While working as a third-party consultant admittedly offers very little in the way of job security, I get more entertainment than I probably should out of playing dumb when some pencil-pushing middle manager forgets that I’m not an employee and tries to badger me into working unpaid overtime.
They’ll be banging on about how they’re going to need me to come in on odd days or odd hours to put this or that deadline back on track, and I’ll be like “fantastic – I will definitely do that, just as soon as you provide written authorisation for the extension to the contracted hours”.
Of course, what they mean is that they want me to work the hours and not invoice for them, but they can’t actually say that, and I’m sitting there absolutely refusing to take the hint. Just putting on my best customer service smile and super poiltely explaining the proper procedure for authorising contract overages like I think they forgot.
The dawning horror as they realise they’re going to have produce a written commitment to actually pay me if they want to escape from this conversation with their dignity intact honestly warms my heart. You ever see a grown man backtrack so fast he starts stammering like Porky Pig? I have.
