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Sundae posted:
I thought contractors were only worth it if you had a highly variable work load so that you can quickly bring in (or lose) employees as the work level requires? Why would you have a staff on contract for year time scales? What am I missing? Also, I realize that you probably don't make these decisions.
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Jan 3, 2015 23:37
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Contractors are also great if you can't hire anyone for a particular position for love or (an insultingly small amount of) money. It's also good if you need to get started doing something NOW NOW NOW and can't spend the time to go through the FT interview and hiring process.
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Jan 3, 2015 23:43
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Cheesus posted:My spider-sense tells me this is where Sundae gets screwed. As I understand it, this would be a winning scenario for Sundae because he'd then no longer be liable for paying off his massively overinflated relocation costs (per his contract) and could even file for unemployment. Remember, the only thing keeping him there is the fact his contact basically locked him into indentured servitude for a certain number of years due to aforementioned relocation costs.
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Jan 3, 2015 23:47
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BigDave posted:If I get the job (fingers crossed!) I'll be running the internal help desk for a mid-sized law firm. Is there any hope that the end users won't be raging assholes, or should I start drinking now? Well, most of your end users are going to be paralegals or legal assistants probably working under impossible expectations, so you being able to keep their software running will probably make you a godsend, actually. All law firms are different but it's reasonable to expect the attorneys and other upper management to be at least some kind of assholes, though!
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Jan 4, 2015 00:52
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MickeyFinn posted:I thought contractors were only worth it if you had a highly variable work load so that you can quickly bring in (or lose) employees as the work level requires? Why would you have a staff on contract for year time scales? What am I missing? Also, I realize that you probably don't make these decisions. Correct; I don't make those decisions. I get to make very few decisions, and on the odd occasion that I make one, it inevitably involves some director screaming at me for holding up production. The thing you're missing (and which I just plain don't understand whatsoever) is that JNJ hires ungodly numbers of contractors for everything. This place has more contractors filling ordinarily FTE/PTH roles than anywhere I've ever seen. They hold them for more than 1-year durations, too; there is a policy that you cannot keep a contractor in his current role for greater than 2 years as some sort of roundabout way of making sure he/the state doesn't misconstrue their role as an actual employee. We had several contractors in our Doc Control group get shuffled into new roles last October because they'd hit their two year marks, to give an example. They now work in completely different roles for the next six months, and will presumably then rotate back to Doc Control again. It's really hard to judge without an org chart, but I'd estimate that somewhere between 60-80% of all our employees are contractors. I don't understand the logic, because they are neither cheaper (ha!) nor more reliable. I can definitely vouch for them not putting in sustainable quality work when it comes to systems. Our Consent Decree contractors developed absolutely ludicrous quality systems that have no chance of functioning in the long run, and they didn't give a poo poo because they already knew they were out on their asses the day the CD ended. Which it did last week, because pigs fly and angels dance on the heads of pins or something. No idea how we got out of it. I'll just leave this little gem here, since it's pretty obvious which subsidiary I work for given the consent decree stuff... quote:Perhaps most disturbing, in 2009 contractors hired by J&J carried out a scheme to secretly recall damaged Motrin by going store by store and quietly buying every packet, according to the FDA. That raised the prospect that J&J not only was making shoddy products -- but was trying to keep the trouble out of public view. http://archive.fortune.com/2010/08/18/news/companies/jnj_drug_recalls.fortune/index.htm That stuff is ancient news by now, but it still feels exactly the same to me. Not the quoted bit - I mean the general corporate climate. It hasn't changed one bit. Sundae fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Jan 4, 2015 |
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Jan 4, 2015 01:01
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Cheesus posted:Sundae is called into his boss's boss's office and the conversation begins, "Even with these replacements, we're missing our established deadlines..." A situation like this would make it easy for me to stop giving any kind of a poo poo. I mean, what are you going to do, suddenly take up the slack of 13 other people all by yourself? It ironically takes all the pressure off, because everything is entirely, utterly out of your control; projects will fail and there's nothing you can do about it. So I'd just be doing the work I can do and not worry about deadlines or put in any unpaid overtime or anything. If they want to fire me for that, they're doing me a favor.
