A reminder that the rules still apply

When I was recruited for this project, I was told it would be 50 hours a week. Ten hours of overtime is pretty good these days, so I was happy to take it. Imagine my surprise when, during the orientation session with the head legal assistant working on the case for the firm, we were told that there was no overtime, there had been no overtime since the project started in May (we were being added to the existing project) and there were no plans to add overtime before the project ended.

This led to a dilemma. Should I bitch to the agency and accuse them of lying? Should I simply quit, refusing to accept the lie? Or should I just take the project and pretend I had not been lied to?

The other guy being added to the project that day took Door No. 2: he quit immediately. Ballsy, but not necessarily smart given the state of the market (slow), the time of year (slow even in good times), and the likelihood of being put on that agency's Do Not Hire list.

I have the good fortune (I guess that's how to describe it) of having a very good and long-standing relationship with the guy who is in charge of this agency's DC office. So I took Door No. 1 and sent him this email (edited to protect the guilty):

First of all, this has nothing to do with you, since I know you are not down in the weeds on this shit. That said, the problem here is not that [the law firm] is running at 40 hours -- that's what they generally do, although not always. The problem is that this is a project that has been going since May, at 40 hours/week, and [the staffing asswipe] told me last week when seeing if I wanted to be submitted and again this week when I double-checked with him that this was a 50-hour project. Apparently, [another staffing asswipe] told the other add-on guy the same thing, but only once. And yeah, I have the email where [the first staffing asswipe] confirmed the hours. So the problem is this. While [your agency] may have been told back in May that this was a 50-hour project, it was not. Since Day 1, the folks on this project have worked 40 hours a week. [The second staffing asswipe] and/or [the first staffing asswipe] (or both) have reviewed the timesheets for this project since that point and are well aware that this has been a 40-hour project from day one. Telling me that this is a 50-hour project because that is what [the law firm] originally said is not, in the face of the fact that for five months it has been a 40-hour project, anything other than a bald-faced lie. It is intentional and, in my opinion, malicious. I would not have taken this project with actual knowledge of the hours. I don't like it over there and, frankly, the subject matter bores the shit out of me. I am extremely unhappy and will leave this project at the first opportunity, 40-hour or otherwise. This has nothing to do with me and you; this has everything to do with what your underlings tell contractors. I understand that the staffers can only pass on what they know. In May, they weren't lying when they said it was a 50-hour project, because what [the law firm] said was all they had to go on. On Tuesday, they were lying.

So the way things stand is, I am on a 40-hour project that is probably no worse than most 40-hour projects except for the fact that I thought it would be 50 hours. So that might be coloring my thinking just a touch. Also, I hope that a couple staffing asswipes got at least a little bit of an ass-chewing. I can dream, right? The last and most important lesson, of course, is that I am reminded of rules to live by, and what I have long since decided is Rule No. 1: Remember, they're lying.

Bonus question: Will staffing asswipes object to being called staffing asswipes, even when it is done anonymously?