your agent, not let your agent manage _YOU_.  If you took your SECOND
agent at his/her word, you deserve everything you get -- "Fool me once, shame
on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."

Using an agent does come at a price, but that price is manageable (and
negotiable).  Like average (and below) programmers that think they cannot
operate without the QSECOFR password, agents are a dime a dozen.  Find a good
lawyer, write a contract that's acceptable to you to manage all agents, and
toss any agent that won't sign it with more than minor (and acceptable to you)
alteration.  Agents typically ask for 35% of your billing rate -- personally,
I've never given more than 18% and _THAT_ was drastically reduced after I
renegotiated my own rates with the client myself at the end of the initial
contract.  Know what you're doing, provide the client _real_ value, and be
tougher with your agents than they are with you.  Especially in today's
employment environment, agents need _you_ far worse than you need _them_.
BTW, _everyone_ deserves to live, even if it's in a state of permanent
incarceration...

>  "You allow anyone to instill thoughts in you?  Why?"
>  
>  Why?...well...for pretty much the same reason as when I watch the BBC News
I
>  believe it to be the truth without doing my own personel verification.
When
>  starting out in the work place at a young age with little to absolutely no
>  knowlege of this industry, the word of Management and peers has a large
>  influence (in my humble opinion).  Hence the use of the word instill.

Quite true.  The trick is to learn to recognize when someone's feeding you a
line of decimal data errors ;-)!

>  "Promoting our business and ourselves is one thing, using our employer's
>  time and pay to damage the employer and then leaving and taking customers
>  with us is just plain unethical.  Besides it isn't very effective."
>  
>  Unethical....get real.  I have no idea who you are or what you do, but you
>  need to take a long look around you at the world of business practice.  You
>  say it's not very effective...where is your data to substantiate that
>  statement.  Of the people and companies I know of (a limited amount to be
>  sure) it seems a very effective practice.
<<snip>>

I find it to be _QUITE_ unethical.  Building your own business on your
employer's time _IS_ unethical, unless inadvertent (more on that later).
Think of it in terms of software development and intellectual property law.
If you develop software while in the employ of someone else (client or
otherwise), that software belongs to them and you have no right to make a
profit from it somewhere else unless you have a preexisting agreement with the
company that funded the original project.  Same with building a business on
someone else's time, IMO.

I've been coding, installing systems, and managing projects for a living since
1980.  All but a little over two years of that (spent in an ill advised foray
into the "perm" sector as an MIS Director) has been either as an employee of
or owner of independent consulting firms.  In all that time, the only clients
I ever took with me were:

A.  Refusing to work with anyone else from my original employer because they
were sent such idiots by said employer to work on their systems when I was on
vacation, and they liked me.
B.  By default because my original employer went out of business, and they
liked me.
C.  Accounts that I had referred to my new employer after a previous employer
folded, and they liked me.

In short, I've never _solicited_ clients while working for someone else and
would consider such an act to be one of a _contractor_, not a _consultant_.  I
certainly wouldn't _HIRE_ anyone that had done so, even on a perm basis at a
non-consulting shop.  To do so would be to enforce the widely held stereotypes
that already exist among clients about consultants which, BTW, fall right into
your "don't deserve to live" statement.  "Just because everyone else does it"
is no excuse for behavior of this sort -- didn't your mother ever use that "If
everyone else jumps off a bridge..." argument with you ;-)?  Everyone's in
charge of their own destiny -- act like it.

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"The best way to win an argument is to begin by being right." -- Jill
Ruckleshaus
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