Ask HN: Corp gives “contractor” benefits, want “employee” obligations, what now?
They hired me as "contractor", but promised I would be treated as employee, to facilitate things legally.
Things went good at first, but now they been treating me as contractor regarding rights, but employee regarding what they want from me.
- I have no vacation, no paid sick days, no leave, no benefits.
- One of the owners (he has a huge amount of shares) explicitly told me I will never get a raise, because contractors don't get raises.
- I have to work in specific work hours
- I have a manager that even micromanages my work and keep pestering me whenever I don't reply promptly, can't even go to the bathroom without my phone without this guy noticing.
- I got a semi-leadership position, I don't have any employees under me but there is a project in the company that I own completely and make all decisions, and whenever someone else screws up on that project I am responsible (even if they don't report to me directly).
- Whenever a project is late, I have to help and work unpaid overtime (in fact I worked the past months 12+ hour per day including weekends, also having zoom calls with clients 4:00 in the morning is a thing that happened).
To be honest I wanted to quit, but I am living paycheck to paycheck with zero savings after I had to expend them because of a family member car accident. Other employees been quitting for a while now, company has very high turnover, including losing lead engineers that didn't document their work so many new employees have no idea how the company tech actually works.
Also the jurisdiction of my contract is UK, but I don't live in UK, and I am not UK citizen, I am not sure if I even can sue them, or if I was going to sue them, what kind of lawyer I would have to look for.
Contract is full of sketchy stuff, like they owning even my personal diary if I wrote in it during my contract, or owning my private correspondence.
102 comments
[ 0.34 ms ] story [ 177 ms ] threadTry and look for an exit as soon as possible, don't look for ideal new jobs, just something that lets you live in as cost-saving a way as you can, to buy time to find an actual job and recuperate. Think: low-responsibility, low-pay, low-compromise.
Most of the advice you'll get here is to leave because that's about all you can do. Don't fight it, just try and do it ASAP.
If you are a contractor, then you can decide your bill rate and hours. If you are asked to work extra say that you need to be compensated and if they have sign off for the expense. Then send a bill...part of the problem here is that you did not maintain good boundaries and asked to be respected and get paid.
I got some professional contracts drafted up that favour software engineers specifically for the UK market. Feel free to contact me through the website and I'll send you them for free. Hopefully they will help you solidify more healthy contracts in the future: https://davidthorpe.dev/resources/contracts.html
https://www.mbopartners.com/blog/misclassification-complianc...
(I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice)
There is no point to negotiate, or to sue them.
Start job seeking ASAP. Do not quit, but work less hard. Insert delays into your responses. Before you commit code, take 30 minutes to study some subject or seek job.
Drop productivity, but no engagement (that is metric that matters). Still answer client calls at 4 am, pretend you work 12 hours a day etc... They will shout at you for a while, but after couple of sprints, requirements will adjust and be less demanding.
So any drop in productivity must be accompanied by a plausible and pitiable excuse. Like "I can't sleep that well after that car accident" or something similar (but never "I'm burnt out" or "I stopped giving a fuck").
My opinion is that the company likes having OP in a desperate state because in doing so he won't have enough time to look for a job elsewhere.
Some pitable excuse would just paint target on OP's back. Burnout is normal in companies with high churn, they have process to cul weak members... And OP does not have any holidays or health benefits, tough sh*t..
The whole point is to fly under radar, until OP finds new job. Detaching from company politics, staying invisible. Some excuses and more communication push you deeper, in oposite direction.
Also company probably has no real way to measure productivity. People who understands code base left long time ago. Managers are just paper pushers. The only information management has is from OP. Some excuses would be admission of slow down.
Ideally this productivity drop would be spred over several weeks, maybe after major holiday, reorganization or reassignment.
Wasn't just me at this workplace, but all the individual contributors were as well. We saw the writing on the wall, that the co-founders were not interested in full-time conversions and turnover rate increased.
It actually made me question the legitimacy of software careers for a while, because I was caught in this illicit operation.
Considering you did all this voluntarily I don't think there's anything you can sue your employer for. They set the terms of your employment, you agreed to them and have been carrying them out, and they pay you. As far as everyone is concerned everyone in the contract is fulfilling their end of the bargain. The only thing that's wrong is that you're not happy with what you're being asked to do and yet you're still doing it.
The short term solution here is to talk to your manager. Tell them you're unhappy and that you're not doing the job you signed up for. The longer term solution is to find a new job.
Also the jurisdiction of my contract is UK...
