Training someone to take your job

Hi all,

I am working as a contractor for the last 7 yrs with a company and for the past 4 yrs have been involved in the setting up and maintenance of a new project. I like what I do alot and believed till now that I had a real responsibility to keep the installations maintained and working properly. Because I was the only one at the technician level looking after the whole thing. I wondered sometimes if I was doing too much and being taken for granted and took the foot off the pedal a bit after 3 yrs, coupled with the fact that I was in the process of buying a new house, and I suppose I did not give my job as much attention as I had previously. Now the company have employed a technician directly from a different department that closed down and I am expected to show him what to do. My manager says that it is so he can make better use of me in other areas. Meantime the new guys is forever ringing me asking me what to do and I find it very hard to tell him. Am I being unreasonable? How best can I deal with this threat to my position and to stop myself feeling so miserable about whats happening?

Hi Con, sorry to say, I think you are being unreasonable you are not really a contractor (i.e. you are self-employed with an open-ended contract on less than the market rates for the position), in which case you are an employee without the benefits (holiday, sick, pension, redundancy etc.)

I would also say the following (as long as it didn't start another fight!):
- there is so little knowledge/experience built up over the seven years that a few phone calls is going to pass that knowledge on. Knowledge is power, but only when it is shared - you gain more than you lose by helping someone. The worst that could happen is that he goes away and does it by himself and realises that he doesn't need you to help him.
- you say that you have been there seven years and the last project has been for four years. This implies that you have been contracted over multiple projects? If so, now is probably the time to go to the manager and tell him that he's probably noticed you are demotivated after so long on a single project and what interesting work has he got lined up...
- start looking around locally to see what else of a similar vein there is available; even if you don't intend moving it may cheer you up (or depress you completely!).

Thanks yoganmahew, I appreciate your reply and I suppose I was hoping that there would be some bit of loyalty to me for all the time I invested in it. I did a lot of things beyond the call of duty over the past couple of years and I had expected that I would sometime be given a position in the company in a similar role to that which I was contracted for. It doesn't feel right to me, thats all.

I dont think you are being unreasonable in how you feel if its the truth. Noone can tell from this thread whether you are training someone to take your job or not. You are certainly being reasonable to your bosses requests and helping to train this new guy. But now that you have so much experience behind you, how hard could it be to find a permanent job with another company (if this is what you want) ? Surely the experience and seniority you have gained from your years in the company is valuable enough for you not to feel so insecure ?
Depending on how confident you feel about your value to the company ,why dont you ask them to make your permanent or look for a better opportunity elsewhere ?

If there was loyality would they not have taken you on permanently and given you the associated benefits? 7 yrs a heck of long time to be left on contact. Unless you are getting paid a lot more than permanent rates. Did you ask them what specifically are these other areas they want you in?

I keep on starting and erasing a reply because the reply really depends on if you are a daily rate or a fixed term contractor.

If you are a daily rate contractor, I'd say you are being very unreasonable. Seven years is a long time to be getting daily rates from 1 company, especially , as you say, for the last 3 years you haven't being giving it 100%.
Have you looked to make your position pernament, or where you just happy to accept the contracting rate?

If you are a fixed term contractor, well I don't know much about these, but you need to talk to your manager and find out what they have planned for you. Is there a reason that the contractor was just renewed and you weren't offered a pernament position?

Sorry about the delay, I didn't get home from work yesterday till after ten.

To clear a few things up... I am an employee of a company so I have not benefitted from daily rates etc. I do work for a company on both daily rates and price work. I did not say that I had been slacking for 3 yrs, I said "after". This was partly due to me being very busy at home with other things and partly because I started to find out how much money my boss was making off my back. The company manager who deals with me had sounded me out as to whether I would be interested in a full-time position employed directly and I was of the impression that this was coming down the line but then someone from another department within the company(a subsidary than went bust) was re-deployed into the position I believe was for me. Since then there has been a freeze on recruitment. So I am still in a contract position but not getting as much work for that department and feeling nervous about my future.

I was feeling really down about it in my original post but I realise that there is not much I can do about it so I have applied for two positions over the weekend and feeling alot more positive

Good man - if you really wanted to be tied down as an employee, you would already have done it! Best of luck in your search.

E.

Con I know exactly I can relate. I was working in a very junior positon for over a year with a company but doing the work of a senior employee (not my words but feedback from managers). When the time came to move up, my managers requested to move me to a much more senior position but got no where and said I just needed to wait. In the meantime, they took somone on and expected me to train them and for them to take over from me (and as a result be cheaper) but alas it didn't work that way and THREE sucessive employees came and went. I think the biggest problem is complacency in these situations. A lot of bosses won't take into account how a situation like this can affect someone personally and take them for granted.

Good move. Now when/if you get that special new job offer , when you give notice,,, let the company know and see how much they will miss you when you are training their new guy . Perhaps they would make you a better offer which they previously denied you ? if not take the new job .

con,
i too can relate to this story,except i was the guy being trained and i knew the other guy was shafted back to a lesser role.
he admitted openly to me after 2 days that he didn't care and sisn't wnat to train me and i said grand and picked it up as i went along myself,he spent the months training walking around the plant chatting to mates.. in my opinion you are right to be de-motivated.turn off the phone once u leave the office and let the new guy gain the experience as hands on