About eight years ago I worked for a borough council in London.
The job was an IT contract and I was employed for a hardware and software rollout. Initially I was going to different sites and sweeping the whole building with a team of about eight others.

After about six months we were down to revisiting and sorting out any new PCs or people who had been away when we'd first visited. By October there was very little to be done until the new year when there was going to be budget for a lot of new PCs that would have to be installing etc.

Logic would dictate that you would then stop employing the contractors and either re-employ them when these had arrived or employ a new team.

What my the project manager did in was to give us our week's work as usual when we turned up to head office on Monday morning, as she usually did but then tell us that we were not to come back to the office until the weekly team meeting on Friday afternoon.

So for three months (at £15ph) I would turn up on Monday, get my week's work, finish it by 2pm on the same day, go back home for the rest of the week, turn up for the meeting on Friday and then be in the pub half an hour later with teh rest of the team.

The rare occasion I'd get called at my boss asking me to visit a site I'd tell her I had to finish off a PC and would be there in 40 minutes, get on the tube, do the job and go back home.

So in effect I was doing about five hour's work and taking home just under £600 a week.

It just goes to show that the government doesn't waste a penny of your hard earned money. To stress this point I remember them buying about ten mini, wireless laser printers (about £400 in 2002) for the directors. They decided not to use them in the end so they sat in a cupboard until they slowly were liberated by various IT staff (myself not included).

Or the champainge that provided for all the director's meeting (happened once or twice a week). This, I should point out, was all going on in one of the poorest boroughs (I think it was no 3 or something) in London.
( riverghost servicing your mum since, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 11:19, Reply)