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Jan 4, 2015 01:33
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This does, at least, explain why the org chart is confidential. They don't want anyone to know that Sundae's actually the only employee left at the company.
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Jan 4, 2015 01:59
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Sundae posted:
 Jesus, I knew it was bad, but not that bad.So, are you guys gonna end up killing a dozen kids after rats infect a batch of liquid Tyenol with hantavirus or something?
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Jan 4, 2015 02:08
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docbeard posted:This does, at least, explain why the org chart is confidential. They don't want anyone to know that Sundae's actually the only employee left at the company. I literally laughed out loud. My God Sundae I am so sorry. That is bullshit. Companies hiring contractors are bullshit. I see only two real explanations: the company either is incapable of doing a good cost/benefit analysis (as contractors are expensive, result in the loss of institutional knowledge, and product substandard work) OR the ability to do away with the standard privileges and protections an employee by law is entitled to is so highly valued that it is a factor in their calculus and by this metric their cost/benefit analysis is in fact highly accurate. I like my company's org chart because it says I am an "Associate QA Engineer". lol I'm an engineer. As the daughter of an MSEE, I find this is highly amusing. I don't even know how to use a slide rule.
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Jan 4, 2015 02:37
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And now I feel great about the children's Tylenol we use 
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Jan 4, 2015 02:40
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Sundae posted:I'm sure we'll end up getting people to replace them, but mother of god what a clusterfuck. I hate the contractor model for high-level positions even under the best of conditions because of the knowledge loss at the end of the contract, but this is such a gently caress-up that I hardly know what to say. "Oh, all your people are gone. Whoopsie, hope they didn't weren't working on anything. sbaldrick posted:I"m guessing someone in HR finally figured out that high-level contractors cost more then real employees and tried to fix it. For your own sanity don't go look at what that agency was charging per person as it will make you sad. God I can completely understand this. Because I work for what basically is a consultant type of arrangement we have to have small numbers of every kind of engineer and on top of that have contracts for outside experts and it's such a pain that we don't have the institutional knowledge AND they cost twice as much as having the staff on hand does. It's rough to see my pay and benefits are not even close to 100 bucks an hour but the contractors can charge 250-350 dollars an hour to us and competitors. We have one poor guy who does ALL of our work on a certain engineering subset and he's only got 3 years of experience so he has to manage a subcontract for occasional outside expertise and it's almost more work than it's worth.
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Jan 4, 2015 02:41
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Sundae posted:It's really hard to judge without an org chart, but I'd estimate that somewhere between 60-80% of all our employees are contractors. I don't understand the logic, because they are neither cheaper (ha!) nor more reliable.
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Jan 4, 2015 04:23
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I'm a contractor through a big contacting company and we definitely get dicked around the most. My contract was initially for 6 months but it's been extended to 14 months at least with no definite end, so I asked the boss if there was a way to just become a FTE so I could have nice things like paid time off and he agreed that would make more sense but it keeps getting blocked by the higher ups. There's a thing in the employee handbook that says any temp employee who sticks around for a year automatically gets a FTE offer but I'm sure there are endless loopholes to that rule.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:05
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It's all part of Obamacare I bet 
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Jan 4, 2015 05:58
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Miss-Bomarc posted:It's all part of Obamacare I bet It's probably for tax reasons.
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Jan 4, 2015 06:23
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Sundae, I left my (huge consumer goods) company with 6 months left on my 2 year relocation pay-back contract and they didn't even mention it at all, ever. I think you should start looking for other jobs right now and if something cool happens to come up go for it
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Jan 4, 2015 07:33
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Miss-Bomarc posted:bubububububub my mba books all said contract firms were the wave of the future! lee iacoccaa can't possibly be WRONG about stuff! Lee Iamacloaca?
