How I Became An Agency Contractor (Part 2/2)

With all my rumination over and done with, I replied expressing interest and the interview was on.

I showed up in my standard interview attire, and to my surprise, I did not get asked any technical questions. Well, not if you think stuff like "how many scopes does AngularJS have?" counts. The interviewer was the guy who would be my team lead for the next year or so. It was relaxed; unremarkable. The interviewer informed me that the company was a tech corporation. And not just any tech corporation - one of the largest tech companies worldwide. Contract position notwithstanding, it would be a huge step up from the usual penny-ante minnows I'd had to deal with the last decade.

Editor's Note: The company shall remain unnamed till I cease to work for them. I'm old-school that way.

A nice shiny business card.

The interviewer also informed me that while I would be doing work on that company's behalf, this would not officially make me their employee. I would, technically, be an employee of the Recruitment Agency. He asked me if that would be a problem, and I was astonished. Why would officially being an employee of that company be such a big deal? Bragging rights? Opportunity for promotion? A nice shiny business card with my name on it? I was 39 years old, and past all that now.

The Negotiation

After the interview, the recruiter informed me that I had passed, and we would proceed to talk about my pay. Initially, I had named a salary figure I considered to be outrageous.

They did me one better. They raised it by five percent.

Instead of trying to bargain me down like some of the cheap bastards I've encountered, they were going to pay me more than what I asked for. This was the first time I truly got the feeling that I was playing for the big boys now.

One very long form.

The recruiter then, to my horror, gave me a fifteen-page form to fill in. He explained that this company was functioning as an onsite vendor to a Government Statutory Board, and that the Contract position was meant for that role. So as per Government regulations, I had to fill up that fifteen-page form, also known as the G50 Clearance. I moaned and whinged about it a fair bit, but you know what? At least they didn't ask for my fucking "O" Level Cert.

In addition to that, I was supposed to go for a second interview, this time to meet with members of that Government Statutory Board. The second interview wasn't too bad. To my pleasant surprise, the interviewers had actually gone through my website, and, I assumed, read the posts and tried the demos. That was one of the very first vindications of my effort in setting it up.

Waiting

Now all that was left to do was wait. The information I had provided on that humongously long-winded form had been sent to the Government Statutory Board, where they would take up to a month to check everything out and determine that I wasn't some spy from ISIS, or something.

Those few weeks weren't spent idle. I swam daily, wrote code and did a lot of reading. Now that I had all this free time, I spent it on honing my craft further in preparation for my new job. I was reading up stuff that wasn't just programming - it was everything else related to development. Code clarity, CSS, Web Typography and Colors for User Interface Design. I even picked up Ruby!

I read a lot.

In addition, I watched online web tutorials, caught up on TV that I hadn't had time to watch (like Silicon Valley!) and basically enjoyed life and capped each day off with midnight walks around the park with the girlfriend. My morale had been simmering as I remained cautiously optimistic, but now it was positively soaring.  It was basically weeks of doing stuff I'd always wanted to try, and never quite found the time. Well, now I had time - in spades.

Starting the job

When I finally began my first day in the office, it actually amounted to more waiting. Apparently the machine supposed to be assigned to me wasn't ready, so I spent time reading up procedures and practices, and getting to know my colleagues. The majority of them were from India, with a few from Burma, Vietnam and Philippines. With a shock, I realized that I was the only Singaporean at that level. Not that any of them noticed - with my complexion, I was actually mistaken as someone of some other nationality. The Indians thought I was Burmese, the Burmese thought I was Filipino... and I'd rather not think about what country the Filipinos thought I came from.

It was rough going at first. Everything was in C# and I was having trouble remembering how to use Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server after more than five years of not touching the stuff. It did eventually come back to me but it was an uphill battle. There were days I felt almost totally worthless, and days I felt at the top of my game. There were people I took to, and people I couldn't stand.

In short, it was great.

I wasn't the smartest man in the room, though I was probably one of the oldest. But I'd left my ego behind from day one, so admitting when I didn't know shit, wasn't at all difficult. Plus, that fat paycheck helped. Getting paid that much while expectations of me remained low? Learning all that useful shit while, again, getting paid? Knowing that they let me in because of what I could do and not because of the color of my passport? Absolute heaven.

Epilogue

All in all, I lasted one year, and then they renewed my contract. I've been here eighteen months now, though my contract's expiring this July. It's been a wild ride.

Have a good work week,
T___T