Really contractors are just a symptom of the super short-term mentality that businesses have been rocking for the last 20-30 years.
This is also why people who've been with a company for 20-30 years are like unicorns now. Raises often don't keep up with CoL so it can feel like the only way to keep your salary up with what you're legitimately worth on the market often seems to be to jump ship every couple years.
That's one place contract work can sometimes be advantageous. If you hop assignments every year or so, you're constantly getting chances to re-negotiate your rate.
I mean, I used to work at a place where they gave you a score of 1-5 on several criteria, and then averaged them, and that averaged score was your % raise. And the fuckstick IT manager didn't believe in giving out 5's because "No one is perfect and everyone has room to improve, so a 5 should be unobtainable". Not a company policy, just this dick's style.
Screw you, asshole, keep your motivational poster bullshit on your office wall. That's my livelihood you're pissing away with your I-learned-this-in-new-manager-training garbage.
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KakodaimonosCode fondlerHelping the 1% get richerRegistered Userregular
There's also #3. You need some specialized experience for a short project. We don't need to have a CISCO switch guy on staff so we contract that out when for the times we need to configure or troubleshoot them.
And #4. You're contractually obligated. We have to use the colos contractors in some cases
Well, to be fair, most of us contractors don't get vacation/sick time. Or holiday pay. I only get vacation/sick time because MegaCorp demands their contractors provide it, but I get the bare minimum. It's like 6.5 days a year.
And usually have the cheapest insurance. Or none, back when that was legal.
So they save a bit on money on that end. Only paying for hours worked.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Well, to be fair, most of us contractors don't get vacation/sick time. Or holiday pay. I only get vacation/sick time because MegaCorp demands their contractors provide it, but I get the bare minimum. It's like 6.5 days a year.
And usually have the cheapest insurance. Or none, back when that was legal.
So they save a bit on money on that end. Only paying for hours worked.
When I contracted, we didn't get any sick/vaca time. After you reached a certain number of total hours worked (roughly 1 year of 40 hour weeks), you got a "bonus paycheck". It was 40 hours worth of pay, meaning you could either take the bonus money as a bonus, or use it to cover a week off work. I think if you were there for longer than 2 or 3 years, you got them every 6 months, but who the fuck wants to be a contractor that long?
Well, to be fair, most of us contractors don't get vacation/sick time. Or holiday pay. I only get vacation/sick time because MegaCorp demands their contractors provide it, but I get the bare minimum. It's like 6.5 days a year.
And usually have the cheapest insurance. Or none, back when that was legal.
So they save a bit on money on that end. Only paying for hours worked.
This doesn't make sense.
The company contracted from a contractor, who uses contractors and not employees?
Someone's getting fucked here somewhere, no one has figured it'd be worth it to fuck around with it. As soon as someone reports these stooges to the DoL a whole slew of people are probably going to get checks for a few grand.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Well, to be fair, most of us contractors don't get vacation/sick time. Or holiday pay. I only get vacation/sick time because MegaCorp demands their contractors provide it, but I get the bare minimum. It's like 6.5 days a year.
And usually have the cheapest insurance. Or none, back when that was legal.
So they save a bit on money on that end. Only paying for hours worked.
When I contracted, we didn't get any sick/vaca time. After you reached a certain number of total hours worked (roughly 1 year of 40 hour weeks), you got a "bonus paycheck". It was 40 hours worth of pay, meaning you could either take the bonus money as a bonus, or use it to cover a week off work.
Woo hoo.
Yeah but were you a bonafide contractor or being hired through a temp agency as one of "their" employees? That seems to be the difference.
If you're dealing and negotiating with the company directly, you're a contractor. If you're not, you're an employee of a contractor, but you're still an employee.
If you're being told you're a contractor because the company is a contractor (like for the DoD) you're getting fucked and lied to at some level there.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Well, to be fair, most of us contractors don't get vacation/sick time. Or holiday pay. I only get vacation/sick time because MegaCorp demands their contractors provide it, but I get the bare minimum. It's like 6.5 days a year.
And usually have the cheapest insurance. Or none, back when that was legal.
So they save a bit on money on that end. Only paying for hours worked.
This doesn't make sense.
The company contracted from a contractor, who uses contractors and not employees?
Someone's getting fucked here somewhere, no one has figured it'd be worth it to fuck around with it. As soon as someone reports these stooges to the DoL a whole slew of people are probably going to get checks for a few grand.
The contracting company uses employees, but the employees are just hourly employees and in a lot of states they're not obligated to provide them with any PTO. You can take whatever days you like off, but you have to eat the lost hours.