If there's a jurisdiction clause in the contract that you signed that states any dispute will be settled in a UK court then this is correct, but if there isn't then either party can nominate where disputes are settled (usually this happens when the contract is signed..) However if you try to sue they'll immediately terminate your contract/employment which doesn't sound like it'd put you in a good position.
Also... you're not being "treated like a contractor". If you are a contractor that doesn't mean you have to put up with this level of bullshit. No one, contractor or employee, should take crap like this in their job. Don't stand for it. Speak up.
In Canada there's the legal concept of not being able to sign away your rights. Ie. if something is illegal in the first place, agreeing to it doesn't make it legal. The UK is probably similar.
There is also that concept in some US states. However, that does NOT mean that your rights are simply immediately enforceable. It is merely a ticket to file a lawsuit. Even in a state with very strong laws in this direction, and even if you can find an attny to do it affordably, it can be a VERY long process; e.g., from direct experience, 7 years and just getting to the appeals level to get that actually enforced on an employer who is determined to stiff the employee.
You really are far better off recognizing the toxic management and cutting your losses as early as possible. They will only fail sooner then.
1. He is a high performer and is solely responsible for at least one project of consequence.
2. His productivity numbers are at the top for his colleagues.
3. There are a number of things that will fall over if he is no longer there.
Right now the company is picking and choosing how they treat him because they think they can. All he has to do is get another offer of employment and tell them about it. Either they will renegotiate the contract under more favorable terms to retain him. Or he will find employment at a better company where he is valued for what he is actually worth. The company he's at now think they don't need to take any action because they believe he isn't a flight risk. Change that perception and things will be very different.
You can't negotiate if the opposing party is unreasonable, and by the sounds of it they definitely are.
Either way if you are negotiating with the leverage to just walk away then you have placed yourself in a win/win scenario.
Of course that's hard so you should just get a new job.
Given that the company doesn't have an office in the country the most likely outcome will be that they will just give all the employees in the country the option to move or get fired, though...
I also don't know how and if a local agency would have any way to enforce employment laws across borders.
In the meanwhile, just continue to do your best at your current job, but don't allow it to get inside your head and stress you out. And save time for interviews :-)
They have you exactly where they want you. It's up to you to find an out.
More precisely, move on to looking for a new job. If you have been very productive and have had lots of responsibility, that can go a long way to improve your resume. Update it, and start hunting. As someone else suggested, "Drop productivity, but no engagement", and use the extra time to job search.
One particular tip: if they put such ridiculous terms in the contract, you should probably do all job searching in your own hardware (phone, computer). Just in case.
I heard similar at my company. But every year I write a letter requesting a raise and send it to at least two people in the company. "One of the owners..." then send the letter to more than one owner or an owner and your direct manager. That owner probably wouldn't re-iterate how cheap they are if a direct-hire is cc'ed.
In the letter, I politely explain my recent contributions, the fact I have competing interests and other opportunities but would like to keep working there. I don't make it sound like I have one foot out the door but it's implied I am standing near the door and it's up to them to keep me.
I have never failed to get a raise in over 10 years. When I shared this with a co-worker (contractor), I learned she hasn't received a raise in 4 years. Same goes for the other contractors (5+ years?). The money is there, so just ask for it. If they don't have the money for a modest raise then it's sinking ship.
Being contractor for 4 or even 10 years is kind of fishy. Most countries have a law that converts temporary contractors into permanent employees after N years (4 in Ireland).
I know what I want to be and it's none of my client's business. I currently have to lie to my employer about "what I want to be", because there's an expectation.
What if my employer doesn't like the fact that I want to show off my feet on OnlyFans in 5 years, instead of being their "lead architect"?
I have literally moved out of Ireland to avoid being an employee.
(Funny enough I am a data platform engineer)
In fact, the last two years require a rate bump of 25% just to beat inflation. You don't do that, you're losing ground.
The inflation number is absolutely wrong though. There obviously hasn't been nearly 25% inflation over the past 24 months.
If you need to beg for a raise, you're already in a bad negotiating position. The ideal situation is to figure out what you'd require to stay with your current employer, and see if they want to match that.
You shouldn't need to care what their HR says is the "going rate" for your position, nor what the company has allocated for yearly raises. That's largely posturing on their part, and tells you little about how much they're willing to pay you if push comes to shove.
But I feel like this comment ignores the fact that companies do have budgets, and the people above you still have their own budgets and bosses to report to. If you work for a company (especially public or non-venture, especially non-tech) there will absolutely be a lot of cost controls and constraints around what is allocated to raises, new hire salaries, retention and signing bonuses, etc. It's exceedingly rare that the line manager has authority to give anyone a 20% raise when he's given a 4% budget increase across the board.
I didn't mean to imply that those factors aren't real.