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Jan 4, 2015 07:45
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Jerome Louis posted:Sundae, I left my (huge consumer goods) company with 6 months left on my 2 year relocation pay-back contract and they didn't even mention it at all, ever. I think you should start looking for other jobs right now and if something cool happens to come up go for it But you may not have been actually working for Satan in pharmaceutical company form.
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Jan 4, 2015 09:41
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Jerome Louis posted:Sundae, I left my (huge consumer goods) company with 6 months left on my 2 year relocation pay-back contract and they didn't even mention it at all, ever. I think you should start looking for other jobs right now and if something cool happens to come up go for it Part of the takeaway there is you can abuse contractors and FTEs just fine with mismanagement, contractors are abused usually for the purpose of being ok to get rid of those positions from a political standpoint and to get around your inefficiencies in what you do as a business. IT operations tends to be contracted out with maybe a handful of architects at most of the dysfunctional F500 environments I've seen. If everyone keeps quitting within a year, what's the point of trying to keep FTEs for those jobs, right...? Those MBA books talking about how using contractors is better off is exemplified both well and poorly by US DoD. Blackwater was the "evil" company, right? Lack of oversight because your internal process bullshit is so dysfunctional you can't discover blatant human rights violations despite all that investment in "technology"? That's literally paying to sweep problems under the rug, and drat is that good for damage control on the all-out Iraq War disaster. I really gotta find out who in procurement actually signed off on them. On the flip side, charging $150 / hour for some kid out of college to write installer scripts and Makefiles because he's now "senior" on the contract (half the time for govt work they should substitute AARP for that modifier) is totally the norm... when your SMEs bill at $250+ / hour. This is all possibly more capital efficient when your process is so bureaucratic you're leaking money like a net trying to hold water. Only matters of like half a billion are investigated much by GAO because they're overloaded (especially after the sequester that are really still in effect - see DC suburb housing prices slowing in growth) similar to how SEC is so weak they can only focus on long-term, really solid cases. All of these things have corporate analogs mostly because all the management principles in practice over the decades actually resemble how bureaucratic the government is partly from the entire generation of men that are veterans that founded, chaired, etc. at those companies. Also, without training, you tend to just go with what everyone else has done and just hope something sticks. This is how you misattribute "you suck at managing your company" to "gosh, people cost so much now!" And it's just another way to make lovely managers that can't lead and actually create value for anyone other than Wall Street look less responsible for the corporate sprawl. Gosh, people cost so much with their healthcare costs and benefits! That's part of the equation but nobody is good at tracking how much bureaucracy is costing organizations increasingly scarce capital. I'm a little shocked that my F10 customer actually tracks how much IT security is costing everyone across the enterprise. Never saw anyone try to do it that seriously. Unfortunately, the pattern of corporate careers is increasingly becoming contracting companies at wherever to a more prestigious FTE role at a brand name institution. Think of it like community colleges before going to a genuine university. You can skip that bullshit just by going to an actually good company in your field first or smashing your head against the wall starting companies on shoestring budgets. This shouldn't be news but I seem to have to tell half my peers about the trend because they just don't think about it (to their detriment).
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Jan 4, 2015 13:07
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Sundae posted:
Sounds like someone in HR had an objective to reduce headcount and contractor costs by the end of 2014, and decided to do all this within the last few days of the year. Objective: Exceeded 
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Jan 4, 2015 15:02
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necrobobsledder posted:... Capital isn't scarce these days, the interest paid on money is near zero. The problem is there is an abundance of capital and it all wants to be paid like it is scarce, so it goes chasing bubbles instead of building companies. Which leads me back to saying that capital is scarce inside companies, just like you said!
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Jan 4, 2015 17:18
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Sundae posted:I'll just leave this little gem here, since it's pretty obvious which subsidiary I work for given the consent decree stuff... Please tell me I wasn't the only one who laughed when it mentioned that contractors were the ones doing the work.
