How do I get them not to hire me without getting them to fire me?

• I want to withdraw from consideration for a new full-time position at the company I'm temping at. How do I initiate that conversation? If the leader at this company asks why I want to stay on as a temp instead of taking a full-time position what do I say that will not burn bridges when the actual answer is "You're a bad boss and you should feel bad"? I'm working as a sort-of temp, sort-of freelancer on site for this company. It's a 1099 situation (in the US that's an independent contractor agreement) but it's functionally a temporary employee situation. (This is not a question about how the IRS defines such things, I know what their criteria are and I know that from the IRS's perspective I'm actually an employee.) The company is creating a full-time job which is essentially three jobs rolled into one, because the scale of their operation is not large enough to warrant three full-time positions for the separate jobs. The temp/freelance work is doing what would be the most entry-level component of the full-time job they are creating. They need me more than I need them. The idea of showing up and logging a bunch of hours is pretty attractive, but if it doesn't work out I'll be OK. The company is using these temp/freelance engagements to evaluate candidates for the full-time job. I was told explicitly that if I didn't end up with the full-time position for any reason (my choice or theirs) they would still be able to engage me on the freelance side to help clear their backlog of work. They have not been providing tasks that deal with any but the entry-level aspect of this job. They've already burned through a bunch of people whom they have ruled out, and they are now under a lot of pressure to fill the position. They are, to invoke the immortal words of Adam Ant, desperate but not serious. After being there for a few weeks I have determined that their workplace culture is not healthy and that I would be miserable working there full-time. Their executive decision-making is sabotaging their ability to hire for the new job, and in my opinion they have a culture where the person who takes the full-time gig is virtually guaranteed to fail. I could just keep doing what I'm doing and then say "no thanks" if they offer me the job, but they are now asking me and the other temp/freelancer (who I guess I'm supposed to be competing against for this job) to do consulting-level work to define their SOPs, protocols and workflows for the nascent department. These tasks are actually defined in the new job description as duties belonging to that job. I think it's a very poor way to handle things, but that's not really relevant. It might be a test as part of their evaluation, or it might just be another manifestation of the bass-ackward way they do things around there. In any case, I don't want to participate in that part of things because a) I don't want the full-time job, b) it's not an effective way to do what they want to do and c) my rate for such consulting would be three times what I'm making as a temp-lancer doing the entry-level work. So I want to gracefully but explicitly take myself out of consideration for the full-time job without destroying the possibility of continuing to work as a freelancer. 1. How should I tell them to stop considering me for the new job? Do I take the exec aside and just tell her? 2. What do I do if she asks me why? I can't really be honest because the answer is "You're a bad decision maker who is making your own problem worse instead of better, you behave inappropriately and your work culture is sick, but I think I could tolerate being a grunt here for a while." What can I say if asked that will not sound like total BS, but will not burn the bridges I want to use to get to work?

• Answer:

  I would wait for them to make an overt move before telling them no thanks, using a script like those above. As for the consultant-level work, I would tell them my rate for work like that is higher than the entry-level work. If you really don't want to do it, make it much higher.