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I should probably feel bad about this but I don’t. I work through SRG (Strategic Resources Group) and while they are generally everything that agents usually are, they got even worse about 3 months ago. I travel a lot, and I get hefty costs which are reimbursed. I was in Tanzania 7 times this year and paid my own flights and hotel bills. It is vital that I get paid promptly as I lay out so much. I am also renovating my house, which is not cheap.
I used to use a great umbrella company (ICC / Connexion Europe) who were put on SRG’s black list for failing to submit their accounts in time, so SRG forced me to change umbrellas. There was a fight, as I hate to be pushed around, but eventually, on the 10th July, I accepted that I had to change, and signed a contract with the new company, whom I won’t name as I don’t really know them yet.
This meant that I had to have a contract with the new umbrella, which I signed on the 10th July, and they needed two contracts with SRG; one to cover my tax-free stint in Tanzania and one for my new job in Paris. I phoned, emailed, phoned and emailed every day and still I didn’t get paid for July, then August passed and I still hadn’t been paid though I had laid out over 10,000 Euros in expenses and about the same amount on work on my new house. Eventually I hadn’t heard a peep from my personal agent for 4 weeks and had payments totalling close to 40,000 outstanding while my bank account was down to a few thousand, so I got angry. It has always, since school, been my policy to hit back at someone who hits me. I sometimes got beaten up, but never twice by the same person. I still do this; fork with me and I will fork back, harder if possible.
So I tried one more time to contact my agent (three phone calls and three emails in the same day) and then I forwarded the whole of our correspondence and the phone logs I started keeping after about 2 weeks of inaction, to his boss, with a cover note of consummate rudeness. I asked why he hired staff whose key competencies didn’t include competence, I asked how hard it was going to be to break my company’s contract with them (SRG) (which would cost them dear) after leaving me barely able to travel to Paris to begin work there, and I demanded action.
The next day I received notice of payment for the month of July, excluding the 7 days I worked before the 10th, and excluding my expenses. About a quarter of what was due.
This time I went ballistic. I ranted at the head of professional services at SRG, threatened them with legal action, which I am still pursuing, and told them that I was going to blacken their name every chance I got, and try to break my contract with them.
Yesterday I heard, from two separate sources, that my agent had been fired. I had a phone call from my new agent, a nice guy called Justin, telling me that they had paid all outstanding money to my umbrella and authorised payment ahead of receipt. Suddenly I am back in the black, and my old agent is out on his arse.
Good! He was inept and caused me no end of grief. I feel no remorse, though I know I probably should, in this economic climate.
Beware the wrath of Brucelles.
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Originally Posted by Ephesians