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Jan 4, 2015 17:23
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Some of the employees where I work have been at the same placements for 3+ years, and a few longer than 5 years. They've had time to build relationships with their co-workers and have a lot of experience at what they do, but their client companies don't want to offer them FTE. They're H-1B contractors, though, so their situation is a little different than what a citizen would be. Companies want contractors because they can cut a check and be done with it. They don't have to deal with taxes or benefits and can fire them in the blink of an eye. In the case of H-1B contractors, they can abuse the poo poo out of them. Unpaid, undocumented overtime is very common. Hiring a contractor or a few makes sense when you have a huge sudden increase in workload that's just temporary. We had a lot of people placed at Wells Fargo when they were absorbing Wachovia bank a few years ago to handle the IT integration. Not a big deal, that's a temporary assignment and it would be a big, expensive hassle to hire qualified people for a project that lasts 6 months. Keeping them on long-term to the point where you have entire departments that are staffed by contractors? That's loving stupid. We also have a lot of people placed at JNJ. 
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Jan 5, 2015 17:11
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I love coming back to the question "has this work been done yet" when the clear answer is no because I haven't been here in more then a week and neither have you. If I could legally murder some of these idiots I would. Everyone in this thread should say a pray to the deity of their choice for Sundae for what can only be the worst day he's ever had at his horrible job.
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Jan 5, 2015 20:19
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Actually, it's pretty quiet so far today... fingers crossed, but so far so good. I had a giant pile of e-mails demanding that I immediately prioritize project X over Y, Y over X, etc etc, but that's par for the course. My department feels like a ghost town, but not as empty as I expected. Looks like my boss managed to squeeze 30-day extensions on two of our contractors so they could finish off their immediate projects, but then they're gone and the full force of despair will kick in. It's my first day back at work for 2015, and I already have... Failed Project of the Year: The KEEP IT SIMPLE & SUSTAINABLE (KISS) Box: As part of our badly-named "Keep it Simple and Sustainable" campaign, the company is asking for suggestions from employees on how we can improve our existing processes / streamline things that have gotten too complicated. To this end, they put into place a suggestion box outside the main meeting room at the facility. There are a few issues with the idea, though... First, in order to simplify the submission process, they made it a website instead of an actual suggestion box with notes and paper. So, instead of a box, they needed a computer. Second, because of limited space in the hallway, it couldn't be a full computer, so instead it's an iPad bolted to a stand and plugged into the wall. Third, because of our corporate Info Security requirements, it has to be over a secure company network, which means it can't be anonymous because you have to enter your login information to use it. Oh, and you're entering all that information on an iPad, so enjoy the wonky touchpad for both your password and the entire length of your suggestion. Fourth, someone knocked the stand over because it wasn't bolted to the floor, breaking the iPad and shattering its screen. Oops. (Wasn't me. Really.) So, outside our main meeting room is a broken iPod bolted to a stand, plugged into the wall, "KEEP IT SIMPLE & SUSTAINABLE" in huge letters on a sign above it, and a tiny yellow sticky note on it that reads "Out of Order." It's somehow very fitting.
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Jan 5, 2015 20:34
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Sundae posted:Actually, it's pretty quiet so far today... fingers crossed, but so far so good. I had a giant pile of e-mails demanding that I immediately prioritize project X over Y, Y over X, etc etc, but that's par for the course. My department feels like a ghost town, but not as empty as I expected. Looks like my boss managed to squeeze 30-day extensions on two of our contractors so they could finish off their immediate projects, but then they're gone and the full force of despair will kick in. You should use your time to collate the stories about your horrible workplace into a book. Thats really about the only positive I can think of about your workplace unless you really just cant give a poo poo any more and just try to purposely get fired like racing chairs with fire extinguishers as propulsion down the hallway.
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Jan 5, 2015 20:53
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Zero Gravitas posted:You should use your time to collate the stories about your horrible workplace into a book. Thats really about the only positive I can think of about your workplace unless you really just cant give a poo poo any more and just try to purposely get fired like racing chairs with fire extinguishers as propulsion down the hallway. Sounds like something that would get him promoted to management. Either one, really.
