Tweet
The players me, AC- awesome contractor, OC-The screw up, Lead- The guy who was to be the boss for the night
Short Version: Without AC and his experience I would have been completely lost last night and not done so well.
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Last night I did my very first IT contract, and I hit it off with AC, him being about 10years older having his own business and few IT contracts under the belt had no problem helping me through how things worked on the job. While waiting for directions, he offered up suggestions of tools that would be better to bring with me depending on the client given his experiences with the various project types.
And we had fun giving each other shit the whole night and swapping stories. AC also had my back and let me know that when I disappeared for about 10min with the other contractor screwing off looking for drinks that the lead couldn't find either of us, and directed me to finish up the one set of computers for him, that he had been working on and the lead kept having to pass. To reinforce the fact that AC had seen me working a bunch(and lead could now see). Along with when things went wrong, and we got held up an hour extra the lead cut 2 out of the 3 of us. Lead kept the guy he knew was busting his ass which I totally understood as AC ran circles around me and OC who were on first deployment (well other guy had previous job but it was not structured when he did it). But AC convinced me to hang around for a few minutes and let the OC leave and get out of sight. Then AC said, lets see what we can do about keeping you around since we had mentioned getting something to eat when it was all done but the checklist failed and we were in a holding pattern for wiping and boxing PCs until we had an all clear.... Ended up having a break through and problem got fixed and since I was still on site, we managed to get everything packed and ready before the truck arrived, which wouldn't have been possible without me. And I was put into further good light when I turned out to be the only person with a laptop that was desperately needed to check some IPs in a random utility room with no PC.
It was also funny how well me and AC worked together because if I asked to be shown how to do something he had no problem, because even with a step by step checklist, watching someone who KNOWS what to do fly through it, makes it easier on your first attempt. OC told me to read, and do it myself, needless to say when there was a problem OC passed the buck, when me and AC had problems we had a habit of quickly fixing the others problem. OC would fix a problem just to rub it in your face and not in a jesting manner like me an AC did.
Short Version: Without AC and his experience I would have been completely lost last night and not done so well.
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Last night I did my very first IT contract, and I hit it off with AC, him being about 10years older having his own business and few IT contracts under the belt had no problem helping me through how things worked on the job. While waiting for directions, he offered up suggestions of tools that would be better to bring with me depending on the client given his experiences with the various project types.
And we had fun giving each other shit the whole night and swapping stories. AC also had my back and let me know that when I disappeared for about 10min with the other contractor screwing off looking for drinks that the lead couldn't find either of us, and directed me to finish up the one set of computers for him, that he had been working on and the lead kept having to pass. To reinforce the fact that AC had seen me working a bunch(and lead could now see). Along with when things went wrong, and we got held up an hour extra the lead cut 2 out of the 3 of us. Lead kept the guy he knew was busting his ass which I totally understood as AC ran circles around me and OC who were on first deployment (well other guy had previous job but it was not structured when he did it). But AC convinced me to hang around for a few minutes and let the OC leave and get out of sight. Then AC said, lets see what we can do about keeping you around since we had mentioned getting something to eat when it was all done but the checklist failed and we were in a holding pattern for wiping and boxing PCs until we had an all clear.... Ended up having a break through and problem got fixed and since I was still on site, we managed to get everything packed and ready before the truck arrived, which wouldn't have been possible without me. And I was put into further good light when I turned out to be the only person with a laptop that was desperately needed to check some IPs in a random utility room with no PC.
It was also funny how well me and AC worked together because if I asked to be shown how to do something he had no problem, because even with a step by step checklist, watching someone who KNOWS what to do fly through it, makes it easier on your first attempt. OC told me to read, and do it myself, needless to say when there was a problem OC passed the buck, when me and AC had problems we had a habit of quickly fixing the others problem. OC would fix a problem just to rub it in your face and not in a jesting manner like me an AC did.