Well, to be fair, most of us contractors don't get vacation/sick time. Or holiday pay. I only get vacation/sick time because MegaCorp demands their contractors provide it, but I get the bare minimum. It's like 6.5 days a year.
And usually have the cheapest insurance. Or none, back when that was legal.
So they save a bit on money on that end. Only paying for hours worked.
When I contracted, we didn't get any sick/vaca time. After you reached a certain number of total hours worked (roughly 1 year of 40 hour weeks), you got a "bonus paycheck". It was 40 hours worth of pay, meaning you could either take the bonus money as a bonus, or use it to cover a week off work.
Woo hoo.
Yeah but were you a bonafide contractor or being hired through a temp agency as one of "their" employees? That seems to be the difference.
If you're dealing and negotiating with the company directly, you're a contractor. If you're not, you're an employee of a contractor, but you're still an employee.
If you're being told you're a contractor because the company is a contractor (like for the DoD) you're getting fucked and lied to at some level there.
I was hired through a temp/contract agency as one of "their" employees.
I've only ever known one person who's worked as an independent contractor.
Well, two, but one of them was such a useless tool he pretty much doesn't count.
Right, what I'm getting at from Aioua is they were legit being told, "You're a contractor" even though they weren't.
I would have straight up moved anywhere, fuck that bullshit. You guys deal with some straight up garbage why do you even bother?
So, I just want to be clear, are you thinking "1099 independent contractor" when you say contractor?
Cause we're all W-2 employees. I wouldn't 1099 for less than $50 an hour. Fuck that noise.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
In general you have to pay the contracting company to do all that for you, though.
The only time you save money is when the contracting company is sufficiently large that they save so much money from economies of scale that they can pay for all that and take a healthy cut for themselves and still charge less than it would cost you.
Yup you're paying for all of that stuff either way. And like I said, payroll taxes are usually deductible since it's a "regular business expense." Holiday pay isn't required by law, so... but yeah you're still paying for that.
Oh but then you go, "Bowen, but with a contracting company, when the IT guy is on vacation I still have an IT guy, but I only paid for 1!"
No, you didn't. You paid for the profit of the company and for the overhead to have a second person, of course, spread out over the course of the contract. You also are still paying for vacation time, health insurance, 401k compensation, payroll tax and profits for the company you're using.
There are two situations where this will work in the company's favor:
You're a tiny ass company and don't have the resources to hire a full time person, but also don't have the need for a full time person because you have 2 computers
The company you're using is so large and so are you and the technology you're using is about as complex as popping in a CD and installing word, and all you need is tier 1 and maybe tier 2 tech support. Servers? What are those? Oh you mean the people at the 5 star restaurant that bring me food?
If you don't fall into that category, contracting never makes sense. There is an ancillary case, and that's where regular employees don't actually do work.
You forgot another important situation:
The contracting company that is an unsustainable scam that is set up to feed as much profit into the pockets of the creators as possible before going under.
Right, what I'm getting at from Aioua is they were legit being told, "You're a contractor" even though they weren't.
I would have straight up moved anywhere, fuck that bullshit. You guys deal with some straight up garbage why do you even bother?
So, I just want to be clear, are you thinking "1099 independent contractor" when you say contractor?
Cause we're all W-2 employees. I wouldn't 1099 for less than $50 an hour. Fuck that noise.
Yeah that's a contractor.
W-2 employees working for a contracting company are typically consultants or analysts.
Wheeee dialects.
Around here we wouldn't call someone someone a consultant unless they were high-paid-come-in-and-fix-shit-then-leave types. And analyst is just part of a job title.
I think it's the relative lack of Federal Government contracting around here. We've got different people (MS, Amazon, etc.) defining the jargon.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Yeah, we called W-2 employees working for another company (like a temp agency) "contractors". We really only used "consultant" for, like, very temporary stuff. Like bringing in a guy who was a Unity specialist to train some of us for a week when we moved to that from our custom engine.
Well you'd say "I work for a contractor" but that's different than "I am a contractor."
You're an analyst working for a contractor.
Saying you're a contractor creates a different picture entirely of what it is you're really doing and are. Might be east coast vs west coast though.
