This is long-winded, but it's been a strange day and I wanted to get your opinion on this.
So if you read my post entitled, Hi Ho, Hi Ho, you know I recently was offered a nice contract - about a year's worth of work (renewing the contract every 3 months) at $50/hr. It was a 1099 job, which I'm not a fan of. Wait, here's a little background...
I had two contracts that I was interviewing for - the one mentioned above for, let's call it "Job A" and a W-2 job that pays $57/hr at "Job B". Job B is closer, and I like the W-2. Well, last Friday, 2 days after interviewing at Job B and 4 days after I interviewed at Job A, I get an offer for Job A. Still primarily preferring Job B, I tried to get in touch with my agent for Job B. I left a msg in the morning and one in the afternoon. No response.
So, having been out of work for about 3 months now, I had to assume Job B wasn't going to happen and I needed to take Job A. Fine, no prob, it's still a good job. The Job A agent says he will send me the contract via email on Saturday. Saturday comes and goes, no email with the contract. Sunday and Monday roll by...still no contract. The agent for Job B calls me up to apologize for not getting back to me sooner, but he was out sick on Friday. Well, I told him I wish it hadn't worked out this way, but I gotta do what's best for my family. He was cool about it.
I call Job A agent this morning, Tuesday, and asked him what's the hold up regarding my contract. He says that one of his people was supposed to send it. He says he will send it out immediately and asked me for my email address again (which boggles my mind as he should already have that info). So I go out to run some errands for Thanksgiving and come back home 2 hours later. Still no email with a contract.
There is, however, an email from the Job B agent saying that Job B client wants to hire me. He understands I was going to go with Job A, but wanted to let me know. So I call him and let him know what's going on with Job A and how there is still no sign of a contract. I told him I'm going to call the Job A agent again and find out what's up and let him know I have this other offer on the table.
So I call Job A agent a second time today, but get only voice mail. I think the guy is a broker and works out of his house. Anyhoo, I tell him I have this other offer now and he really needs to get back to me and explain the hold up on the contract.
Then, the Job B agent has his supervisor who calls me to say they will bend over backward to get me an offer/contract letter emailed to me asap if Job A doesn't work out. At this point, I'm getting pretty frustrated with Job A so I said to the Job B superviser, you know what, I'll accept your offer. It's a better situation all round and I know they are a reputable agency. She gets the ball rolling and in 5 minutes, while I'm still on the phone with her, I have the contract printed out from Job B's agency's email to me.
So I call back Job A again, and again, I get his voice mail. I left him another msg, which pretty much says that since I haven't seen a contract that was supposed to be here last Saturday and weighing the pros of the other opportunity, I was just going to go with the other opportunity. I told him I wish I wasn't in this situation, but since he dropped the ball on not getting the contract to me, I felt I had little choice.
Now, I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt, but if you don't have your shit together or there is a legitimate reason for a delay, you should being doing your best to keep me updated or get the contract to me immediately. I hate having to reneg on a verbal agreement, as it goes against my ethics, but considering my situation, I think I did what was best for me and my family.
What do you all think, aside from this being a long-*** post?