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Everybody here is focusing on real estate. (because young wealthy programmers and older poorer workers have a shared interest in cheap real estate) But I'm real

Everybody here is focusing on real estate. (because young wealthy programmers and older poorer workers have a shared interest in cheap real estate) But I'm really interested in how HN feels about this section: “I felt more secure at my other job. You didn’t have people looking down at you,” Nicole said. Now she works at cafeterias with names like “Epic” and “Living the Dream”, and the distance between the two classes of Facebook workers can feel immense. “They look at us like we’re lower, like we don’t matter,” said Nicole of the Facebook employees. “We don’t live the dream. The techies are living the dream. It’s for them.” The smaller indignities are numerous. At the end of every shift, Nicole watches large amounts of leftover food go into the compost – food that she’s not allowed to take home. Cafeteria workers only enter Facebook’s medical clinics if they’ve been selected for a mandatory drug test. Facebook recently held a “Bring your kids to work” day, but cafeteria workers’ children were not allowed. A spokeswoman for Facebook said that none of the company’s contingent or contract workers have access to facilities such as clinics, gyms, or bring your kid to work days, but that other policies were a matter between the contractor and the workers.

bantunes 9y ago
You must be new here. You'll get 20 comments on how government and real estate and the market not being free enough are the problem before someone goes into this aspect of the article.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  I think employers should be more accountable for how the people that work for them (directly or indirectly) are paid and treated. I also think making them legally accountable is the wrong way to go about fixing the problem. I don't think you can legislate individuals and groups enough to make them decent. You have to go about it another way. I also don't think it's reasonable to imply that people who think free markets are more efficient and humane are also somehow less compassionate.
jarboot 9y ago
This is the real problem.
Dude2018 9y ago
That's how capitalism and meritocracy work unfortunately.
- bantunes 9y ago
  Sure - you deserve more money by virtue of merit if you work for a company that sells people's data to advertisers. I think Adam Smith and Milton Friedman were pretty clear about that.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Do you believe we live in a meritocracy? EDIT: I guess this is a bad question since it's really a matter of degrees. Perhaps a better question is: How meritocratic do you feel that our society is?
  - Dude2018 9y ago
    Meritocratic enough for unequal income between skilled and unskilled labour?
    - tpallarino 9y ago
      The funniest part of this is that Facebook provides almost no value to society, while the food service workers do.
      - robocat 9y ago
        On the contrary, how we want to use our free time is the most important outcome of society, everything else is work.
      - chii 9y ago
        Facebook is providing value. They aren't providing it for free here, which is to say, they are extracting the price for said value. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is providing value, and isn't extracting the price. Therefore they rely on donations. If Wikipedia extracted their price for the amount of value they provide, I'd say they'll be one of the biggest companies in the world.
tyingq 9y ago
They are excluded from events because they are working not for Facebook, but a food service company that contracts for Facebook. Works the other way around too. I've done contract programming, on site, for a blue collar heavy business. I didn't get invited to their functions either. I made more than the the average worker there, because our jobs were not the same.
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  They are excluded from events because they are working not for Facebook, but a food service company that contracts for Facebook. This may be technically true, but ultimately it's just window dressing. And for FB (and many other companies that play the same game with its more expendable workers), a convenient dodge in terms of both expenses and liabilities. If you show up at Facebook's building every morning, work in their cafeteria, mop their floors and scrub their toilets -- then for all practical purposes, you're working for Facebook. I've done contract programming, on site, for a blue collar heavy business. I didn't get invited to their functions either. Let's please not try to compare the "plight" of contract tech workers to to the situation that bottom-tier contract service workers are in.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    >Let's please not try to compare the "plight" of contract tech workers I don't personally see a difference other than the average wage for what I do. Companies contract other companies for many things. Janitorial, security guards, software work, etc. They shouldn't be involved in the salary of some other company's workers. If there's a wage issue in this case, it's not Facebook's issue to sort it out.
    - kafkaesq 9y ago
      I don't personally see a difference other than the average wage for what I do. There's this "respect" part, which is one of the major points of the article. And the fact that you apparently don't even see it as an issue -- while those on the other side of the coin insist that it is, in fact, quite a huge issue -- is a great part of what makes it such a huge issue. If there's a wage issue in this case, it's not Facebook's issue to sort it out. Right -- it's a matter for the legislators and the courts. And if Facebook can't, or won't do the right thing for their workers, on this front -- they'll be made to do it.
bsimpson 9y ago
I work for a large company, and it frustrates me that they rely so heavily on contractors for campus support positions. At the same time, the incentives are pointed that way. It's easier to hire vendors to manage non-core services (food, massage, etc.) than to develop those processes in-house. At the same time, it's cheaper to not have to provide equal benefits to vendor employees. The lack of access to on-site medical or to cultural events like Take Your Kid To Work Day is presumably to draw a clear line between Vendor and Employee. If a group of vendor workers file a class action suit to be reclassified as employees (with backpay/benefits), a company wants to be able to say "Nope, they were vendors. Look at all the ways we made the distinction clear." If they're treated as employees in every way except the payer of their checks, it's a lot harder to justify why they were classified as vendors and received lesser benefits because of it. I was a temp at another large company before moving to a full-time role at my current one. My contract was capped at 1 year, because without the cap, there was a perceived risk that I could seek to be retroactively classified as an employee and entitled to the benefits I didn't receive as a vendor.
- pacaro 9y ago
  Yeah, this happened at Microsoft. Back in the day there wasn't such a clear line between contractors and FTEs. The lawsuit did a lot of damage in both directions. It's not clear who benefitted other than the attorneys. Also, if you make these roles direct employees, then you can get into an awkward position wrt 401K contributions, if the delta between your highest and lowest payed employees is too great. My understanding is that this is why Amazon caps salary at 160/185k
  - jazzyk 9y ago
    >The lawsuit did a lot of damage in both directions. It's not clear who benefitted other than the attorneys. That lawsuit single-handedly created an additional layer of intermediaries (whole industry, really), which eats up ~30% of consulting revenue and provides close to zero value.
    - bsimpson 9y ago
losteverything 9y ago
How does this hner feel? It is the way it is today. Yet..... There are tradeoffs where being "poor" can be better than "have just enough +" stable. Solving for financial and health concerns together adds a glue to a relationship that money can never buy
golemotron 9y ago
When I'm most cynical I believe that the tech community's preoccupation with diversity is to avoid thinking about social class and lack of social mobility. It's understandable. We're culpable to some degree and that doesn't feel good.
kamaal 9y ago
>>said Nicole of the Facebook employees. “We don’t live the dream. The techies are living the dream. It’s for them.” Im afraid this is no longer about perks at Facebook. To me this looks release of frustration about making bad life and career choices. There are no easy solutions to these peoples problems. The only ray of hope for this people is the modern day economic ecosystem and overall internet place has made it easy to retrain yourself for better paying jobs. Its going to be hard, time consuming and brutal. But that is the only way out.

