I'm wondering whether or not I've done the right thing as a contractor. Basically I'm in to my 3rd month, and my current client messed up the payment in the first month, and I just found out that they are again late in paying me for my 2nd month.
It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't in a bit of a financial situation due to this being my first contract experience. But as a matter of principal, I walked out on them and will be telling them that I will not be going back in until they resolve the pay.
Part of me feels as though this was not a very professional thing to do, but I also don't feel that it was very professional for them to mess my payments up, twice in a row.
Did I make the right decision? I still want to work for these guys and enjoy the job, but I have a life to attend to that requires finances and I can't afford to keep getting messed up with pay like this.
I attempted to phrase the question to be oriented around contractors behaviour around clients that mis-treat them, and as some of the answers that have been posted so far, it's a good discussion. The answers coming in are great around different subjective situations.
Update:
In answer to some of the responses, the set-up is Me -> Umbrella Company -> Client. I am an employee of the Umbrella Company who's terms are that I do not get paid unless the client paid up. Thus, when I found out that the client was going to be late paying the Umbrella company, I was quite upset.
Also, I do believe that in THIS instance, it was a bad move to have simply walked out. The most professional way to handle it would have been to have made my issues known to my immediate manager and then let him resolve it, instead, his boss and others found out way before him and he was left with crap to deal with, with no chance of handling it before it got out of control.
If I was still unhappy with their solution, then I could of told the Umbrella Company that I wasn't happy and was prepared to walk out, which then they could of advised me in a more professional way what my options were. Later which I found out, there were lots of other more professional ways of handling this. However, I've not contracted for long and had a very emotional response to the situation that I've not been in before. I'm positive that a more professional and mature response would have been anything but simply walking out, creating a difficult situation for my boss and now other people in the company and myself.
Absolutely great answers so far. Thank you all for your experienced advice.