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Microsoft Caste System
Ericka writes "Computer Source Magazine recently published an article on Microsoft's treatment of its contractors. According to some temps, the work environment for these folks has taken a downturn since the resolution of the permatemp suit."
They just have low karma...
"Our caste system isn't a problem, its a feature." Okay, sorry I had to go for the obvious.
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
is it any real surprise that microsoft has stepped up measures to keep their permatemp structure while mitigating lawsuits? since the monopoly trial, they don't innovate any more than they did before; they simply hire better lawyers (and judges) -- for the season.
I thought C# was supposed to do away with a lot of casting in everyday programming. oh FUCK
When I did some contract work at Microsoft a few years ago, I was a v- prefix (a vee dasher). The article suggests that a- was a temp worker. I've seen a-, t- and v- prefixes. Any blue badgers out there that can clarify the prefixes?
- Ois
PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
They aren't invited to company parties.
This has gone too far! The humanity! Surely the person-to-cake ratio would be sufficient with them included!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I spent some time as a contractor at Mastercard. Poor treatment of contractors there is not only well-known, but encouraged. Hell, we weren't even allowed to park in the same parking lot as the employees. At least we got a shuttle bus. Deliver me unto my corporate master.
Once bitten twice shy--the contractor rules make sense. What doesn't make sense is why someone is a temp when they work a year, wait three months, wash and repeat a few times.
It is Microsoft's problem, and their responsibility to fix, and there is only one way. They need to hire more full time workers and not use temps in vital position. Otherwise the software quality will continue to be awful.
Mas'sa: Get back to your cubicle!
Subordinate: No!
Subordinate was eaten by a grue
Mas'sa: Anyone want to join him in his fate?
crickets chirping
Contract programmers get a considerably better rate and overtime pay... They also are a bit more secure as they have a signed contract for X hours, which is legally actionable if not met...
boohoo, they don't get other benefits, but that's just the tradeoff..
I think there were rules about not inviting them to employee parties, and I was told that we could not send a consultant a gift when he or she was hospitalized or had suffered a family tragedy.
Because of this, when one extremely worthy consultant lost a parent, her gift went on my personal credit card rather than a company card. My understanding was that one or another of the managers would do this in similar cases, in this case I was the volunteer. We handled gifts out of our own pockets because we felt the policy was crass, denying the civility that we should display as managers.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Many studies have shown that people subtly discriminate against members of an 'outgroup', even if the basis for group membership is something trivial
Thank you for your valuable insights, Professor Plaks. And now, Professor Schmidt will tell us why 25 year old males are attracted to women of their age group.
I have found a truly wonderful proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but unfortunately this sig is too small to contain it.
The article makes it sound like people are being forced to work for M$. If people don't like their work environment, either organize a union, file a lawsuit, or quit. Whining does nothing but make you sound like a whiner.
As a total aside...Having worked at HP, they had (have?) a policy of forcing contractors (who took home much more than full-timers per year) to take 3 months off after working there for 9 months, in order to avoid permatemp problems.
I'm a contractor. I don't get benefits from the company I'm working for and nor should I - I'm not its employee. I would expect it to treat employees better. Frankly, I can live without 'promotional swag'. I don't get invited to company parties? Well, guess what? The client company doesn't get invited to mine either...
As a contractor, I am the boss of my own company and I have an explicit business arrangement with the client. That's it. Doesn't go any further, shouldn't go any further. I have no interest in whether they give me blue, orange or sky-blue pink with polka dots security cards - their choice and privilege. Now sign this invoice here...
Cheers,
Ian
withholding full-time benefits and pay while working them like full-time employees
Check. I did a 9-5 like everyone else and was paid according to the contract. Which, if it was less than others, I was SOL.
Microsoft does not allow these workers to use employee discounts for products they help to design
Check. So? They're a temp, that perk it would appear if for perminant staff. I don't see a problem here.
They aren't invited to company parties. They don't get promotional swag.
Same again. I was never invited to parties nor did I get swag from anyone. Because I was a temp.
Contractors must wear orange name badges to contrast with the blue of full-time employees.
Check again. Been in places where security needs to identify you as either perminant, contract, intern or whatever.
a nickname borne from the "a-" that precedes any Microsoft temp's e-mail address.
They're lucky they got an email address. Often I wasn't even on the network.
Maybe the working laws are different in the US to the UK - but i've been through all the above and people here go through all the above on a daily basis without complaining.
I can't really see what they're complaining about.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I've been a consultant for years. This is par for the course. If you want company parties then the company you actually get paid from not the company your working at should provide such things. As a consultant, you're not part of that company where you're working. That's the definition of contract help. Why in the world would someone get upset because they're treating you as you are. I bet those some contractors get together sometimes and "make-fun" of those lame users @ xxxxx. Come on, being a contractor/consultant doesnt' guarantee you the best of everything. Its a trade off. Just like I recently traded off being a "high-paid" consultant for the stability of a lower paying "real" position inside one of my former clients.
This isn't news. This is every company. There hasn't been one place that I've worked at that didn't have a group of people that the others picked on. If there aren't any contractors, then it would be the mailroom dorks or something similar. A group of people will always find another group of people to piss on. It's just a microcosm.
This isn't just every company, this is every highschool. Get over it and find some real news to report.
This is all a corporate mindfuck, to the benefit of greedy capitalists. All people are equal, and should be treated as such.
Granted being a consultant for another firm in place on client site is different to being a contractor but there are similarities.
\I live in Switzerland, so this may not apply to you.\
I'm an IT security and unix consultant/contractor here. Aside from a few years before 2001, when massive numbers of low-skill kids decided to make a quick buck as contractors, consultants are held to a far higher standard than "permies". Much as I hate to say it, there's a sense of elitism among "real" contractors here--these are the hardcore tech guys whom you bring in when something is gefuckt beyond salvation by mere mortals.
N.b. that I don't count myself as a Superman like that, just lucky to be in the right places at the right time so far.
I've never contracted in the US, but I recall looking at contract sysadmin jobs during college, paying $17.50 US per hour. Most of my American contractor colleagues' conversations I overhear involve an ambition to go permie, and how shitty contracting is.
This surprises the hell out of me, as I think contractors/consultants here generate sort of a sense of "awe" (crappy word, but I can't think of anything better), as the outsider who comes in to do the _really_ hard stuff, among employees. This can develop into resentment if not handled carefully.
One of my project managers taught me a good lesson for consulting--never cease looking at a job as an "us-vs-them" situation. Deliver more than you promised ahead of schedule and raise the bar all around, but consider yourself as providing a good example. Stokely offers what I consider to be some excellent guidelines of how to go about this.
The idea of a 'caste' system, where the permies look down at contractors amuses me to no end.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
that's right, it's everIE 'man' for hisself from now on.
.comoddity these daze) is concerned, you probably won't need to priNT up a bunch of phonIE payper to benefit known felons, if you have some (integrity).
now, if you have garnered billyons in phonIE payper, lookout bullow, whether you holed or sail.
as far as credibility (the single most valuable
carry on, the greater creator is participating/holding court.
best to stay away from/get out of, the wall street of deceit cesspool asap anyway. tell 'em robbIE.
I used to work for Compaq in New Zealand and our software development group was in a similar position - we were long term temporary staff. Under our 1 year contracts we could not claim the benefits of being a contractor (lunch, travel, equipment expenses) nor did we receive the benefits of permanent staff like the pension plan, etc... They were forced to make us all permanent when the NZ govt outlawed this. Basically, most corporates behave this way - it's all about the Benjamins.
Before the lawsuit: MS is treating us like fulltime employees when we're not!
After the lawsuit: MS isn't treating us like fulltime employees anymore!
Seriously, you get a paycheck? Good. You do not have a right to anything beyond that. That's it. Don't like it? Seek a fulltime position or find work elsewhere.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
What doesn't make sense is why someone is a temp when they work a year, wait three months, wash and repeat a few times.
When you factor in the higher rates (and overtime) paid to contractors I think 3 months holiday a year is a pretty big benefit most perm-staff to love to endure/b>.
There is a similar situation in the UK, with contractors typically working only 9 months a year, and thereby gaining a massive saving in tax by being classed as self employed.
I'm certainly no fan of Microsoft but on this point they have my backing, in my experience 50% of contractors are worthless more interested in their wallets than technology.
In a previous life I worked at Dec^W Compaq ^W HP as a low end grunt, Moving/installing PC's etc For this I was a temp but found the atmosphere to be really nice. Now admitally at the time I was very green but even then I noticed that for the christmas party them temps got left behind. We then had our own party where we paid for a meal out. From the on in I realised there was a definite them/us where opinions didn't seem to matter so much and ideas not heard
Just my £0.02
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Of course they don't get the same benefits. Contractors are mercenaries who go from job to job working for whatever company will pay them the most. Most contractors I know boast about how much more they get paid than full-time employees.
