Ron, I do not understand it here either. Until the recession in 2002, both Mark Zelden and I were contractors. I believe our clients were more than satisfied with our level of expertise and the efforts we put forth for those corporations. I know that I spent a lot of time, after work, striving to maintain skill currency without using the clients time and resources to do it. I have also contracted outside the USA and agree with your observations in that respect.
I suppose that some of the contractor resentment stems from the fact that the local staff may or may not have had the necessary skills or time for the project at hand, and then some "hired gun" comes in making more money than the local staff. Nature takes its course and emotions come into play, especially if the local staff perceives that there is not a good reason for their presence or that their skill set is not really any superior to the locals own talents. Bob -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ron and Jenny Hawkins Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:11 AM To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU Subject: Re: 3380-3390 Conversion Bob, Of course you are correct, and this generality is wrong. Consider it retracted. Though I do find that contractors in many other countries are treated very differently to how it appears to be in the USofA. I would say that more than half of the best sysprogs, DBA and Programmers I have worked with in Australia and Asia are long time contractors. I've also worked with some incredibly good freelance contractors out of Britain and Europe. It seems that in the USofA becoming a contractor means that you have somehow become less skilled than when you were a full time employee. LEGAL DISCLAIMER The information transmitted is intended solely for the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of or taking action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this email in error please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. Seeing Beyond Money is a service mark of SunTrust Banks, Inc. [ST:XCL] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html