I'd imagine a contractor as the kind of person who comes in for $150 an hour to work on a project. Analyst is the w-2 guy working for a 3rd party tech company managing the IT infrastructure of another.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I worked one job as a contractor, as in I was there on a 1 year contract. Vacation was in the form of 3% extra each pay period, there were no benefits, and if I wanted to take a day off I wouldn't get paid. A lot of times I got stuck having to do overtime and they wouldn't even pay me. Our manager wasn't a complete dick at least and said if we stayed late to get testing done, no matter how long it took, that we could take a day off and get paid for it. Quite often I would stay an extra 2-3 hours on a Friday and then I'd take Monday off.
Because if you're going to attempt to squeeze that big black monster into your slot you will need to be able to take at least 12 inches or else you're going to have a bad time...
I was hired there through a contacting company, never spoke to anyone at the contracting company before, I guess I had applied for a job that they had posted at some point, all my interviews were with the company I actually worked at. They paid my wage and also paid the contracting company, nothing ever game from the main company. That's where the no-OT came from since the main company couldn't afford it I guess. I didn't mind it too much since I essentially got 4 day weeks half of every month.
Because if you're going to attempt to squeeze that big black monster into your slot you will need to be able to take at least 12 inches or else you're going to have a bad time...
Sounds more like they were a recruiting/sourcing company.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Been playing around with my Venue 11 pro (laptop replacement). Pretty neat, though it was annoying to have to get cables so I could run dual monitors off the dock. It does not like adapters at all.
So we just transferred to a new file server at work. One of the perks of the new server is that it has duplication detection. Our old file server was supposedly hosting almost 9TB of data. After running the duplication reduction application, it is now hosting 879GB of data.
I really, really, really fucking hate the PA's for our doctors sometimes.
Nope, they aren't. It's not considered "secured" debt. Which is bonkers to me, employees should get first dibs before anyone.
Any state where they are considered secured, they're after all the creditors since their debt is the "newest". With a bankruptcy that probably means there's nothing left to be liquidated to pay them either.
This differs state to state though.
Aargh this is the last place i thought i'd find bad legal advice. I know i'm late to the party, but weighing in anyway and pulling no punches here because I don't want @Aioua to be injured.
1) Bowen, WTF are you talking about? The bankruptcy code is a federal statute. Where are you getting state-by-state differences from?
Someone explain how wage debt could possibly be secured debt - what is it secured by? You'd need to have an employment agreement that created a security interest, and then you would have had to perfect that security interest by filing a UCC-1 or recording a lien or whatever.
2) @DisruptedCapitalist is also likely wrong with his discussion of fraud claims, but for technical statutory reasons i'm not going to waste time with here.
3) Unpaid wage claims are unsecured but get increased priority. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/507 Talk to a lawyer. Again, this is a f-e-d-e-r-a-l statute, so there's no state law variation here.
4) Aioua, if you haven't been paid pre-bankruptcy wages you need to find an atty ASAP and assert your claim. There are often strict deadlines for filing claims in bankruptcy and if you blow it, you won't get paid. You don't constitute a "class", per se, but you could definitely join forces with other employees to defray the costs of the representation. If it's just filing your claims, you really shouldn't be paying more than $2k or so.
Nope, they aren't. It's not considered "secured" debt. Which is bonkers to me, employees should get first dibs before anyone.
Any state where they are considered secured, they're after all the creditors since their debt is the "newest". With a bankruptcy that probably means there's nothing left to be liquidated to pay them either.
This differs state to state though.
Aargh this is the last place i thought i'd find bad legal advice. I know i'm late to the party, but weighing in anyway and pulling no punches here because I don't want @Aioua to be injured.
1) Bowen, WTF are you talking about? The bankruptcy code is a federal statute. Where are you getting state-by-state differences from?
Someone explain how wage debt could possibly be secured debt - what is it secured by? You'd need to have an employment agreement that created a security interest, and then you would have had to perfect that security interest by filing a UCC-1 or recording a lien or whatever.
2) @DisruptedCapitalist is also likely wrong with his discussion of fraud claims, but for technical statutory reasons i'm not going to waste time with here.
3) Unpaid wage claims are unsecured but get increased priority. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/507 Talk to a lawyer. Again, this is a f-e-d-e-r-a-l statute, so there's no state law variation here.
4) Aioua, if you haven't been paid pre-bankruptcy wages you need to find an atty ASAP and assert your claim. There are often strict deadlines for filing claims in bankruptcy and if you blow it, you won't get paid. You don't constitute a "class", per se, but you could definitely join forces with other employees to defray the costs of the representation. If it's just filing your claims, you really shouldn't be paying more than $2k or so.
Some states can expand upon bankruptcy to give better protections to the bankruptee. But wages are most definitely unsecured debt. Just like highway funds and medicaid, the rules aren't set in stone, so long as you follow the minimum guidelines.