If they want the same benefits as the rest of the full time staff then they should show some loyalty for once and ask for a full time contract. The pay may be lower but I least they can wear the same colour badge.
Silly...
Companies are required to make a distinction between contractors and full time employees. Even simple things like company-wide mailing lists are, in theory, supposed to be segregated between the two. When push comes to shove, the company has to be able to demonstrate that contractors are NOT full timers.
Microsoft got sued for not doing things like this. They were exploiting contractors by using them just like full time employees, but not giving the all of the benefits like insurance. _That_ was/is a slimey practice.
So now, they are required to conform with the letter and intent of the law, and it's a "caste system." You can't have it both ways.
The differentiation between full time and contract are there to PROTECT the contract employees.
Anyways, in this day, most people are just happy to have a job.
Just my $0.02.
-buf
They are the cogs in Microsoft's software machine
..., a policy center dedicated to temporary workers' rights. "It's very bad for morale.
Its not a machine...its an outhouse....lets keep that in mind as we read this article.
"They really screwed it for the rest of us," says Derek Miebers, a one-time temp who believes that the lawsuit claimants contributed toward an even more negative work environment for future Microsoft contingent staff.
well duh, they are microsoft, they have been screwing the world for 20 years, that little dump they took out in the outhouse that they packaged and called windows.
"They basically encourage a culture that devalues the contributions of these employees because of their status as contractors,"
look at their products, do you really want to be assoicated with that? One current contractor goes so far as to describe the deliberate distinctions between full timers and contractors as a sort of "caste system" with clear signifiers that show who belongs to the high Brahmin class and who are the outcasts.
One current contractor goes so far as to describe the deliberate distinctions between full timers and contractors as a sort of "caste system" with clear signifiers that show who belongs to the high Brahmin class and who are the outcasts. they have a castle system? and outcasts? oh jesus, no wonder windows blows so much, these people are so busy trying to become king of the castle that they dont have time to devlop software. Micrsoft management really needs to get a fucking life....wel, i suppose all they have is their status, after all, they certinally cant brag about their quality assurance, or custmer service. Hell, they cant even brag about their product without at least some snickiering.
if it were me, just working for microsoft would bring down my morale
I gotta be honest, i got a little over half way thru this article and just stopped reading it. It just gets more and more retarded. These people are suppose to be devloping software and all they are doing is sitting around flinging shit at each other like monkeys with cucumbers up their ass.
no wonder windows sucks so much, i doubt with the big struggle of the peseants they have any time to work on it.
They aren't full time Microsofties, simple....and if they are a contractor that feels they are getting taken advantage of by MS, then find another gig!
[SARCASM]Yeah, yeah I know that that the Seattle and its suburbs (Redmond,Bothell,Kirkland,etc.) are barren tech wastelands where you'll find disadvantaged programmers and techs running up your car at traffic lights saying
"hey man, need me to normalize your database? You got a few bucks for a man down on his luck?"
"Custom apps, and freeform poetry, I got all you need! Spare some change!?"[/SARCASM]
Sounds like the problem is that these contractors are....how does the saying go.....they are on Microsofts' DICK.....yes I believe thats it
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
I've been a contractor with Merrill Lynch in Jacksonville, FL for about two years now. We "consultants", as we're called, wear a badge with red and white verticle stripes behind us, to specifically identify us as contractors (regular employees have a blue background behind their picture). In addition, our badges state we're consultants. We don't get invited to company parties and we don't get the goods that the regular employees get. I'm not bitter over that and I don't see why the Microsoft contractors should be. A company party is for the company employees. If you want to go to company parties, get hired-on as a regular employee. After seeing what the regular employees have to put up with, I think I'll stay a contractor!
No matter where you go... there you are.
A proofreading contractor, Nicole Jones agrees with Smith that contracting has been a positive experience, "I really like the flexibility and the autonomy."
and then...
As one ostensibly satisfied temp put it, "I've had nothing but positive experiences. I like the flexibility and the autonomy. But that's not to say that I wouldn't like to be a blue badge."
I find it interesting that the two "satisfied temps" mentioned in the article used the exact same wording to describe their benefits. Is "say you like the flexibility and autonomy when people ask you why you work as a temp" in the Microsoft temp handbook?
...from the company that hires naive fools right out of college so they don't know how things work at normal companies. The company who wrings every last drop of productivity out of its employees, often leaving them burned-out husks of people who lose their desire to work in the industry. The company who frowns on marriages, families, or other non-Microsoft obligations having any sort of priority in their employees' lives.
And I certainly didn't see it coming from the company who treats its customers as an endless stream of revenue to be exploited at every turn because, "Hey, we're a monopoly and if you don't like it what are you gonna do, go buy a Mac? Have fun!"
And now you say they mistreat their temps? NO! I refuse to believe it!
I've occasionally considered working at Microsoft, but considering how they treat their contractors, screw that idea. :| That's nowhere near being a happy work environment.
how is babby formed?
Coming from a large SW Engineering corporation, this is EXACTLY the role of the contractor; they are considered highly skilled and are brought in because it would be too costly to grow that level of skill from within the ranks.
We don't pay for their vacation, we don't pay for their education. Boo Hoo. They have their own company to do that!
SO if the contractors at MICROSOFT are having such a bad time, why don't they apply for a job and become full time MSFT?!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
1. Put contractors in vital development roles
Seriously, I can think of a number of other companies that have similar caste systems, sometimes even within the hierarchy of permanent positions in the company. Unless I missed the graphic descriptions of inhuman torture and anal probing, I can think of several businesses that I've been told are much worse places to temp for.2. Treat all contractors like utter crap
3. Exclude contractors from having the most current and accurate information with respect to project specs, company standards, and their team's vision & progress by excluding them from important meetings
4. Depend heavily on the quality of the work the contractors do, including their code in the latest version of MS BugMaker 2003.
5. Whine about the mean lawyers and judges who make you play nice with the other kids
6. Charge an exorbitant per-seat license for each application that expires approximately 27 minutes and 3 seconds after registration, but includes a feature that automatically takes out a second mortgage on your home so that you're able to continue working
7. Profit!
Reading this article I couldn't help but think that MS is doing the same thing to contractor abuse that it did with DOS a couple of decades ago- they didn't actually invent the concept, but it's been lovingly adopted and taken in directions that only MS would dare to go. Where would you like to be screwed today?
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
...not being a big fan of Miscrsoft at all, this article is still stupid. I contracted for many years, and it is the same no matter where you go. Dell, Dynegy, IBM, even public universities. Basically, being a contractor has benefits and drawbacks. If you do not want the "pitfalls" of being a contractor, then do not be one. If you have the skills, someone will hire you fulltime at a salary comensurate with the economy. If you do no have the skills to be hired full time, then work as a contractor. Or maybe, do it because you like the freedom of not being a fulltime employee. In either event, it is not the companies fault. They are not required to give you gainful employment in what ever form you want it in, if at all.
----- "It's all fun and games 'til somebody puts an eye out, then it's just funny."
It's truly unfortunate that the Microsoft employees started this "caste" system. While the corporate management could do more to eliminate this nonsense, the truth of the matter is that the Microsoft employees are mostly responsible.
You only need to look at the moniker "dash trash" to see how a full-time Microsoft employee feels about a contractor. But why should this surprise anyone, Microsoft is one of the most arrogant and self-righteous companies on the face of the planet (superceding SGI at its peak).
What's truly unfortunate is that Microsoft employees employ this "caste" system, yet they are largely a benefactor of contractors themselves. It's well established that Microsoft likes to compensate employees with Microsoft money (stocks, stock options). You do not need to be a Wall Street analyst to know that the biggest attraction of using contractors is reduced employee costs, which translates into more profit and better stock prices.
Of course, the full-time Microsoft employees know this. They know *everything*.
From the article:
"This," West says, "makes the company look like it is performing better than it actually is. It gives people a false sense of what's going on in the organization."
When times are bad, Microsoft can lay off hundreds of contingent workers without a word to the analysts or to shareholders.
See this also, about the practice of firing every consultant after one year, then hiring them after 100 days of unemployment:
"Those who work neither as blue- nor orange-badges may wonder why they should care about Microsoft's practices. The answer is that from day 366 to day 466, Microsoft temps still get paid. Only the check is written not by Bill Gates, but by the State of Washington. [unemployment benefits from the state]
As our state government faces budget crisis after budget crisis, there are legions of temporary workers that regularly go on the dole because their assignments have ended. Whether a Microsoft employee or not, every Washington resident pays for the company's unwillingness to put these people on its payroll.
speaking as a contractor you get what you negotiate, negotiatate some perks for yourself.
learn to negotiate well, you won't do badly for it. If you don't like it don't take the contract.
