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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 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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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-."
mbbac
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
You're too locked into the standard /. groupthink.
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.
To quote from the the article "When times are bad, any corporation 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 any corporation. Every single day i find a new reason to dislike uncaring corporations.
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
>> 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.
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
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....
Company must hire to meet work demand in a fluctuating economy.
Or is that to create supply? Funny how "free-market" capitalists can't make up their minds.
Government regulates pay and benefits to full-time employees to make them very expensive.
Right. Please demonstrate how the government regulates pay at a private firm.
Company reacts by hiring more part-timers and temps.
Because it is too concerned with short-term bottom-lining than long term growth of its company with dedicated employees who show up to do incredible work for a good wage and benefit package.
Government regulates temps to try to force companies to hire more full-time workers.
Again, show how the government does this.
Company pushes temps to the margins.
By definition, a temp is a marginal worker.
Full-time workers given busier workload and longer hours.
Because, company is too concerned about short-term bottom-lining to invest in more dedicated workers devoted to the company and rewarded with a good wage and benefits package.
Arguably the company may eventually hire more full time workers, but at the expense of a lot of decent part-time and temp jobs.
Part-time and temp jobs which do not pay benefits and are usually lower waged, thereby increasing the profits for the company at the expense of workers.
See where this is going folks?
Yes.
I remember when the commie pinkos picked up the cause or the "temps" and "contracted workers" a few years ago.
Wheeeeee! Red Baiting! Welcome back to the 1950s! Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? No. But you were a member of the IBEW? Ummm, that's a union not a Soviet cadre.
Only an idiot would doublt it would end in the same way the "benefits" of unionizing did.
I am waiting to see how this ends... Waiting... Waiting...
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
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 Washington and Oregon, you can apply for unemployment compensation (because you pay taxes).
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.
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.
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...)
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.
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'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?
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.