But, here's the kicker, if a company is in bankruptcy, and liquidating (not restructuring) unsecured debt will probably get jack. You're lucky if secured gets jack. Shelves and old product don't fetch a ton of money under liquidation, the rest of it is IP and licenses and shit which doesn't exactly have a value either.
One of the most obvious differences in state by state for bankruptcy is how much tax refund you can keep when you file for ch7 and how much you can keep while in the plan on ch13.
NY is something like $1500 you get to keep, anything over you send to the trustee ($2.5kish for joint), whereas Tennessee you send it all to the trustee and maybe you'll get some back if the trustee likes you enough and you make a good case.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Can we please, for the love of all that's holy, quit with the "I'm Not a Lawyer, But Let Me Play Holiday Inn Express Lawyer For a Moment" in this thread fellows?
If Aioua's really concerned, I'm sure legal representation will be found.
Nope, they aren't. It's not considered "secured" debt. Which is bonkers to me, employees should get first dibs before anyone.
Any state where they are considered secured, they're after all the creditors since their debt is the "newest". With a bankruptcy that probably means there's nothing left to be liquidated to pay them either.
This differs state to state though.
Aargh this is the last place i thought i'd find bad legal advice. I know i'm late to the party, but weighing in anyway and pulling no punches here because I don't want @Aioua to be injured.
1) Bowen, WTF are you talking about? The bankruptcy code is a federal statute. Where are you getting state-by-state differences from?
Someone explain how wage debt could possibly be secured debt - what is it secured by? You'd need to have an employment agreement that created a security interest, and then you would have had to perfect that security interest by filing a UCC-1 or recording a lien or whatever.
2) @DisruptedCapitalist is also likely wrong with his discussion of fraud claims, but for technical statutory reasons i'm not going to waste time with here.
3) Unpaid wage claims are unsecured but get increased priority. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/507 Talk to a lawyer. Again, this is a f-e-d-e-r-a-l statute, so there's no state law variation here.
4) Aioua, if you haven't been paid pre-bankruptcy wages you need to find an atty ASAP and assert your claim. There are often strict deadlines for filing claims in bankruptcy and if you blow it, you won't get paid. You don't constitute a "class", per se, but you could definitely join forces with other employees to defray the costs of the representation. If it's just filing your claims, you really shouldn't be paying more than $2k or so.
Agreed, it's easy to get carried away by these conversations and I was really voicing a fantasy, not something that should be acted upon. Sorry @Aioua.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
Posts
This is also why people who've been with a company for 20-30 years are like unicorns now. Raises often don't keep up with CoL so it can feel like the only way to keep your salary up with what you're legitimately worth on the market often seems to be to jump ship every couple years.
That's one place contract work can sometimes be advantageous. If you hop assignments every year or so, you're constantly getting chances to re-negotiate your rate.
Screw you, asshole, keep your motivational poster bullshit on your office wall. That's my livelihood you're pissing away with your I-learned-this-in-new-manager-training garbage.
And #4. You're contractually obligated. We have to use the colos contractors in some cases
And usually have the cheapest insurance. Or none, back when that was legal.
So they save a bit on money on that end. Only paying for hours worked.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
When I contracted, we didn't get any sick/vaca time. After you reached a certain number of total hours worked (roughly 1 year of 40 hour weeks), you got a "bonus paycheck". It was 40 hours worth of pay, meaning you could either take the bonus money as a bonus, or use it to cover a week off work. I think if you were there for longer than 2 or 3 years, you got them every 6 months, but who the fuck wants to be a contractor that long?
Woo hoo.
This doesn't make sense.
The company contracted from a contractor, who uses contractors and not employees?
Someone's getting fucked here somewhere, no one has figured it'd be worth it to fuck around with it. As soon as someone reports these stooges to the DoL a whole slew of people are probably going to get checks for a few grand.
Yeah but were you a bonafide contractor or being hired through a temp agency as one of "their" employees? That seems to be the difference.
If you're dealing and negotiating with the company directly, you're a contractor. If you're not, you're an employee of a contractor, but you're still an employee.
If you're being told you're a contractor because the company is a contractor (like for the DoD) you're getting fucked and lied to at some level there.
The contracting company uses employees, but the employees are just hourly employees and in a lot of states they're not obligated to provide them with any PTO. You can take whatever days you like off, but you have to eat the lost hours.
I would have straight up moved anywhere, fuck that bullshit. You guys deal with some straight up garbage why do you even bother?
I was hired through a temp/contract agency as one of "their" employees.