If they try to renegotiate after the first contract, don't be afraid to walk away if you don't like what they want you to do.
Just ask a janitor, a secretary, or a hundred other menial jobs what it feels like, to be thought of being lower. Its why we now have custodial engineers and administrative assistants. New titles but the pay still sucks.
How about the systems administrators like myself that have only an associates but know and learn ten times more than some with bachelors, especially bean counting accountants. Whine and bitch. If life were fair we would be paid for the jobs we do. Then the custodians and assistants would be making the big money for taking care of all the crap.
Look I've been a contractor for awhile with a very large company and let me give you a little bit of insight into the reality of this situation. Before the permatemp suit with MS, contractors everywhere who worked for big companies had it A LOT better than they do now. When I first started at my current position, there wasn't anybody worrying about the 365 day limit or whether or not they should invite a contractor to a company party.
When this suit went through - everything changed. 365 day employment limits came down like clamps and contractors became somewhat more alienated in the grand scheme of things. In the long run this doesn't bother me as I believe the pros of contracting still far outweigh the cons. Not to mention the fact that there are several loopholes which can be employed to keep contractors longer than a year (which incidently are currently keeping me employed here since I've been here close to 3 years).
Does this situation bother me? Not too much. Does the linked article bother me? Damn straight it does. These contractors that work for MS really have nobody to blame but themselves for the current set of restrictions they work under. Frankly I'm amazed that these people complained in the first place. As a contractor you are typically paid by the hour rather than salaried. This means that (A) you either work less than your fulltime coworkers or (B) are better compensated for your time spent at work or even (C) both. What truly boggles the mind is that these people sounded like they were getting some fulltime benefits such as product discounts, party invites, and a few other things. So I have to ask, what was the problem? The answer of course is that they got greedy.
Personally I have absolutely no urge to work fulltime for anybody again. Clamor on all you want about better benefits and other intangibles that come with being a fulltime slave but keep this in mind: A lot of contracting agencies provide a full benefits package (i.e. Mine) along with paying the actual employee more money and they still somehow manage to do this cheaper than their customers are able to. And to top it all off, in all of my three years in my current position I've only worked over 40 hours a week once. That leaves a lot of time for recreational and social activities that I otherwise would have to forego.
Bottom Line: The MS contractors made it worse for everybody else so I have nothing to say beyond "fuck you" when I hear them complaining about what has sprung from the seeds they have sown. I know a lot of you will view this story as an opportunity to bash MS but keep in mind that everything was fine and dandy right up until the contractors got a little too greedy for their own good.
J
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
...But who cares?
So a load of nasty evil-empire staff are being nasty to a load of contract evil-empire staff.
Who cares? Not me.
Maybe contracters are seen as second class because they have not yet given their souls to the dark master.
Contractors get about the same rap at Intel..
The only thing different is we have a green badge instead of orange..
When the president came to talk.. We didn't get invited.
Team building.. Hey where did all the blues go??
You had to be blue to use the on-site exersize room. Naturaly they held the blood drive in there so only blue badges could donate blood. I guess our blood just wasn't blue enough for them eh?
Contractors had to swipe in every time they left the building.. Blue could come and go without stopping.
Even with all that it was a great place to work.. It still made you feel like a 2nd class worker though.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
To quote from the the article "When times are bad, Microsoft can lay off hundreds of contingent workers without a word to the analysts or to shareholders. It's a common practice that most contractors know and fear.".
There you have it, this is the corporate culture at Microsoft.
Every single day i find a new reason to dislike that company.
As someone who has been interviewed by a journalist for a similar article (taken completely out of context by the New York Times, no less), I think I detect some serious fudging here.
When a reporter goes to get "the story," they start with something either they THINK they can make a big hit with, or take some cruddy assignment and try to take off with it. They interview some people "in the thick" of the issue, and get some "expert" opinions.
This particular article seems to be a re-hash of some old '90s era brou-ha-ha about FTEs vs. Contractors at Microsoft. And it starts out with "you thought you knew the whole story. But we have MORE horrifying, panic inducing rumor and speculation to throw at you now!"
They then spin sound bites from their interviews to argue their angle for the story. And barring that, take a couple of really positive sound bites, like Jannell Myers did in this article, followed by "but others would tend to disagree!" Follow with the thrust of your angle, without any supporting opinions or evidence.
Throw in the testimony of a psychiatrist who basically says "yeah, people outside of a clique often feel left out; and the people in the clique make fun of them."
To flesh it all out, we go for the "public outrage" angle. We get the implication that all of these poor defenseless contractors go on unemployment when they leave Microsoft, and Microsoft is placing undue liability on Joe Taxpayer by their naughty employment practices!
Honestly, this is one of the most transparent pieces of dispassionate journalism I have seen in months. If I were teaching Journalism 101, Jannell Myers gets an "F-."
...is that most articles (ok, Dilbert) say that there is no better employee incentive than more money. Now this article says that higher paid contractors want stupid presents instead.
Some people are never happy. It's a simple enough equation:
Permanent: Shit pay, with benefits.
Contract: Good pay, and sort out your own benefits.
Of course, if you are a temp who is earning shit money, then that's your own fault.
Find funky gifts
mbbac
The above posting is by an impostor, not the real anonymous coward. I am anonymous coward. Beware of imitators.
First of all... I am a blue badge. And anything I say is MY point of view.
But... I was a contracter in a previous life... and I worked for a company who outsourced me to other companies. My benefits came from the company I worked for... not the client companies.
Secondly, the hours I worked were defined by my contract that bound me to my employer... not the client ocmpany.
Thirdly, the unemployement benefits are NOT funded by the government as the article states. Companies pay into a fund that is used to pay these employees who are out of work. It's like an insurance fund, but it's required. Now... it is also up to the contractors employer to keep them busy... they know exactly when they will be let go by MS so it's not like it's a suprise or anything. If the contractors employer decides to lay them off, then it goes against their (not Microsoft's) unemployment account.
Oh... and finally, the v- or a- or t- simply means that someone is a vendor, admin or intern. I've never heard the term "Dash Trash" in all my years at MS.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
As mistreatment of constructors, and was looking forward to read about C++?
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Look, if you're signing up for a 1-year contract with Microsoft, you're not doing it to be part of the "Microsoft community," you're doing it because you need a contract job. This policy probably helps in that it weeds out those who wish they had a permanent job at Microsoft but couldn't get one and attracts only those who "know what the deal is" when it comes to contracting.
The contractors win out because if they're really as useful to Microsoft as full-time employees, MSoft will be forced to hire them full-time, because otherwise Microsoft will have to do without the employee for 100 days out of every year.
Company must hire to meet work demand in a fluctuating economy. Government regulates pay and benefits to full-time employees to make them very expensive. Company reacts by hiring more part-timers and temps.
Government regulates temps to try to force companies to hire more full-time workers. Company pushes temps to the margins. Full-time workers given busier workload and longer hours.
Arguably the company may eventually hire more full time workers, but at the expense of a lot of decent part-time and temp jobs.
See where this is going folks?
I remember when the commie pinkos picked up the cause or the "temps" and "contracted workers" a few years ago. Only an idiot would doublt it would end in the same way the "benefits" of unionizing did.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
When I worked as a contractor in the US Environmental Protection Agency, they had a similar policy because of similar circumstance. It was a bit one sided though. The EPA folks would show up for our celebrations, but we couldn't go to theirs. It seemed kind of stupid.
Also, half of the government workers (at least in the IT departments) did work very hard and were professional. While the other half were completely useless. It was very sad. In one case, some "head librarian" who was in charge of public information would draw an $80,000 salary and the manager of the contractors to the library would do all of the work and planning. This "head librarian" did nothing but read the reports and progress generated by the contractors. She did her knitting while at work. Very very sad.
As for your tax dollars, every September they purchasing officers would work long hours in order to spend every penny that was not used through the year. It was sickening. They even bragged about how hard they were working. Government waste was at a high during my years at the EPA...at least in my department and region.
don't work for MS and problem solved. I can't imagine why you would want to work for someone who doesn't treat you correct. Maybe it's like those boyfriend-girlfriend relationships where you know the girl is not good for you but for some strage reason you can't leave her!
My penguin ate my sig
Before we go too far into the MS bashing, or Other-Big-Like-Evil-Company(TM) bashing for caste mentality division in the workforce, remember that we have a similar problem in the OSS world.
Anti-noob and RTFM mentality is a serious obstacle for the heavily geek-driven projects in the OSS world. Both on the side of new developers and new users. These are important people and a valuable resource for renewing project growth, ideas, and direction.
