u/mannbarry2

Oh I very rarely participate in these groups anymore. I'm a male, 54, and I went to rehab in Luton in the UK. I was there for 6 weeks. I was tapered off during that time.

When I went in I was in a terrible mess and I wound up on about 45 to 80 mg of Valium daily, with alcohol, codeine, and all sorts. It had started 2 to 3 years before in earnest and I did not understand the basic addiction concept of tolerance. Essentially it's amazing how addiction does that to you. It's a disease for you, thinking what you believe.

I honestly believe that the Mexican benzos I was taking were weak and not of great quality. I didn't see the tolerance bit coming. I'd been on and off of them for years and years.

Anyhow I'm now 3 years off and I'm doing just fine. The first 6 months were absolutely horrendous. I was unable to work, shaking uncontrollably, and couldn't see the cursor on my computer at work. I went back and toughed it out but it does take a very long time. Everyone in my peer group on the Valium healed. I would say for me, Narcotics Anonymous was the foundation as I got to grips with why I like to get fucked up and avoid things. And I believe I have a framework to manage my feelings. I used to go to meetings all the time, although I haven't done that lately. Don't feel the need to. Work-wise I'm thriving. It's amazing how much productivity you get back.

Finally I like to give you a giant warning about the hardest bit of it all: the forums and the internet. For me there was a guy called David Powers who wrote a book about it and his experience was invaluable. It's very, very easy to terrify yourself by reading internet groups and this actually stops and delays your healing. Most people leave these forums never to be seen again. A few people do hang around but I think they had issues before and they're very much outliers.

Hi

My account has come through , but my clients are all Scottish. No Geo ability.

Seems primitive.

https://preview.redd.it/hugef5ddtsfh1.png?width=1908&format=png&auto=webp&s=5afbcb219d285bacfd7a6566700157a1bccd2507

Yesterday I managed to beat my record and I had 11 incoming calls about a job with Infosys in London, the end client is Adobe

The pattern is always the same. They call me from some rented SIP telephony number. I say no, I'm not looking and then in a few minutes I get another call from this other person at the same agency.

The pattern repeated throughout the day and via LinkedIn messages

Whilst it's obviously flattering to be in demand, it's clear that what is happening is that they have no contact management software. The standard of spoken English is extremely poor.

They cannot pronounce Adobe , saying 'Adob'

We can put up with all that but what I can't tolerate is the rooms. They don't know where the office is. One said it's travelled to Edinburgh and London and they seem to know very little about the job itself.

Why you get blitzed by 5 recruiters the second a role goes live — and what "RTR" actually is

TL;DR: When a contract role hits a big company's system, dozens of agencies get the same requisition at once. They're not selling you a job — they're racing to lock your "Right to Represent" before a rival, because the first submission wins the fee and a duplicate gets you binned. Return-to-office is now forcing this machine onto UK onsite roles, which is annoying — but it's also quietly great news if you're a UK-based specialist.

I contract in the Adobe / AEP world. Here's a pattern I'll bet a lot of you recognise:

A role goes live on a client's portal. Within a day — sometimes within the hour — my phone melts. Five calls. Three from the same agency, each recruiter apparently unaware the other two just rang. Half the numbers are VoIP lines registered to oddly specific middle-of-nowhere places (I got one from a village in the far north of Scotland that's basically a nuclear site and a car park). Then a flurry of "RTR" emails. Then… the role often just vanishes.

It looks like chaos. It isn't. It's a machine, and once you see it you can't unsee it.

1. The job isn't where you think it is

Big employers don't hire contractors one agency at a time. The role drops into a VMS (vendor management system), and a whole tier of sub-vendors gets the identical req simultaneously. Ten-plus agencies can be chasing the same seat. You're not one of a handful of applicants — you're a contested asset in a feeding frenzy.

2. They're not racing for you — they're racing for the fee

This is what Right to Represent actually is

The VMS runs on first-submission-wins. The first agency to get your signed RTR and put you into the system owns the claim to the placement fee. And if two agencies submit you for the same role, most big clients disqualify you outright — sometimes from other roles too. So the whole game is: lock your signature before a competitor, fast, often before you've even been told who the client is. The urgency isn't enthusiasm. It's a landgrab.

3. Why three people from the same firm call

Inside these high-volume shops, individual recruiters (or whole desks) are paid on commission and compete with each other. There's frequently no shared CRM, or no incentive to use one. So you get blitzed by colleagues who are, functionally, rivals. It's not disorganisation they're going to fix — in this model, volume beats coordination.

4. Why the role then disappears

A big chunk of these reqs are speculative, already filled, or the agency was tier-3 in the chain and never had a realistic shot. They grab your CV and RTR "just in case," and when it goes nowhere it evaporates. Sometimes you were just market-mapping fodder.

5. The weird phone numbers

Cheap cloud telephony hands out blocks of UK geographic numbers, plugged into auto-diallers. Nobody chose Thurso. The system assigned a DID and the recruiter has no clue where it points. Don't look for meaning in the area code — there isn't any.

6. So why is this suddenly all over UK onsite roles?

Return to office. Over the last year or two, hybrid has settled at roughly 2–3 days in the building, and enforcement has tightened — UK office attendance is now at its highest since before the pandemic. That broke a delivery model. A role that used to be staffed fully offshore (or with one roaming onshore lead) now comes with "must be onsite Tue/Thu." You can't do "in London twice a week" from offshore. So suppliers suddenly need a UK-resident specialist right now — and they point the same bench-sales machine they normally use for remote work at the local pond. The noise you're hearing is an offshore-optimised process being bolted, clumsily, onto roles that need a warm body in a UK office.

7. The bit nobody says out loud: this is good for you

If you're UK-based and can be onsite, RTO is a moat, not a threat. The moment a client insists on bodies in the building, the work can't be fully offshored — and a local specialist who'll actually turn up becomes the scarce, expensive thing. The frenzy on your phone is the sound of that scarcity. Their frustration is your leverage.

How to handle the RTR scrum without getting locked out

Make them name the end client before you sign anything. "Sign first, client later" is a hard no.

Only sign a position-specific RTR — one named role, one named client. Never a broad "any AEP role for 6 months" version; that can fence you out of the market behind a phantom req.

One role = one agency. Don't let two submit you for the same seat, or you'll be the one disqualified.

Ask four questions: who's the client, what's the rate, how long does the RTR last, what ends it. A real recruiter answers all four without flinching.

Next time your phone goes off the hook four minutes after a role posts, you'll know exactly what you're looking at. It's not interest. It's a race — and you're the baton.