Rather, I was recommending that employees try to avoid being in a situation where those factors matter to the employee. Ideally you're aware of your options, and prepared to change jobs if it's in your interest.
Unless you're personally invested in the employer, it's just business.
Uhm, have you been to the grocery store of late? Inflation is damn near 40%
Certain items I buy one the regular have gone up a minimum of 25%
Look at fucking gas prices.
Your anecdotes about whatever random nonsense you're buying are irrelevant. Inflation is in the mid-to-high single digits. 25% a year for two consecutive years is a categorically false assertion.
[0] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/gasoline-prices-adjust...
Sure—judging from my grocery and gas bills, it's higher than that.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/01/24/as-inflatio... https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/motor-fuel.htm
> Core inflation is the change in the costs of goods and services but does not include those from the food and fuel sectors. This measure of inflation excludes these items because their prices are much more volatile. It is most often calculated using the consumer price index (CPI), which is a measure of prices for goods and services.
> The Fed prefers to use the PCE index rather than CPI since PCE tends to provide inflation trends that are less affected by short-term price changes. Also, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), a division of the Department of Commerce, calculates the change of prices by using existing gross domestic product (GDP) data, which helps to determine an overall trend in prices.
[0] https://www.livetradingnews.com/what-is-core-inflation-and-w...
Significantly more money chasing the same amount of goods= inflation
The last two years alone add up to 16%. The next year looks to be similar.
Though I admit, I posted the wrong number - I have to raise my rate by $25/hr to keep up. I wrote that number instead of 16% which is what we've had to eat in the last two years.
You don't get a "raise". You tell your client that your rates are changing and you would like to renegotiate your rate.
Also - if you're in a contract job for 4 years, there's something wrong
Depends on your goals. I've been contracting at the same company for 10years. It gave me the flexibility to run and operate a successful side business and take unpaid vacation time whenever I want.
I love contracting and it's my preferred method of working. However - staying in one contract for 4 years is a red flag. (barring some really long term projects)
And I would have to explain "Because that was what I was contracted to do"
The only contract that I was terminated early from was FB -- but that was because I accidentally, through my status reports, revealed that a certain executive named "the Captain" was hiding build schedule delays for the Sydney office (he went on vacation so I had to speak directly to the contractors building out the office, and found out they were behind schedule by a month and over budget and I put it in my status report, and upon his return from vacation he had me terminated for revealing that info)
and the fucked up part was that my manager and team just left the area, then I got a call from the contracting company telling me I had to leave the building - and I was commuting to work via the FB van... so I was stranded in Menlo Park....
Contractor - stuff $500,000/yr into a combination of US retirement plans, and a ton of other deductions
Don't forget, these plans grow tax free. Your 401k can invest in a Private Equity fund once it is also an accredited investor or can make the minimum investment amount.
I pretty much hate W-2 employment. It's the slowest way to make money and taxed the highest.
I'm familiar with places where contractors are like second-class workers hoping for a conversion to employment, that makes sense at low salaries. I think people are not revisiting the concept accurately at different income ranges.
Still, without some real weirdness I'm not sure how you'd get near $500,000, even factoring in HSAs (primarily another tool for the already-well-off to avoid taxes—the trick is that if you put money in but never pay medical bills out of it you can save those receipts and get all that money you would have spent tax-free at retirement, while it's been growing all those years pre-tax like a normal retirement account) and using both IRAs and 401Ks.
then you can also construct a Cash Balance plan, which adds a lot more and linked to your age, every year. ie. a 30 year old can contribute maybe $80,000 while a 65 year old can contribute maybe $450,000. Its not a "above age 50 catch up" like 401ks and IRAs have.
any cash amounts in any of these plans can be rolled over into whichever other kind of retirement plan is preferred.
so if you don't like compliance duties of a 401k, you can roll that into an IRA. If Cash Balance plan is too restrictive on investable assets, you can roll that into a 401k or IRA. You can roll any of this into the Roth products if you don't mind paying income tax that year.
Tax-advantaged retirement plans in the US really do seem structured to be nearly useless for normal employees, and very useful to those with a high incomes and a good deal of flexibility in how they structure their finances. I'd like to think that's an accident, but it's probably not.
[EDIT] Last bit not directed at you, just an observation. You gotta do stuff like this, if you can, or get screwed. Which sucks, but those are the rules.
but fortunately I think that push is ignoring when an individual applies for the role as a single member LLC or other incorporated entity they control
Folks in business—especially sales—seem to do this a lot, where they say one thing as it's a firm rule, but it's actually not at all. It's probably super-effective against people who tend to take any statement by an authority figure as final, but in the end they're just some asshole saying whatever they like, they're not the arbiter of reality. You can't know the truth until you push back on it and see what happens.