Just something to think about...
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*beware the cute-bunny virus
Interns were blue badge employees, the other were red or orange if I remember correctly.
Interns were pretty much considered the same as full time employees, which was nice.
I never really noticed any problems with v- people being treated standard, other than the usual stuff that the v- person signed up for anyway, like benefits etc..
The only thing that I remember them ever being excluded from was the company picnic, which is something any employee should go to at least once.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I think one of the big attractions of being a permanent employee of Microsoft is the stock options. I'd be real surprised if the temps get stock options. But, even if that is what they really want, the temps may feel it is unsafe to directly ask for that, so you get these weak indirect complaints.
But I think that there is a clear need for at the very least a computer worker contractors union.
.. when I was in the Army:
It always was Orangeland vs. Blueland.
One platoon had orange badges, the other platoon blue ones, and it was a hell of a fight.
They didn't give us real ammunition, though.
I work permanently for Nokia, this is my fifth year here.
Contractors are treated EXACTLY the same as permanent workers, at least here in "mainland" Europe. And of course, their hourly rate is about the double of permies. So, you would think that a contractor in Nokia has no strong motivation to become a permy. And you're damn right! I know of many contractors that have been offered a permanent position, and only about 1% have accepted, mostly because of the work permit that would have been withdrawn otherwise (guys from eastern europe). Everybody else basically said "fuck permanent". See, these contractors have all the benefits of a permy, including laptop, computer, paid travel, parties, group happenings, career advancements, you name it.
Conversely, it really sucks balls to be a permy. Why am I still a permy? You guessed it: eastern european.
Ack! Cooties!
Oh, wait, I'm married. I must be rolling in cooties already.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
>> Contract programmers get a considerably better rate and overtime pay...
I work for a Government Contractor in the DC area. Like many Contractors, we're considered
"salaried" employees of the Contractor and do NOT get overtime pay (though we get benefits, which may or may not be paid for the Company). Fortunately our shop does not "require" overtime. Some Contractors, s.a. AMS were notorious for effectively "requiring" their people to work at least 10-20 hours of unpaid overtime per week! It was a way that they could ensure they made profit on the "lowball" rates they bid for the work.
This article doesn't sound any different than the way the company I work for has handled contractors for years. The exception being that they use bright yellow as opposed to orange on the badges. The whole idea of a contractor is to provide a service to you for a fee. It just so happens that these contractors need to work onsite in order to deliver your product. I agree that it is wrong to simply use contractors in a cheap full-time employee capacity but differentiating them from full-time employees is not discriminating against them. Look at it this way, if I hire some contrators to build an addition on my house and I work with them to get the job done faster and cheaper, I'm not inviting the crew to hop in the pool with me afterward or take a shower in my house even though we were working on the same project together.
that this is segregation. It means that your
chance to meet someone interesting is reduced.
The more people are invited to the party, the
greater chance you have to find
someone to have a relationship with.
That IS the point with a party, or what???
The rule of life: do not reject people for
stupid and pointless reasons.
Or live and die alone.
zugedneb
I don't have a blue badge!
I have a dash in front of my name!
Nobody loves me!
Geez, get over it people. You are contractors, not kindergarteners.
appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars
while I'm certainly no fan of M$ (understatement) my experience among the 5 large companies for which I've worked (some as contractor/some as employee) largely mirrors the article. frankly, my contract experience (admittidly 10 yrs ago) with a well-known beverage company here in Atlanta was at least as bad as that sounded (bigtime "class" culture there). at a biG TElecom a contractor's car was stolen from office lot & they did nothing for him (security cameras weren't even being taped) and even terminated his contract a couple of months later (cost cutting; he was actually very productive). nowhere that I've worked have contractors been invited to parties, got discounts/fringes, etc. for fear of those types of suits. my opinion is that while some people have blue chip skills/experience and choose contracting ($$$), employers do frequently take advantage of laid-off workers this way but I'm not convinced that M$ is any worse about it than anyone else (at least that I've been involved with). maybe I'm a anecdotal statistical cluster but that's been my experience...
The article completely fails to mention that WashTech is a union that's been trying to organize technical workers in Washington State for YEARS with absolutely no success. Reading it carefully, the article appears to be a P.R. piece written by WashTech as a piece of propoganda to try to encourage people to join the union....
Because of this lawsuit, it has effected not just Microsoft, but the way other companies treat their contractors. I speak from current experience as I contract for a Fortune 100 company. Contractors are generally looked down upon as "the corporate step-child" while carrying much of the team load at this company. The drawbacks are many, from more time manning the phones to not being able to use the same access doors. We even have different colored badges. This change has occured in just the past few years since this lawsuit.
It's just a shame that your carry the burden and get the Cinderella treatment.
I was born Animal caste. But I see now the calling of my heart is Religious! The war is over! Listen to her!
This is what I got out of your posting:
"Windows sucks".
That's pretty much all you meant to say, right?
1: Just because I'm a part of a Union doesn't mean that I can't act as an individual if I so choose.
2: The cost of joining a union is paid for by the union members not the non-union employees. Also in some industries non-union members get lower pay or arn't allowed to work(films comes to mind).
3: Your joining a union, it's bloddy socilist, of couse they will defend anyone against a bad employer, not just union members.
If you don't want the union to help (even though your not a member) don't ask for help.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
hmmmm. maybe they have done this on purpose, a little retribution against the evil empire perhaps???????
if you're a microtemp speak up! would you do it to get back at your oppressors??????
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
They also are a bit more secure as they have a signed contract for X hours, which is legally actionable if not met...
You have just demonstrated that you have never actually been a contractor. Nobody who has ever worked as a contractor would make such a statement.
Contractors are generally hired to stabilize the work force, so that perms don't have to be hired or fired as often. I have spent more than half of my career as a contractor, and I have never had a contract with a guaranteed number of hours.
Also, the times that I have been dismissed early from a contract have usually been with no warning at all, due to the action of someone who has never met me and has no idea of what I do. It is typical in a really large defense contractor that the 3rd VP in charge of left-handed paperclips will wake up one morning and discover that there are (*gasp*) contractors in his organization, and issue an edict to get rid of all of them. About 6 months later, when it becomes obvious that the work isn't getting done, the lower-level managers start bringing them in again.
And then there are some employers that want their cake and eat it, too, like (a now-defunct telecom company)-- they fired me after less than 2 weeks because I wouldn't work unpaid overtime as a contractor. The amount of 'warning' I got was that my badge stopped working, and I had to threaten to call the police to get my personal items back from my (former) desk. I knew then that they were in deep trouble, and they have since been in the news, featured for being caught doing some creative accounting. Shortly after my experience, I discovered that I had been the 4th contractor in that position in less than 3 months.
Since that experience, I have been more careful about what companies I contract with, and I have 'fired' more than one of my clients at the first sign of dishonesty -- also without notice. The door swings both ways.
Word to the wise: A company that screws its employees (including contractors), its vendors, or its customers will eventually screw all three -- plus its investors. It's part of a general mindset in which the folks running the company think it's ok to screw people.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
In Redmond, WA, and elsewhere I assume, your business license fee is calculated on full time employee hours. Contractors hours are counted as hours towards the contracting company, not Microsoft.
Here is the Redmond Municipal Code for Business License Fees.
If you have a business with 15,000 employees you are paying over $1,000,000 US to license your business in Redmond, WA:
The ABA estimates 10,000 temporary workers were in the lawsuit. That works out to be $675,000 in savings from the business license. Estimate an additional $9,000 per temp in benefits savings, and bring the total to $90MIL. Obviously the savings is in the benefits portion of that.Would you do it if you were CEO?
Holland
In Washington and Oregon, you can apply for unemployment compensation (because you pay taxes).
Posting as anonymous : Fear of someone not liking what I say or misconstrue what I'm saying.
I've been contracting for many years, going on 8 years now, and I've had good and bad experiences. Most of the time I'm considered one of the team. Boss pays for our lunch, I get to go to the parties, get paid pretty well, though not right now in this job market. I did have one stint where I worked 60+ hours a week like a dog, I quit a few months later for a contract job at JPMorgan Chase where I was contract for 2 years. I've been in the stages of going perm, but boss was rotated so I had to start again. Headcount was trimmed so now I'm at HP (after a few months doing other temp/contract work to pay the bills). HP has the same contract limits as Microsoft: Work 365 days, leave for 100 days, then you MIGHT come back. I'm at my 6 month mark in about a week. I'm going to talk to my boss about going perm or prospects of my position in about another month. If it doesn't look good then I'm going to start the hunt to give me plenty of time to find other work. I'd LOVE to go perm, but it's this dang blasted economy. HP has a few quirks when it comes to contractors, but my boss makes me feel that I'm part of the team. We all get to use some of the company purchasing plans and clout.
