Orange Badge Culture At Microsoft

coolball writes "For those of us that have worked as a contractor (a-dash or orange badge or whatever), Seattle PI's 'Microsoft's 'orange badge' culture gets forum' article caught my eye this morning. He talks about OrangeBadges.com and Contractor's International Network, two forums that have sprung up as a meeting place (cyber & meat) for current/past/future contractors of the empire. If you have been a Microsoftee, then you would laugh out loud in recognition some of the tales he relates."

Comments

For the record

[gcnaddict]

Microsoft's two biggest contractors are Volt and Kelly Services

Working in the belly of the beast

[robipilot]

You've got to give them a bit of credit. Here these guys are making money from the great evil one, working in the belly of the beast. At least they didn't end up changing badge colors.

Having been a contractor in IT working for some of the "big ones" the last 10 years, it is a lot different wearing the OTHER color badge. Things like:

1. No free meals on "employee appreciation day".
2. No access to the company park/gym/pool/volleyball pits.
3. Parking 2 miles from the building entrance.

On the good side:

1. Real easy to leave and go to the next gig.
2. Money.
3. More autonomy. I am my own boss when my wife's not around.

IBM and Contractors

[Chagatai]

I found that IBM had a similar environment when it came to contractors. Although not ostracized as much as Microsoft appears to be (e.g. with the a- prefix to e-mail addresses), there was a certain stigma against them.

I recall in one of their security training videos contractors were even mocked. Some "evil" data-mining company was doing things such as stealing laptops, eavesdropping on conversations, and pretending to be members of the target company. When the tasks for the day were given out, and dumpster diving came up, someone said something along the lines of, "Well, give that to one of the contractors. Heh heh heh." Funnier yet, when the "contractor" showed up in the video, he looked more like Joe Dirt, covered with tattoos and a mullet. He was dropped off way, waaaay up the street from the target CEO's house and the truck with the other contractor went and parked next to the trash cans. So about 20 seconds of the video shows this guy walking up the street in broad daylight, sticking out like a sore thumb, only to come to where the truck was parked, dumped the trash bins into the truck and left. It was horribly ridiculous and MST3K-worthy.

Re:Life as a contractor is good, why force the iss

[dada21]

10 weeks a year? Try more like 20. Contracts who know how valuable they are can easily charge well over $150-$200 per hour and accomplish in a day what some IT employees take a week to do.

Health insurance isn't too expensive if you realize you need it for EMERGENCIES, not for yearly check ups and all that. Drop the co-pay, pay for your doctor's visits, and use insurance only for the big things. When I put my deductible to US$5000 annually, my insurance rate dropped big time. I put a little over US$5000 in gold to pay my deductible in an emergency, and I believe I pay just over US$100 for my health insurance (31/M/ex-smoker/kidney stones). I have great coverage, but I pay my doctor cash -- and get a discount for it from his office.

Re:Whiners

[MustardMan]

It's called hyperbole. It's the same line of logic as the original statement, but purposely taking it to an extreme to show the fallacy of logic. Just because someone has it better than someone else doesn't mean they have no right to ever complain.

Presenting myself for the slaughter

[a-howardwu]

Alright boys and gals, I'm here so, please, bring on the onslaught. I'm the grinning dude in the PI article, Howard that started OrangeBadges.com. DON'T ALL THROW FECES AT ME ALL AT ONCE!!!

But seriously, I'm not sure if you all realize how huge an organization Microsoft is, and how much of its workforce is made up of temp employees. Just in Redmond, WA, there are 30,000+ head counts, and between 1/3 to 1/4 of that is made up of contractors. If you also take into account of the perma-temps of the 80s and 90s, plus, due to the "work-365-days-and-take-100-days-off-with-no-guara ntees-your-position-won't-be-fille-by-another-cont ractor" perma-temp settlement, there is a huge swarm of people flowing through the orange-badge system every year. That's easily 10,000+ people who are/have worked as an orange badge at MS. If you also take into consideration all the people who WANT to, plus all the international MS orange badges, you will realize that this is a huge community of people.

Now, I know we are all supposed to hate Microsoft. Trust me, now that I am in the bastion of open-source @ Amazon.com, there is no lack of distrust of commercial licensed software, but I'm talking about real people here. So, cut me some slack, boys and girls. It's just a message board. :-)

OK, now you can all throw feces my way, and I will answer the best I can. :-)

Re:Attempt to unionize an inevitability?

[bmajik]

When i was still working at the redmond campus (as a blue), a few times a year we'd see a bunch of bozos walking around campus with "WashTech" signs / banners etc. A few people were trying to start a tech-workers union back then.

The sort of people Microsoft wants to hire (as FTEs) are not interested in unionization. Microsoft, more than anywhere else i've worked, is a meritocracy where people are vastly rewarded for excellent personal performance. We want to hire people that excel in that environment. People that know they are bright enough that they could walk and find other gainful employment, so don't put up with things they don't have to where they are. People that have a variety of options and beleive where they are at is the best available.

That's pretty much the opposite of the sort of people that are interested in unionization.

I don't see Microsoft putting up with any kind of unionization of contract workers. The last time contractors aggregately sued MS, we amended our policy by making them sit on the bench 100 days per year (to make it crystal clear that contractors/permatemps were temporary.. a- (agency-temp) workers have to take 100 days off every year now)

There are some distinctions at MS between blue and orange that probably need to remain, but others that could probably go away. The latter are mostly individual actions.. people with poor professional behavior that treat contractors unfairly or as if they're some kind of lesser person. There need to be some differences in the way you treat the non-blues for legal/other reasons, but that shouldn't spill into how you treat them as humans. Unfortuneately it is completely possible to work at MS and not really have any sense of how to interact with people effectively [unless you define "effective" as badgering people into submission].

I've worked with great contractors and not so great contractors. Hell, I know of at least one guy that moved from blue->orange so he could take 100 days of "vacation" every year to snowboard. Not a bad sounding idea, honestly :)