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Jan 5, 2015 20:59
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Zero Gravitas posted:You should use your time to collate the stories about your horrible workplace into a book. Thats really about the only positive I can think of about your workplace unless you really just cant give a poo poo any more and just try to purposely get fired like racing chairs with fire extinguishers as propulsion down the hallway. No-one would believe him. The are about as plausible as fifty shades of grey.
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Jan 5, 2015 21:13
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spog posted:No-one would believe him. Speaking of implausibility, enjoy a lovely Holiday Seasons gift courtesy of my employer. Pardon the low quality cell photo, which sadly prevents you from seeing the lumpy, cheap plastic sheen and obvious seam down the side. Image Removed. The back side just reads "2014" in red, and the ornament doesn't even have our company logo on it anywhere. Sundae fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Apr 5, 2015 |
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Jan 5, 2015 21:48
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Sundae posted:Speaking of implausibility, enjoy a lovely Holiday Seasons gift courtesy of my employer. Pardon the low quality cell photo, which sadly prevents you from seeing the lumpy, cheap plastic sheen and obvious seam down the side. Let's be honest, this is a re-purposed fishing bobber.
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Jan 5, 2015 21:52
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Sundae posted:Speaking of implausibility, enjoy a lovely Holiday Seasons gift courtesy of my employer. Pardon the low quality cell photo, which sadly prevents you from seeing the lumpy, cheap plastic sheen and obvious seam down the side. That's nice, we didn't get a single thing from our company. Not a bonus, not even a crappy gift or a card. One of my bosses did send everyone in her dept. a card and a small gift, which I thought was pretty sweet. In the other dept. I work we got nothin' I actually wouldn't care except that the company has grown cheaper and cheaper every year, despite being more and more profitable each year. My first year, when the company was tiny, I got a cash bonus. The next few years it was AmEx gift cards and then it was a gift card to a restaurant, and since then it's been nothing at all. Meanwhile the owners keep sending around articles about how the company now makes over $50 million a year despite still being a relatively small company. Yay for them. I was supposed to get a 5-year gift in December so that would have been something anyway (a bottle of cheap champagne, woo!), but though they announced it at the company meeting, they never actually gave it to me.  My company uses contractors as essentially full time employees because they hire telecommuters who live in various states, so they make them contractors in order to avoid having to follow the various tax/benefit laws in states where they only have one employee. I think they're really skirting a line though, and if any of the contractors were to complain to the IRS it could very well be found that they should really be employees, since there is almost no difference between them and regular employees who do the exact same job.
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Jan 5, 2015 23:15
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Attention contractors! Submit form SS-8 to the IRS to receive an official determination: http://www.irs.gov/uac/Form-SS-8,-Determination-of-Worker-Status-for-Purposes-of-Federal-Employment-Taxes-and-Income-Tax-Withholding YOU MAY BE AN EMPLOYEE IF: * Your employer provided you with training or training materials * Your employer instructs you on how to perform the work * The work is performed using tools and equipment the employer provides * The employer determines your hours * The work must be performed by you - you may not hire your own assistants or replacement If you are a contractor, 15.3% of your gross wage has to be sent to the IRS to cover social security and medicare. Employees only owe 7.65%. If you allow yourself to be misclassified, you're allowing your employer to skim 7.65% of your wages tax free!
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Jan 5, 2015 23:37
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I filled out a W2 for my contracting company, not a 1099. I think I count as an employee, just not an employee for the company I work for. Contracting is dumb.
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Jan 6, 2015 00:55
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You guys get Christmas bonuses? I get a lazy gently caress of a boss who puts through multiple weeks worth of pay as a single week therefore I get taxed more and therefore I actually get LESS money than I would had I been paid at my ususal weekly pay! EVERY loving HOLIDAY I wish I could just hibernate and just not loving spend money every holiday. I guess my depression stopping me from eating more than a meal a day is helping me out in that regard.