ONE WIERD THING: There used to be a way for employees/contractors to buy Compaq hardware, but since the merger they've taken that away. There is no way to buy parts direct or at a discount. WTF?
This whole thing irritates me. Allot of the "problems" I've seen have stemmed from these morons and their lawsuit in the first place. I know suing people to get something for nothing is becoming part of the American Way, but get a grip. Because of this stupid suit, my current client has a 12 month limit on contracts and a required 90 day break in service to regain contract elligibillity.
Contractors are NOT employees. We get a nice fat hourly rate (if not, bend over and grab your ankles while your at it) for the work we do for our CLIENT. That's it. Want more, call your mommy and whine to her!
I personally do not want any perks that are going to cut into my rate. I work to get paid. I do things for fun off the clock. I thought an honest days pay for an honest days work was part of our moral fiber.
Want security? Join the drones and be an FTE. Just remember corporations will cut your throat to save their bottom line.
.. it's important at MS to maintain the myth that the full-timers are the best in the business. I mean, after all, they read Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest/Stein *cover to cover* the night before their job interview and they regurgitated quicksort with the precision of a patriot missile. The temps at MS are clearly of a lesser, inferior breed and they should be treated as such..
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
I work for a large insurance company in Illinois. I have been both a contractor and full-time employee here. After the Microsoft lawsuit, there was a definate change in how we treated the contractors here. I was a contractor for over two years and was treated like an employee the entire time. I left just before the end of the lawsuit and the was hired as a full-timer.
Contractors here are no longer part of the 'family' from a managment point of view. They do not attend any of the parties or outings. They aren't allowed in the company raffles or contests. They can't volunteer in our community outreach projects. They don't even come to the town hall meetings. We have been told quite explicitly that they are not to be treated as full time employees because it would open us up to legal action.
The lawsuit really tied our hands here in how we can relate to our contractors. Managment will not attend any contractor roll-off lunches or contractor sponsored events. There is a very sharp line drawn as to what a contract employee can and cannot do with the teams. Just another casualty of the lawsuit.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
And many times they don't get the respect they deserve from full time Microsofties.
Microsofties? What subversive first thought of that one?
And I thought "Mr Softie" (ice cream) was bad...
Oh no. Re-reading the above excerpt now sounds WORSE.
No joke: what a horrible nickname.
This is not my sig.
Microsoft is clearly very aggressively managing temps. I'm at a company right now that is at the other end of the spectrum and it is no picnic.
When a company doesn't manage contractors and consultants well, the contracting houses can set up shop inside the company, cultivate close relationships with managers, elbow employees out of the way, and generate business for themselves by cross-pollinating their resources onto related projects. It sucks.
This story presents the temps as the innocent victims, which individually they are. But don't forget that every one of those temps has a big part of their paycheck going to a Volt or Manpower, and those body shop contractor houses don't have anyone's interests in mind but their own.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
Those who work neither as blue- nor orange-badges may wonder why they should care about Microsoft's practices. The answer is that from day 366 to day 466, Microsoft temps still get paid. Only the check is written not by Bill Gates, but by the State of Washington.
That's one of the way temporary workers have been punished. Real nice of them. Think about doing routine work for M$ and having to take 100 days off every year. Right now that means being unemployed. Washington State might have better benifits than my state where the best you can get in benifits is minimum wage. What a great way to treat the people who get your work done: no retirement, no stock options, 25% of your pay comes from welfare. This is a much larger slap than being called "dash trash" and otherwise treated like an outcast.
Is this what we can expect in the future from Corporate Amercia? Microsoft is one of the few companies that really grew in the last 20 years. If they won't treat their employess well, who will? Reading storries like this makes me sick.
"Let them eat cake" indeed. Fuck you Joe.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
What's worse than having one clueless boss who's just another cog in a big organization? Having two of them.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
True being self-employed is nice. But then you're taking more risk. You're paying more in taxes, more in insurance. Little to no safety-net if circumstances work out bad for you (Health problems, lawsuits). There's always a flip-side to any good thing. Contracting is no different.
Many studies have shown that people subtly discriminate against members of an 'outgroup'
"We used to ostracise everybody, even each other!"
Aarfy (Captain Aardvark): Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
The 'contract' in contractor speicifes the party names and hourly rate. *Every* contract I've had (6 in the last 7 years accounting for 5.5 of those years) said "Any party (company,contractor,agency) may teminate this agreement at any time for any reason or no reason".
If the company doesn't like the color of your shoes, later. If you don't like the project manager's haircut, later. The agency will only terminate if they think they won't get paid.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
The only binding terms with regard to duration are the amount that the company must pay to hire the contractor as an FTE. The fee goes down over time and is exorbitantly high during the inital duration (~6 months).
Well.. As you move up the "skill level" bracket you will start seeing some contracts that are for a set time persiod. I had one of these contracts. It was for one year. If I wanted to quit I had to pay one months salary to get out. If the company wanted to fire me they had to pay me for time remaining no more then 3 months. When my contract was up I was one of two developers out of 12 remianing. The rest of the staff were new FTE's who made about 1/3 - 1/2 my pay rate.
You mean Microsoft managed to fill in the missing "???" before "Profit"? Wow! Who would have guessed?
First, I've worked for Microsoft and I can tell you that some contractors (and vendors) are treated with immense respect, and some aren't. The same goes for full-time employees. The same goes for anybody, anywhere.
Further, some of this article, like "They are not allowed to have their own offices" is outright false. I didn't hear the expression "dash trash" in four years, and it's a little too catchy have been invented by a geek, if you ask me. Maybe they use it in the marketing department, I don't know, but it's all very suspicious.
Contractors also attend parties. I've been to parties thrown specifically for a contractor, because they were leaving, trying to woo the contractor into taking a full-time job.
The whole thing just reeks of bias.
How Politicians Lie: http://www.factcheck.org/
In '94-'95 I was both a Microsoft contractor (they called us "variable employees") and a full time employee, so I've seen it from both sides. Let me make one point crystal clear: my job duties as a contractor and as a permanent employee were identical. The only thing that changed upon being hired permanently was the color of my badge, increased employment benefits, and higher social status in the company.
The management absolutely treated contractors as second class employees, as completely disposable. Here's a story to illustrate: I worked in the end user phone tech support division. After I was hired on as a permanent, the decision was made to cut ALL contractors due to low end user support demand. My roommate at the time was a contractor, and he was given his walking papers. He had more time at the company than me, far more recognition for his skills, was a member of the trouble ticket escalation team, etc., yet he was fired for no other reason than that he was a contractor. (along with about 400 others...)
when FTE's see that most of there 'perks'go to contractors, they get pissy. then they start thining. hmmm I can get all the non insurance perks, double my take home pay, but have to spend 8000 a year on insurance.
Then they leave.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Most of the posts here have to do with consulting/permatemping in the IT field...permatemping in the non-IT field is slightly different, since the pay is usually quite a lot lower, and there are a few other things of note.
I worked for the financial services arm of a large european auto company (whose name begins with B and ends with W) and the cost to the company for me was just a little bit lower than for a regular employee, when extra administrative costs and temp company costs were added in. The claim was that headquarters in Germany specifically authorized headcount, and apparently that took ages to do, so the only solution was to have permatemp employees.
They did make some effort to move employees over, except for the fact that, since we were a "bank" of some type, they took credit issues seriously. You could get hired as a temp with bad credit, but you couldn't get hired as a perm with bad credit, and worse, if the company found out about your bad credit in your application, you jeopardized your temp. position.
That essentially meant that we had permatemp employees making a lot less than regular employees stuck in permatemp positions, and oddly enough, they sorta of worked up the ladder in the permatemp system, so they were often people who were somewhat key to the system based on their knowledge and experience.
The other odd thing was, after I left, that temps could apply for full time positions in the first month they worked in a position there, or after a year of working there. They could not apply for a full time position in months 2 through 11. This apparently was to reduce the amount of talented temps jumping into perm jobs ahead of other perm employees. The reports I've had are that if the temp is talented and realizes this, they just go elsewhere after month 1.
I do have some sympathy for the badge issue, in that it can be symbolic (we didn't have the same issue ourselves per se, temp badges did not have photos on them, and I was ecstatic to have a non-photo badge, and the perm employees were always cheesed off that they had to have photo ones. Perhaps a person who liked being photographed would have had a different attitude on it.) Our symbolic issue was the car, in that a perm employee could get a really great lease on a car after one year of working there. When I first got there, the time working as a temp was counted toward your one year...however, shortly before I left, it was decided to change that so that only the time working as a perm employee would be counted for that year. It caused a bunch of us to leave, since it was such a symbolic disappointment. (I drove a Saab anyway, a vastly superior car, which admittedly kept me on their shit-list.)
