How Not To Care For Contract Employees

The way some companies treat their contractors amazes me.

A friend of mine was recently terminated from a company with whom she'd been working as a contract employee for almost ten years.

No warning. No text message. No e-mail. No “thank you very much for your services”. They simply locked her out of the system.

She only discovered that she'd been terminated when she tried to log in to her on-line account and received a message that her account was unavailable. When she called the help desk to report the problem, she was informed that she had been terminated for “falsifying company records”.

Seems the issue had "...been reviewed by QA and their decision is final." As the help desk employee put it, she "...can protest, but once QA approves it, no on is ever reinstated."

There are two problems with this scenario: first, she didn't do anything. She's never falsified a document in her life.

Second, she's been given no information about the documents she is accused of falsifying and she has been given no opportunity to defend herself. The help desk has refused to forward her to anyone in the company who could tell her about the charges...and the company's website has virtually no other contact information except the help desk number.

So now she's out. No notice; no warning; and no way to defend her reputation.

She doesn't know if she's going to be paid for the work she's done in the last few weeks. She's lost a ten-year business reference. She doesn't know how she's going to replace the income this work was bringing in. And as for the customers with whom she's built solid working relationships...who knows what they'll be told?

And understand that she was not a "trouble employee"; she has been an exemplary contractor. During the nearly 10 years she's been working for the company, she's had an exemplary performance record. She's been commended by a number of customers she's worked with and the company has regularly called on her to fix problems other contractors have caused – the last time being as recent as last month.

She has, in fact, done so well for them that she's often paid a premium to do quick turn-around jobs and other customer critical jobs.

Of course I'm sure her higher pay rate doesn't anything to do with this!

Needless to say, my friend is quite upset. And also, needless to say, I'm helping her draft a letter asking for review and demanding the libelous statements be removed from their files. I suspect we'll be making veiled references to lawyers, contacting customers and taking other appropriate action to restore her good name.

This practice has grown more and more common as the pool of available labor has increased...and, I suspect, it will only become more commonplace as the economy worsens.

Makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with some companies.