Re: Cutting a contract short

Subject: Re: Cutting a contract short
From: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2006 08:11:35 -0700

There are three separate issues you need to address in this situation.

1. What are you obligated by contract to do? If you are working
W2 as an agency employee, you have no contract obligations
with regard to notice that can be enforced in most states (but
check yours). If you are 1099 and carrying your own contract,
you are a vendor and different rules apply. Depending on the
terms of your contract, you can be required to give a specific
notice (30 days seems to be the most frequent), or you may
be subject to legal consequences in the form of penalties the
can pursue in court.

2. What are the potential effects on your future prospects? You
may be working in multiple fields or in a field where there is
little or no contact between different companies. Or you may
be working in a small, close-knit field where any prospective
employer or client can bypass the HR or Purchasing depts of
any company on your resume by picking up a phone and calling
a golfing buddy. Do you have lots of other references (not
necessarily local) you can fall back on in the event this company
and agency become ugly on you?

3. What will the effect be on your personal self-image? Can you
say, "they'd walk me out the door today if they needed to shave
a few thousand off this quarter's bottom line, I'm looking out
for my interests," and walk away? Or will you spend the next
five years fretting over having "failed to keep a commitment,"
and break into a nervous sweat whenever you need to look a
prospective employer/client in the eye and say that you can be
relied upon to finish what you start?

You can obtain legal guidance for #1, but for #2 and #3 you're
pretty much on your own. I can't even tell you which of these
you should consider the most important.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- From: "Administrator" <admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com>

I'm currently in the middle of a 6-month contract that I'm considering cutting short to look for another opportunity. There are several factors involved, such as a relatively low current pay scale, the fact that my current position involves very little writing (maybe a few days worth out of the whole 6 months and that's pretty much done), and that the contract is expected to end shortly before Christmas, a rough time to be out beating the streets for a new contract. I'll mention that I was told up front there is a fair chance my contract might be extended, but there's certainly no guarantee of that and even then most of the negatives I mentioned will still hold true.

I'm concerned over how many and how badly I'll burn bridges if I do leave. There's the agency I'm working through. I haven't worked with them before, but I'm fairly new to this area and am worried about burning relationships. And of course I'll annoy the company I'm currently working with since they have another non-writing task that they'd like to stick with for the next few months while they prepare to roll out a product.

Can anyone offer any wise words of counsel?

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