I volunteered to be a notary public (we had a use for a few of em.) The cost of training a notary was $40, but the company didn't want temps to be trained, no particular reason why. If a temp came in as a notary, all the cooler; and it would have made a lot of sense for them to train me, since I was there at times when most of the other notaries werent, yet, they didn't want to.
In the long run though, it was the pay...the difference between the $17/hr of a perm employee and the $10/hr of a temp was heartbreaking at times. I'm glad I'm no longer there.
Rhis is the attitude that wasted so much caffeine so many years ago. Maybe it's something in the air, but on this continent, people tend to believe that they aren't beholden to anyone for their rights, and that 'taxation' does not equal 'representation.'
"You should be honored to be supporting someone who has your best interests at heart" just doesn't wash with a lot of people.
>There was always a degree of resentment from FTEs,
... in front of his peer group.
Not always. The easiest way to carve the edge off was to take their alpha tech or whoever was in charge aside, behind closed doors and explain that my job wasn't to implement some doodad or program the whatsit - I was there to make him look GOOD. I let him know that if he has questions or concerns but doesn't want the others knowing he isn't SuperMan he can take me aside and we can discuss it in private with complete confidence that I won't 'Out' him for not knowing. Walk back inside and he is discussing it like he has been doing it for years
That is Value-Add and if you get it right the FTE's will want you to come back. I have had companies ask my firm for me by name on repeat business.
The FTE's did laugh their asses off when I had to leave (the consulting firm I worked for went belly up) though, behind my back of course.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
20 question rule: you only need to meet 7 of them to be considered an employee by the IRS. the supreme court also loooks at those rules when determining if someone is an employee.
Funny, the one you chose as you're example is the one that gets most employers.
You may not like the rules, but there they are, and I have seen many companies get busted on them.
Reality check:
it's not always easy to go and work somewhere else. The gun to ones head to work someplace is often the need to eat.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Contractors at IBM are not even allowed to talk to their own managers. They must communicate through their contracting firm. The badges are different, the e-mail addresses are different, they are not allowed to go to group functions, including their own department's meetings. Like many Very Large Corporations of America, they treat valuable and important workers as if they were third class citizens in a caste system. We have the legal system and the greed of lawyers to thank for this (not to mention the folks that worked at IBM as contractors and decided to sue the hand that fed them).
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
I could care less about all those 'perks'. As a contractor, I made more money by far than any full timer around me, that's all that mattered. Full-time there is for losers who need Microsoft for a social life.
What's the difference between Microsoft's dual-caste system and the U.S. military contractors' multi-tier caste system?
We've got grey (blah) badge (unclassified), the green(-with-envy) badge (secret), the red (hot) badge (top-secret) and the oh so coveted black (bag) badge (ultra-secret).
I didn't lunched with anyone outside my caste system out of fear that we might have downwardly leaked classified information inadvertly (or not!)
So what if Microsoft is getting paranoid?
What's the bloody difference?
Openness of common software leads the way to nirvana.
I thought corporate and payroll taxes paid for unemployment benefits. It's not like welfare, which comes from everyone, more like insurance - you put some in, and sometimes you take some out.
...at the media subsidiary of one of the largest multi-national conglomerates in the world. We used to have separate badges but they've been standardized to one due to a new security system, and we can only stay for one year. The big difference is there is no caste system here and we get all the same perks that employees do, I think because it's a media company where they've historically always had more freelancers than staff employees.
The meme police, They live inside of my head
I think it is half corporate taxes and half individual contributions. If you are a consultant, you are required to pay both halves.
In fact, forget the software company.
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
"Decepticons FOREVER!!!" - Ravage
Guys, I know I am gonna be nailed by everyone but remember a few years back when MS canned some contractors and they all filed a class action suit. The suit changed HR law about how you can treat contractors. They used to go to parties and all that, but the courts ruled that if you treat someone as an employee, it is misleading to treat them as a contractor and fire them without severance or notice. Because the case set precedence, my employer (The Walt Disney Company) follows the same guidelines so we don't get our butts sued by people who have no REAL employment contract with the company. This just seems like more MS bashing. All the fortune 500 I'll bet do the same.
I used to be a temp at Microsoft (shock of shocks ;-))
There are actually two kinds of contractors-- contingent staff (temps) and vendors (consultants). The vendors do most of the project-based work, while the contingents are expected to basically provide for any instability in labor need as well as a healthy safety margin.
This is a real problem, IMO. The permatemps were there to basically be on the top of the stack with regard to hirings and layoffs (last in, first out sort of mentality).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/04/moberg2504 a.html
c k_ 66275.html
s t/ page_1.html
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/talkback/talkba
http://www.csaco.com/csa01710.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Career/1731/IW010108cali
in a unionized environment, you wouldn'thave to worry about being paid 1.50$ an hour while being fed drugs to keep you from sweating, because sweating looks bad in front of the customers, in 40 degrees celcius minnimum...being expected the entire time not to even admit to being a human under that smiling "hello would you like parmesean oregano or regular bread?" mask. unions do not guarnatee induviduality is possible, but neither does any other system. [try never to live in a place where there are no jobs available, employers can abuse/victimize you a lot easier when you live there...]
in a unionized environment, you are not told to work 14, 16, 18, hours every day...with no holidays, or days off...[mabye a 4 hour shift every once in awhile so you can do laundry/etc...]...being paid in enough food to eat, cigarettes rent, cheep booze, and little more...with no prospects of getting a better job [the higher jobs are all in_family]...or any change in lifestyle...for that matter[this is a common one around here...everyone is being forced to work insane housr because of the lack of workers...there are a lot of jobs *here*, so many, in that, employers are likely forced to spread a higher workload amounst fewer workers, all for PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT!!!! MONEY MONEY MONEY ! WE NEED MORE MONEY WE NEED MORE SEX WE NEED MORE MORE MORE NOW NOW NOW WORK HARDER DONT STOP JUST KEEP MOVING]
and most importantly
thanks to the entire break from the greed of rape-pillage-loot-destroy style descended capitalism, for the first time, personal gain for those on top is not the only thing that matters...employees can now not have to worry about their health, security, and job...they can do other things with their time and not be quite as stressed, circumstances permitting
i havn't been able to get hired at a unionized place yet, so perhaps i'm still naive or something... but i'd much prefer a system that protects employees at all than one that outright exploits them purposeley for profit and entertainment [wow let's see how many hours we can keep this guy working before he snaps...or my personal favorite "Jeff..STOP BREATHING!" tmg1:"mmpf!"
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."k now you can start again" tmg1:*GASP*]
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Seriously, I misread the headline as "Microsoft's Castle System". I thought they had put a spin on the "Cathedral and Bazaar" thing...
Right. Please demonstrate how the government regulates pay at a private firm.:
Unemployment tax, insurace requirments, minimum wage, etc.
Hell, I don't have time to educate you on the rest. Please take a couple of courses on business management or better yet, start a business and hire three full-time emploees.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
1. Do not get a reputation for having to be the smartest person in the room. Too many temps try too hard to impress peers and management in their talk, and not in their code. It is in your code; specifically the QUALITY of it, where we will be looking. Look around you, some of the smartest people in the country work here. You are not going to impress anyone by being a loudmouth about your skills. Show me, or just shut the fuck up.
2. Become the group EXPERT at something. Be good enough to know what I want with a minimum of explanation. Know your own code; know the ENTIRE system to the point where I can place you on any task, confident that you will be productive, while being my go-to person on particulars. If I can scribble the UML on my whiteboard, and you can turn it into something before I am back from the cafeteria, you may just get a job someday.
3. When I need a DLL in 5 minutes to prove a theory or to solve a nagging issue, can I look in your office at 5:01? Or are you already gone to pick up your spawn at Daycare? I know it is not supposed to matter, but it does. 8 to 5 doesn't cut it, my friend. There are too many folks hanging out all day at Starbucks who will do your temp job for less, and be happy to have it. Don't ever let your personal business get between you and my needs. I'll hire your friend who doesn't have any kids instead.
4. Don't cost me money. Unless your office mate(s) have a hygiene problem, don't you dare bitch about your surroundings. You don't like your chair? There are really nice cushy ones down at the unemployment office. If you have a health-related issue, fine, bring your doctor's note to HR. You need a new computer? What about the OTHER one, or the one before that, or the laptop? All bad you say? NO BLUE FOR YOU!
5. The Company Store: Don't ever mention it. Don't ask for favors, don't even think about it. It is a perk, a reward. Earn it or spurn it. There is nothing in there that you cannot find elsewhere. Sorry.
