My DH has his own limited company selling his technical skills in one way or another. Occasionally he works direct for a firm and other times he works through an agency.
He had work lined up this weekend via an agency. He contacted them yesterday to get the start details for tomorrow and they informed him that actually he was not required. This has been booked for a month or so and as a result, because he works for himself, he won't get paid. So, yesterday he gets on the phone looking for work for this weekend. Today the agency that let him down said they had managed to get something else. DH said he would get back to them. Earlier in the day another firm said they may have some work so DH was waiting for them to come back as he had only spoken with them an hour or so before. Anyway the other company come back to DH and offer him the same work as the original agency did. DH advised that he would stick with the original agency for this weekends work as it ties into work he will be doing over the christmas week.
SO, (and this is MY beef!) he rings the original agency to advise he will be working through them this weekend and the lassie on the end of the phone tore a REAL strip off DH for "making her look like an idiot" because he had been talking to another company. I got angry with DH for allowing her to speak to him like that and that he is a Director of his own company and will decide where/which company HE wants to do business with.
So, temper aside, what is normal protocal in situations like this? Dh has his own firm and decides where and who he does business with. The agency never advised him that the job had been cancelled in the first place which meant none of this would have happened if they had not cocked up. By cocked up I mean booking DH onto a job then cancelling it without telling him. He is not employed by them and he invoices them for work done so WHY did she get so nasty on the phone to DH when she found out on the grapevine that DH had spoken to other firms trying to find work this weekend??
If anyone had spoken to DH like that in my physical presence I would have taken them to task. I also run my own company and would never DREAM of talking to somebody the way she spoke to DH, whether I had an issue with them or not!