If saying "yes" to a raise (or, rate change) is better than whatever risk they perceive from saying "no", they'll very likely agree to it, and you'll find out "contractors don't get raises" was just a self-serving lie.
There are 52 weeks in 1 year. Give yourself 2 weeks vacation that leaves 50 weeks. At 40 hours per week that is 2000 hours as a full time equivalent (a salaried position). If you bill at 100/hour that is 200k/year.
If you want/need 4 weeks off, assume 1920 hours per year and adjust your hourly rate, call it ~105/hour
If your medical insurance costs 6k per year, adjust your hourly rate, call it ~107.3/hour
If you want disability/life insurance and the cost to you is 15k per year, adjust your hourly rate, call it now ~115/hour.
Giving up 50k in stock options, well that's a one time thing. Also if a relocation is required and your partner looses their positon better factor that into your decision - up front.
This all gets negotiated up front - not 4 months in.
Good luck on your next negotiation.
I'm guessing by the GP assuming 10 days/year of vacation they're in the US. $115/hr is a decent contractor wage, especially on the more independent/freelance side of the spectrum. "Contractors" hired from companies in a C2C arrangement will be billed much higher, at rates approaching senior associates at law firms (I've seen $400/hr bill rates for senior Oracle contractors who aren't even coding, just implementing and configuring), while the people you're getting are earning anywhere from $30-150/hr, but via W2.
I'm in the US and bill $90/hr on a long-term contract because the work is easy and I am free to do anywhere from 0 to 30 hours a week at my discretion. So there are lots of reasons to willingly bill (sometimes much) less than you otherwise might.
Almost 10 years ago Barclays was paying my 600p/d
But GBP100 p/h isn't unattainable
I haven't heard of anyone other than the most senior and well connected taking home £800 outside IR35 for software development in the financial services industry since the changes to the off payroll rules. Obviously there are exceptions like quants but that's playing a different game really.
It sounds like you may want employee benefits and if so, get an employee job and stop contracting. If you like the company ask to apply for a permanent position. If you don’t, go elsewhere.
That being said, I liked contracting and got my own benefits, planned my own vacation, etc and factored all that into my rate. As a contractor, I only got paid for what I billed. And I didn’t get raises, but I would renegotiate my rate every year or so or just include step ups after certain time periods.
I don’t think your client’s request are unreasonable but these are all things you should negotiate before accepting the contract.
Legally, there are things that clients can’t specify with contractors. Practically, I frequently accepted specific hours and equipment to use and reflected that in my rate. The alternative is usually just quitting and finding other work. Although there are some famous cases of contractors suing and getting benefits of employees [0].
[0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2589538/it-personnel-m...
Then if you can, raise your rates to compensate for lack of holidays and promotion - part of being a contractor is setting your own rates.
Your options really depends on how much value you add to their organization or to another prospective organization.
Even if renegotiation with your current job fails it is good practice for you.
"I have to help and work unpaid overtime", incorrect you are a contractor the only thing you have to do is what is in your contract. If it doesn't specify "unpaid overtime" then clearly state that isn't in your contract so you aren't going to do it.
https://www.gov.uk/pay-and-work-rights
Even if you were treated as a full time employee the description of the work environment sounds completely unacceptable. I’d try and find a new job ASAP anyway.
In the US this is both common and irrelevant; if you're treated like an employee you are an employee. This isn't helpful to you OP, but if you, dear reader, hear this at a future job, recognize this as problematic and (to my layperson understanding) illegal.
If there's nothing you can do to improve your work situation, or if you must continue working while you improve your work situation, it's really important for you to divest your sense of self worth from your job performance, for the sake of your own mental health.
You are not the sum of your work, these people cannot tell you how "good" you are; they've lost your trust.
If things go bad and they decide to try to pull money back (it sure sounds like something they'd try), you need to continue to be able to pay the rent and buy food. Your bank won't be on your side.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2589538/it-personnel-m...
Whenever people say "you'll be treated as an employee", that only means that you will not be excluded from team activities and decisions. That's my experience in both positions of hiring and being a contractor. It's practically to make sure that you still work as part of the team.
As for an annoying client - only than what is in your contract. If the contract says "deliver X" - then you may have to bite it. But your contract probably says "full time" or "40hrs per week"
I had a contract at a digital publisher in London, the boss was horrible... every morning I would place my phone with an 8 hour timer on my desk. I would pause it for lunch only. And once time ran out I straight up stopped working... get up and leave. Period.
If they're bad to you, then you either quit or execute only responsibilities listed in the contract.