6. Don't EVER say you are going to do something, and fail to do it. You will be damaged goods from that point on. If you say it will be done in the morning, I should expect that short of a death in your family, nothing will allow you to leave until you have completed your task. When you make promises, I promise someone else. If you make me look bad, I will take the food from your children's mouths in revenge.
7. Kiss Ass. Sorry, but that's the only way I know how to say it. I can't be everywhere. If you know something that is going to seriously fuck me, you had best tell me. If you are right, it will be remembered, along with the risk you took in telling me. Always be brutally honest, but at the same time, don't be negative. Not everything sucks all the time, there is much good positive stuff going on here.
8. If you don't know what you are doing, SAY SO BEFORE you fuck up the entire group. People WILL help you; especially if you have done all of the above. Be prepared to spend your weekend learning what you need to know, because if you can't, why are you here?
9. Don't tell anyone your personal business. We may have to look as though we care, and act as if we care. We don't care. If you can't leave your life at home for the time you are on campus, you are not worth keeping. Remember, as a temp, you were probably unloaded on me, I didn't ask for you. I am trying to keep my budget down. Don't make me wish you were not around.
10. LEARN, LEARN, LEARN. If you know your shit, once you get your blue badge, I may, every now and then, sign your expense report without mentioning a few things that should not be on it.
No, I didn't go from Orange to Blue, I was an intern, and I was told this shit in Building 22 over 8 years ago. I'm still here.
Seriously, these MS temps ruined it for other 99% of consultants out there. As soon as that lawsuit started most organizations got rid of their consultants or made them employees of big companies that set up shop there. So,(for most of us) for doing the same work now you are getting less money than before, have to put up with consulting company's BS and STILL be treated like crap by the real (blue badge) employees. Oh, and be ready to be cycled out of the company in a year. Those bastards just got greedy. It's your own fault if the consulting company is ripping more than 20% of the billing rate, which is usually related to consultant's status in this country(H-1B), experience and most importantly - negotiating skills.
If was really that bad, they would not be working there.
Being a contractor in most places SUCKS.
Contract companies treat employees like crap. Management is more worried about sticking people with stupid dress code policies than doing anything to ensure that the employees aren't suffering from RSI or stress.
Well, the shitty contract company I work for now is like that. we get a whopping TWO DAYS of paid sick time per year, and you cannot even use that unless you've been here 6 months.
The reason that a lot of us are IN these crappy jobs is because we've been told that it's a "foot in the door" to an *actual job* - unfortunately we have to put up with a lot of crap before that happens.
It's either this or the unemployment line. If unemployment paid what I needed to live on, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
I worked in the Seattle area for several years in the late 90's, early 2000. I had the opportunity to work with many people who had been at Microsoft as contractors and temps during the high points of tech in the late 90's.
There were many exceptional programmers, but all had been hired as contract labor or through temp agencies. This was frustrating to them because often, mid and lower tier management full time employee positions to which they reported to were hired straight out of college. The early/mid-20somethings often flaunted their positions and told them they were "contract whores" who would be removed when the projects ended.
Not surprisingly, the level of distrust and distate among the contract programmers was rather high and contributed to many acts of software "sabotage"; programmers deliberately building user traps and performance bugs that would be difficult to catch in the accelerated QA cycles driven by marketing objectives. Excel and Front Page were singled out among my contacts as projects that were particularly reviled.
All of the programmers and graphic designers I met during my time in Seattle that left M$ never went back, under any guise. Who would want to?
MS is shooting itself in these instances. Why do you think they support extended immigration status legislation, so they can import help from overseas?
This is not a cultural thing, it is imposed. I worked at MS for many years; during most of that time temp and contractors were treated exactly the same as everyone else. Then, there was a lawsuit done by former temp workers...
After that, we were explicitely told to treat contractors and temps differently. They could not be invited to the many free dinners or parties. There were strict rules on what they could and could not do, where they could not be etc. Of course we ignored those rules.
But over time, they (lawyers and HR) became quite shrill. Almost to the point of "thou shalt treat temps and contractors like shit".
All this because apparently, legally speaking, if they treat them well they deserve stock options [in spite of their short contracts and zero responsibility].
Okay. You claim to have misread the title.
Must you post about it? Do we care that you looked forward to reading about C++? What crackhead moderator thought there was any humor in your post? Gee, you misread it and thought it said "constructors" so you thought the article would be about C++, but it turned out it wasn't. And that's "Funny?"
"Sufferin' succotash."
"Computer Source Magazine recently published an article on Microsoft's treatment of its contractors"... Was this really written by Janelle Brown of Salon? She wrote an article just like this for Salon a few years ago. The Computer Source article is written by a Jannell Myers. Maybe it couldn't be written for Salon anymore.
I was a green badge (contractor) at Intel for quite a while. Some people were very hostile to contractors, but most were ok. Generally things went downhill while I was there, they started restricting the in-house technology fairs, etc. But our group had an admin hyper on parties, someones cat had kittens, and there was a cake. The salary and options they offered to become a regular employee never seemed high enough to be attractive. Now they are.
From what I hear, if you deal with the Devil, you usually don't end up on top.
Some of the comments here are really strange, as if contractors "deserve" (whatever that means) to be treated like regular employees.
When a company decides to use contractors, they are in some cases (not all!) getting a cost savings, both in cash outlay and the ability to use different accounting rules for the expense. If there were no other forces at work, most companies would be 95% contractor.
But there are other forces at work. Employees feel more secure and can afford to be more loyal. Employees also are motivated not to walk out the door when confronted with a nasty coworker or horrible bureaucracy. Companies, believe it or not, want happy employees, even if they don't necessarily want to do what it takes to have them.
Companies want contractors precisely because they can be fired at will. So why have your employees bond with their teammates who could be out the door tomorrow?
If Microsoft gets to treat contractors like employees, they get "virtual employees" who can be counted on for loyalty in exchange for automatic renewal of contracts, all at a cost savings. The illusion of permanence only lasts as long as the profits are rolling in, at which point the contractors get dumped out. Microsoft gets the best of both worlds, the contractors get led down the garden path.
The contractors might feel good up until the day they are fired. But they can be fired at any time, and that is why the are there. Should Microsoft be disguising that fact?
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
"Maybe it's something in the air, but on this continent, people tend to believe that they aren't beholden to anyone for their rights, and that 'taxation' does not equal 'representation.'"
Any right you have are a result of people fighting to get them. You don't "get" rights you fight tooth and nail for them. Remember a thing called the American revolution? That's where your rights came from.
On this continent for better or worse business is an antagonistic system of the business owners, the customers and the employees. Each one of these sets of people have conflicting goals.
The customer wants to pay as little as possible while receiving the best possible product and service.
The Employee wants to get paid as much as possible while doing the least amount of work.
The business person wants to pay the least amount of salary while getting the most work and wants to charge the most amount of money for the product while keeping the least amount of quality and service.
The customer fights for their rights by shopping around for the best prices and service. Sometimes they have lots of choices and they win other times they are dealing with a monopoly and they lose and get ripped off (see microsoft).
In the employee employer relationship you have to fight against the owners desire to keep you in the lowest income bracket possible. To a business person the ideal world consists of slaves working 20 hour days for subsidence.
Sure you can fight by yourself but it's more effective to fight by organizing with your fellow employees. The boss might fire you or tell you to go to hell but he would be less likely to do that if all his employees would also leave in response.
I am sure you have heard the saying "United we stand, divided we fall".
So go ahead. Don't unionize and walk into your bosses office to demand more money, less work, better hours, or more consideration for your sick wife. Maybe your boss is kind and generous and will give you an immediate raise and cut back your hours. More likely he will tell you to go to hell because he can hire a thousand monkeys to do your job for less.
The world is full of suckers like you who are convinced that unions are evil and are perfectly happy to work in a job where job security means you will be given a days notice before they will take away your keycard.
War is necrophilia.
"Gun Control" is actually victim disarmament
Nah, Gun control means a 3 inch group at 50 feet.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Nice of you to call the victims idiots. Their loss is no skin off your nose, is it? It might be. How do YOU know what those contractors are making? How do you know what choices they have? Do you know what an idiot is? It's someone who says things without knowing what they are talking about or without carefully considering things.
Microsoft ran their personel like they ran their dividens and end user license agreements: dishonest. They were so abusive, the federal government noticed and slapped them in court. Many of those employees were forced to take contracts of be fired. None of them do project based work, which is what contractors are for. They are doing routine ordianry work that most normal companies would hire employees for. What has followed the lawsuit is obviously a punishment for having nerve in the first place.