I've only ever known one person who's worked as an independent contractor.
Well, two, but one of them was such a useless tool he pretty much doesn't count.
So, I just want to be clear, are you thinking "1099 independent contractor" when you say contractor?
Cause we're all W-2 employees. I wouldn't 1099 for less than $50 an hour. Fuck that noise.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
You forgot another important situation:
The contracting company that is an unsustainable scam that is set up to feed as much profit into the pockets of the creators as possible before going under.
Yeah that's a contractor.
W-2 employees working for a contracting company are typically consultants or analysts.
Wheeee dialects.
Around here we wouldn't call someone someone a consultant unless they were high-paid-come-in-and-fix-shit-then-leave types. And analyst is just part of a job title.
I think it's the relative lack of Federal Government contracting around here. We've got different people (MS, Amazon, etc.) defining the jargon.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
You're an analyst working for a contractor.
Saying you're a contractor creates a different picture entirely of what it is you're really doing and are. Might be east coast vs west coast though.
I'd imagine a contractor as the kind of person who comes in for $150 an hour to work on a project. Analyst is the w-2 guy working for a 3rd party tech company managing the IT infrastructure of another.
Sounds more like they were a recruiting/sourcing company.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
"When my production SQL Server blue screens and starts taking a full memory dump"
IANADBA (I am not a DBA) but I follow the DBA Reaction tumbler because it is, on occasion, hilarious.
I loved when they referenced that scene in Undercover Brother.
I thought they were going to kick me out of the movie I was laughing so hard.
Can't find a non-dubbed version:
They're still dodging me about paying my expenses (mileage, etc) for that period.
WHY SQLEXPRESS, WHY DO YOU FORSAKE ME SO?
What are you trying to do?
Nintendo ID: Incindium
PSN: IncindiumX
Soon meant, that I was let go during Christmas.
I really, really, really fucking hate the PA's for our doctors sometimes.
Yep. It's in writing or it's bullshit.
The same things I've done on everything else - enabled the tcp/ipconnection enabled for all ips, opened the firewall, restart the server.
Nope! Timeout and/or sqlexpress not configured for tcp/ip..
Wondering whether it is a windows 8.1 vs sql 2008 r2 incompatibility thing, given I ignored that and hit continue.
Aargh this is the last place i thought i'd find bad legal advice. I know i'm late to the party, but weighing in anyway and pulling no punches here because I don't want @Aioua to be injured.
1) Bowen, WTF are you talking about? The bankruptcy code is a federal statute. Where are you getting state-by-state differences from?
Someone explain how wage debt could possibly be secured debt - what is it secured by? You'd need to have an employment agreement that created a security interest, and then you would have had to perfect that security interest by filing a UCC-1 or recording a lien or whatever.
2) @DisruptedCapitalist is also likely wrong with his discussion of fraud claims, but for technical statutory reasons i'm not going to waste time with here.
3) Unpaid wage claims are unsecured but get increased priority. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/507 Talk to a lawyer. Again, this is a f-e-d-e-r-a-l statute, so there's no state law variation here.
4) Aioua, if you haven't been paid pre-bankruptcy wages you need to find an atty ASAP and assert your claim. There are often strict deadlines for filing claims in bankruptcy and if you blow it, you won't get paid. You don't constitute a "class", per se, but you could definitely join forces with other employees to defray the costs of the representation. If it's just filing your claims, you really shouldn't be paying more than $2k or so.
Some states can expand upon bankruptcy to give better protections to the bankruptee. But wages are most definitely unsecured debt. Just like highway funds and medicaid, the rules aren't set in stone, so long as you follow the minimum guidelines.
But, here's the kicker, if a company is in bankruptcy, and liquidating (not restructuring) unsecured debt will probably get jack. You're lucky if secured gets jack. Shelves and old product don't fetch a ton of money under liquidation, the rest of it is IP and licenses and shit which doesn't exactly have a value either.
One of the most obvious differences in state by state for bankruptcy is how much tax refund you can keep when you file for ch7 and how much you can keep while in the plan on ch13.
NY is something like $1500 you get to keep, anything over you send to the trustee ($2.5kish for joint), whereas Tennessee you send it all to the trustee and maybe you'll get some back if the trustee likes you enough and you make a good case.
If Aioua's really concerned, I'm sure legal representation will be found.
-iTunes
Aaaaaaaaand, SCENE!
Agreed, it's easy to get carried away by these conversations and I was really voicing a fantasy, not something that should be acted upon. Sorry @Aioua.