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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."
I thought C# was supposed to do away with a lot of casting in everyday programming. oh FUCK
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'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.
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I'm been both a blue and an orange badge.
a- == temp employee
v- == vendor
t- == intern
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
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-."
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!
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...
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*beware the cute-bunny virus
>They just have low karma...
:p
Even though this sounds funny, you are pretty much right on the mark. I did some consulting, and I did some contract work during the boom and every once in a while I would catch some static from the FTE's.
Sometimes I earned my space on the floor by being a serious bad ass - the techs or FTE programmers were genuinely interested in my technique, my thoughts, and my experiences in similar situations. They were eager to absorb the things I had to offer, and I was eager to share.
Occasionally I would run into someone that had a chip on their shoulder and I had to earn my space on the floor the hard way (Shock and Awe). I got into a pissing match with a DBA once over the way we were going to configure a particular SQL box and when push came to shove in the server room I held up my hand as if to say 'hold on a sec', looked at my watch. We sat there silent for a full 60 seconds as I watched the second hand on my watch go full circle. I put my hand down and said 'Your company just paid me $4 for that minute. I get paid another $4 for the sixty seconds it takes for me to explain this to you, and during the sixty seconds it takes you to consider the full ramifications of that statement, (you guessed it) I earn another four dollars. We can discuss this as long as you like, and I am willing to discuss it with whoever you want to bring into this discussion. If your pride is on the line here, I will let you adopt my recommendations and demand that we do it that way and I will let you take credit for the idea - I don't care because in four days I will be out of here.' BOOM! That pretty much ended the pissing match and I got on with my work.
I didn't get invited to the company party. I didn't get perks and I had to park out in left field. I didn't get invited to lunch. And I didn't care. God I miss those days
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As for the low karma bit - it is entirely possible that the temps (at least some of them, the ones whining about their stapler or not being respected) were shining examples of Darwin in action and were not worthy of respect. Otis may have hit the nail on the head on this one.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
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.
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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.