The crazy thing to read is that other companies are doing the same thing. They are doing it, in part due to the taxes on permenant employees, but more because it's cheaper for them and they can. You might be next. Consider what you would do if given the same choice and have a nice day.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I worked as a contractor and now an employee of Worldcom (I'm not afriad to say it).
Most everything described in the article takes, or took place, daily.
Different badges (red for contractors. I refered to it as the Red Badge of Courage), different cube arrangements, different phones. No perks such as special team shirts, etc.
So what. I made boatload more $$ than the blue badgers :)
You want the gig, you deal with the crap
Not disputing any of that. I was objecting to claim that contractors had guaranteed hours. Been there, done that, didn't get any guarantees.
The major difference between contractor and 'perm' is that the contractor is aware that his assignment can go away without warning. The 'perm' assignment can go away without warning, too, but the typical 'perm' labors under the delusion of permanence. I never use the word 'perm' anyway -- it's 'direct'. All jobs are temporary.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
I've been contracting mostly at MS for about 5 years, and yes, contractors are treated differently in all the tangible ways mentioned in the article. But I haven't noticed any caste system, or a demeaning attitude on the part of full-timers I have worked with. I expect that, like most things, it depends on individuals. Some people probably look down on others for wearing dorky clothes.
One point I strongly disagree with was the assertion that we are all on the dole for our 100-days off. I sat out my first hiatus because I could afford to. I didn't even collect unemployment that time. The second one happened during the dotcom crash, which hit the Seattle area especially hard. I did go on unemployment that time, and it took several months to find another contract job (which turned out not to be at Microsoft). Next I came back to MS and am now looking for another job as my year is about to end.
Maybe my experience isn't typical, but I fail to see how being a temp at Microsoft should stop anyone from looking for jobs elsewhere when the year is up. Any contract job anywhere could end after a year, and then you move on. You don't just lie there until the same company hires you back. How difficult is this concept?
You Sir, are an arsehole!
but not at Microsoft though. Didn't feel like selling my soul.
As a contractor you tend to expect to receive lesser treatment that regular staff. Some firms are better than others about this.
Contractors tend to be pretty much the same as regular staff expect you don't get stock options and you don't get any training. You tend to expect to be let go asap if the firms tanking.
At one place I was working on a project where all the regular staff ended up having to go and spend 3 days training on the hardware we were to be using. As a contractor I was expected to know it. I did my usual learning curve on the hardware and knew it good enough to do the job in a couple of days, and was ahead of regular staff by about a day.
I really don't care that I didn't get trained. I was charging way above the market rate anyway. The firm I was contracting with picked up my medical benefits fron day one.
As a contractor you have to realise that accountants see you as expendable labour and thats all well and good. If you are contracting from a firm, you need to pick you firm well, so places have no benefits and basically just act as a middle man between you and a firm. Other places have a lot of benefits and they do make life a lot better.
Make a check list of things you think are important to you and ask the contracing firm if they provide those things and then decide if its worth it.
Spoken like a permanent Orange badge. Whatever.
Be an employee.
If you don't/won't/can't be an employee, don't bitch.
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
Waaa waaa waaaa!
We went to work for Satan himself, and we got burnt! This is not fair!
Jesus. I mean, Microsoft screws it's CUSTOMERS (the lifeline of the company) day in and day out, and employees expect to be treated better?
And why single out M$? Their treatment of contractors is almost exactly the same as what I experienced at Apple Computer...10 years ago. And again a few years after that.
I was a contactor for Verizon Wireless, they kept me on for over a year and a half before a layoff but they also employ the same tactics. Our emails are in the form of username_ and our badges while not blaze orage they hav NON-Employee in big bold letters on the front.
We also dont get any discounts or are invited to any company events. Even the emails about it emphasize that contractors are not allow.
My states Former governer was famous for all the "work" he brought to the state. Unfortunately, when most of the shops opened, the workforce was 10% smaller and 30% temps! They bragged about bringing in 1000's of jobs for big-name companies--but if you're a permatemp you don't get to actually work for the company and get the rewards!
The whole issue is about honesty of management! I've come to the concusion that most company management executives will not follow the law unless it's at gunpoint! [hence the need for more gun control!] They are not "honest" people: they're scammers. I've worked for union shops that the union was the only thing saving the boss's a$$ from the slammer due to his illegal decisions! I'm not a big union freak, but they represent the interests of the employees for the most part. I find it funny that employers don't mind industry "associations" that set wages and jobs, but think that unions of employees are unamerican and against their owner's "rights". Bosses routinely try to break the rules as often as possible-the first year at my current job, they changed the rulebook 4 times because things worked "too well" for the workers. In tech, I don't think unions are the answer, things move too quickly. I do think that Unemployment Insurance laws should be changed to count all employees at your site, not just on your "books". Another interesting thing is the bosses version of "honesty": What you tell them in passing banter, at interviews, etc is expected to be absolute truth, concerns you have about your work don't need to be in writing; When you expect them to do something though, the only "truth" they point to is what's on paper, not what they "might" [told you at interview, etc to get you to take the job!] have said--[that you "didn't need" to write down!]
Like another poster said though, many of these same executives are/will be paying the piper soon anyway..They've lied to the banks, IRS, vendors, customers, and stockholders as well as employees! The true irony of it all is that the same stockholders that "approve" this are generally getting their money out of the pension funds of the 60's, 70's & 80's! One day soon, they'll want to cash-out-only to find that their stocks are worthless because the younger generation working at their old employers don't have pensions or benifits that ever let them have enough money to buy stocks.
Along the same lines as castes: Who wants to live in a caste oriented society, see the flood of Indians coming to the US? Sounds like MS are simply denying themselves the best and most talented, and the best output of those that they DO get. You reap what you sow!
In a couple of years your jobs will be in India, where their is also a real (unofficial) caste system too
I have contracted for a major company, one which is #1 still at what they do. Their corporate headquarters used several different contractors in several different areas of their business as well. Each contracting company had their own color badge, and each department had their own colored temp badges until your more permanent badge was setup. One reason for the different colored badges for was LP reasons, so the numerous security gaurds there could who is an IT contractor etc and have a good idea where they should and shouldn't be. True to the story, yes I did want to permanent corporate badge but I did not allow that wanting to influence professional work quality and performance in a negative manner. If you can't handle that then maybe you should be doing something far less stressful like cleaning bathrooms. I found that my wanting of the company badge and fulltime employment a driving factor to excel and acheive 110% to try to _EARN_ that badge and not just expect it should be given to me. When you become a contractor you should understand that you have several pros and cons weigh in including the lack of benefits as well as down time inbetween jobs in a shitty economy. You also understand that if you want to get hired on fulltime you try to _EARN_ that badge and show what you can accomplish not how much you can pout. Also, you ask your manager about full time positions and talk to the full time employees on your team to see how they were hired on.
These days companies seem to use contracting company as a way of filtering out the non-desirables without creating additional paperwork for their HR department. If you make the cut, great and if not you get to have a brief chat with security as they escort you to your car and off company property. I have never encountered the blatant mistreatment claimed in the article, as that would oh maybe be creating a hostile work environment which makes leeches...er...lawyers start to drool and salivate. Granted, working for M$ might be alright as you really dont have to worry about quality or stability...but don't cry sour grapes when they wont hire you on and play up a big crock of fresh steamy bullshit. I've been turned down by major companies I contracted at and have seen my fair share of them, but now I am quite happy with the job I have and the company I am full time at. Maybe we should stop assuming that everything should just be handed to us with no hard work and sweat anymore.
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
I once worked as a meta-contractor at Bristol-Myers Squibb: Their on-site level 2 support was covered by Compucom, which had it's own FTE's working at BMS; however, the Compucom guys were not involved in the standard BMS stuff (no employee store, events, etc....).
;)
:)
On top of that, I was hired by Compucom on a contract-to-hire basis to work on-site at BMS. So I was in a position for three months where I was a contractor working for other contractors -- facing double the exclusion [from BMS stuff _and_ Compucom stuff] untill I "earned" a position as a FTE for Compucom, only to continue to be excluded from BMS stuff anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining....nothing petty went on there like at M$. From day one, I got the same kind of badge as standard BMS employees and, without anything to visually differentiate me from any FTE, was treated with the same respect as anybody else (by BMS' FTE's anyway). Plus, I got paid more than the Compucom guys.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Most Contractors set themselves up as 'Ltd' Companies/Corporations which pay less tax (~8%-22%) on dividends from profits, than employees pay as income tax (~22%) plus national insurance (11%).
Any accountant in the UK will tell you [working 9 month a year] has no basis.
Wrong this is the IR35 loophole.
gorgo: *lol* :) :>
joey: what's so funny?
shh, joey is losing all sanity from lack of sleep
'yes joey, very funny'
Humor him
-- Seen on #Debian
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