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Jan 6, 2015 00:58
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Pidmon posted:You guys get Christmas bonuses? I get a lazy gently caress of a boss who puts through multiple weeks worth of pay as a single week therefore I get taxed more and therefore I actually get LESS money than I would had I been paid at my ususal weekly pay! Just do your taxes and get it back right away?
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Jan 6, 2015 01:03
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So I laid off my part time seasonal workers at my factory due to lack of work. On their last day I handed them a thank you letter (that I made) and on the 2nd page a sheet prepared by HR at corporate with information on how to apply for UI benefits. Seems simple right? Well HR put down the loving New Hire Reporting telephone number instead of the Benefits/Claimant Eligibility telephone number to call in with. Cue the office secretary getting 40+ phone calls from laid off employees asking for the correct telephone number. I call the HR person whose job is to just deal with UI poo poo and what do I get? Me: "I think we gave out the wrong telephone number to over 50 employees for their UI." HR:"Oh I didn't give out the wrong number!!!" Me: "I'm looking at the e-mail you sent my boss and me with the incorrect phone number and I'm looking at the State's website with the DWD's telephone directory." HR: "Uhhhhh look at the telephone number that is on the HR board in the hallway." *walks to board looks at the telephone numbers* Me: "Yeah it's the same as the DWD's website. We definitely handed out the wrong number which is the number you gave me to hand out." HR: "Well hopefully the New Hire Reporting people at the State will direct them to the correct number." Me:  loving useless every single one of them. This is her only loving job to just deal with this poo poo and she has been in the position for years. G-Mach fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 01:14
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Pidmon posted:You guys get Christmas bonuses? I get a lazy gently caress of a boss who puts through multiple weeks worth of pay as a single week therefore I get taxed more and therefore I actually get LESS money than I would had I been paid at my ususal weekly pay! You're just being over-withheld because the IRS guidelines for income tax withholding are on a per pay period basis, so it was calculated for that pay period as if you made that much every weekly/bi-weekly/semi-monthly/whatever pay period. Two ways to deal with it: 1. Before the pay period in question, submit a new form W-4 with 10 allowances and then for additional withholding put how much you usually have withheld. Your employer must adjust how they withhold per your instructions. There's nothing against the law about claiming more withholding allowances than matches your actual situation. After getting the bonus change your W-4 back to what it was before. 2. just wait to get your refund from the IRS PS. due to the way marginal tax rates work (in the USA anyway) it is simply impossible for you to make a smaller net pay from a higher gross pay. PM me if you would like me to show you the math for your specific situation. I used to work in an accounting position before moving laterally to IT so I'm actually quite familiar with all this.
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Jan 6, 2015 01:16
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EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:Just do your taxes and get it back right away? depression's a bitch. speaking to an accountant once they open and maybe hopefully I wont be too broke by the time the return comes in.
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Jan 6, 2015 01:21
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My bonuses are quarterly and are paid in intervals such that an equivalent Christmas bonus would be either a couple months early or a month late.MickeyFinn posted:Capital isn't scarce these days, the interest paid on money is near zero. The problem is there is an abundance of capital and it all wants to be paid like it is scarce, so it goes chasing bubbles instead of building companies. Which leads me back to saying that capital is scarce inside companies, just like you said!
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Jan 6, 2015 01:21
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Pidmon posted:depression's a bitch. speaking to an accountant once they open and maybe hopefully I wont be too broke by the time the return comes in. Do you make less than $53k? You can get your taxes done free on the internet. It's what I do because I'm a filthy poor. http://www.irs.gov/uac/Free-File:-Do-Your-Federal-Taxes-for-Free Need to talk to someone in person about it? You might qualify for free tax preparation: http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Free-Tax-Return-Preparation-for-You-by-Volunteers Not to mention there's an income tax megathread here full of helpful goons (such as myself).
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Jan 6, 2015 01:27
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