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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."
Wu claiming that he doesn't want to try to unionize contractors to Microsoft rings hollow. If he's building a site that encourages community, couldn't any other member in the community just as easily make a big push to unionize as he could? I suspect that if enough buzz was drawn around the idea, it wouldn't necessarily matter what the founder thought, unless said founder quashed notions of the idea, an action I find unlikely.
___ In the words of Gen. Douglas McArthur: "I'll be right back."
Thats what some of the full time blue badges at one point liked to call any of the vendors/contractors (they get e-mail addresses that start with a "x-" before the username and the different letters stood for differnt contracting & temp agencies. A friend of mine used to work there (went from Orange to Blue badge) said that there were a number of full timers who completely looked down on the contactors. They would ignore thier e-mails, not co-operate with them and brush it off since the temps were just "dash trash". If this is still happens and full time employees still get away with it, they could use a support forum or two...
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
I knew a guy who worked for a company as a contractor. He was billing $60 an hour, and they were giving him about 50 hours of work a week. They gave him a nice office. The guy turned around and sued the company to be recognized as an employee because he wanted the benifits. I forget the details, but his argument boiled down to "they treated me like an employee, so I am an employee, now give me my benifits or severance pay".
I'm the kind of guy who likes working on projects, then moving on to something different. What is wrong with contracts? I have been very happy working on a project for 5 or 6 months, then taking two or three weeks off before starting the next project. I have more vacation time than my friends who are employees.
I learned my ABC's watching television! I learned science watching Voltron.
Im contracting for a financial services firm and I see the same childish behavior everywhere I go. They put contractors out in hallways with a desk, pc and chair. The employees used to laugh. Then, suddenly, an employee was sitting out in a hallway one day and the contractors were laughing. All the while, no one realizes that companies create an environment of uncertainty and stress by putting workers against each other. Contractors are not the only mechanism used this way. Forced ranking systems are another example. This atmosphere creates workers that are on edge all the time, overworked and worried.
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/
Doens't Google have the same setup: a team of enmployees and a team of disposable contractors?
Are the contractors treated better at one place or the other?
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Why orange ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_wheel
orange is the opposite of blue, just like red and green.
Is this intentional ?
How desperate for news must the slashdot editors be to have posted this article?
Not desperate at all...the motive is far more sinister than mere desperation.
Check out the member page for 'coolball'.
'Coolball' is obviously one of Zonk's numerous dummy accounts he uses when he wants to shove another uninteresting story down our throats, but doesn't have the balls to do it directly. Just peruse his old stories, and check out the user pages of the alleged 'contributors', and you can see for yourself that Zonk has a long and sordid history of this sort of jerrymandering.
Zonk is singlehandedly killing Slashdot, and we're all letting it happen!
STOP HIM BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
I started out at M$ as a contractor. (End user support for MSAccess in Irving, TX back in '95) I was an employee within six months. (Then an ex amployee six months after that.) When I switched over, the difference was like night and day.
:)
While I was a contractor there was a site wide carnival where they trucked in mini roller coasters and other fun stuff. Contractors were literally ushered out the door and weren't even told about it beforehand.
One day when I was a full time employee all of the contractors...ALL 700 on site...were fired because of low call volume.
The class action lawsuit brought in later years by former contractors didn't surprise me one bit after that.
There is nothing that puts more fear in a Megacorp like employee awareness. Especially when they know if they treat someone unfairly, everyone is going to know about it. I've seen temps treated pretty unfairly at times, almost as if they agreed in writing to be treated like a doormat when they signed the contract. Good job Wu.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I don't know but the article quality on Slashdot really sucks lately. It's winter, and it's the holidays. Geeks aren't looking for articles about what it's like to work at Microsoft or the same old stuff about obscure OSS contests, the US gov't spying on us, Windows having scurity holes, yet another 'Ask Slashdot' "How do I admin a server?", or a (yawn) DE flamefest.
We're looking for something interesting or something to do. This is a site for hackers, remember? Not just middle-managers. I want to see articles about somebody heating their house with a server farm, or HOWTO build your own embedded system from a system-on-chip or something. I mean, ever since somebody decided Slashdot has to only be about OSS, there have been more articles about fscking Microsoft than anything really interesting.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I have contracted for years in Silicon Valley (since the bust) and am always treated well by the companies I work for: Invited to office parties, holiday bonuses and the topper of them all: quarterly profit sharing. All of this despite the fact that I am typically only at each client for 15-25 hours/week. Granted, these are smaller companies (under 500 employees), but nevertheless. I suppose you weigh your choices and go from there.
I couldn't agree more. I was a contractor for 8 years for various big companies, and I couldn't be paid enough to be a permanent employee. As a contractor, I made a LOT more money than the "permanent" employees, I got to dodge most of the beauracratic bullshit, and I got paid overtime if I worked more than 40 hours a week. In fact, I always thought that the "permanent" employees were the suckers. And you're right, the ability to switch jobs without it looking bad on a resume was invaluable. I went from phone jockey to senior DB developer in less than 6 years. No way I could've done that as a "permanent" employee.
I don't respond to AC's.
That happened to me. Once. Shortly thereafter, I had a chat with my manager, who had a chat with his manager's manager. His unwillingness to work with contractors was on his review the next cycle, and he "spent more time with his family".
. . . in DOD TS/SCI (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information) facility.
When I arrived at a new assignment in the former West Germany in the 1980s at a USAF TS/SCI facility, I waited six weeks for my SCI access to be verified.
In those days, a red badge was issued to anyone who's SCI access had not been verified. While in the facility, you had to be escorted everywhere and before you entered a room your escort had to announce "RED BADGE" to alert everyone to stop the secret-squirrel stuff.
And when I say "escorted everywhere," I mean everywhere, including the restroom. Red badges were encouraged to make number two BEFORE they entered the facility, or wait until they left.
What?
Actually, there are reserved parking spaces for Bill and Steve. In the building 35 parking garage, there's an area cordoned off with a little guard house. Unless your vehicle is on the list, or happen to be a particular person driving a slightly beat up black lexus sedan, you can't park in that spot.
:)
It's funny when you happen to ride the elevator up in the morning with one of them, they almost look like they try to appear busy so they don't have to talk to you.