bantunes 9y ago

You must be new here. You'll get 20 comments on how government and real estate and the market not being free enough are the problem before someone goes into this aspect of the article.

humanrebar 9y ago
I think employers should be more accountable for how the people that work for them (directly or indirectly) are paid and treated. I also think making them legally accountable is the wrong way to go about fixing the problem. I don't think you can legislate individuals and groups enough to make them decent. You have to go about it another way. I also don't think it's reasonable to imply that people who think free markets are more efficient and humane are also somehow less compassionate.

jarboot 9y ago

This is the real problem.

Dude2018 9y ago

That's how capitalism and meritocracy work unfortunately.

bantunes 9y ago
Sure - you deserve more money by virtue of merit if you work for a company that sells people's data to advertisers. I think Adam Smith and Milton Friedman were pretty clear about that.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Do you believe we live in a meritocracy? EDIT: I guess this is a bad question since it's really a matter of degrees. Perhaps a better question is: How meritocratic do you feel that our society is?
- Dude2018 9y ago
  Meritocratic enough for unequal income between skilled and unskilled labour?
  - tpallarino 9y ago
    The funniest part of this is that Facebook provides almost no value to society, while the food service workers do.
    - robocat 9y ago
      On the contrary, how we want to use our free time is the most important outcome of society, everything else is work.
    - chii 9y ago
      Facebook is providing value. They aren't providing it for free here, which is to say, they are extracting the price for said value. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is providing value, and isn't extracting the price. Therefore they rely on donations. If Wikipedia extracted their price for the amount of value they provide, I'd say they'll be one of the biggest companies in the world.

tyingq 9y ago

They are excluded from events because they are working not for Facebook, but a food service company that contracts for Facebook. Works the other way around too. I've done contract programming, on site, for a blue collar heavy business. I didn't get invited to their functions either. I made more than the the average worker there, because our jobs were not the same.

kafkaesq 9y ago
They are excluded from events because they are working not for Facebook, but a food service company that contracts for Facebook. This may be technically true, but ultimately it's just window dressing. And for FB (and many other companies that play the same game with its more expendable workers), a convenient dodge in terms of both expenses and liabilities. If you show up at Facebook's building every morning, work in their cafeteria, mop their floors and scrub their toilets -- then for all practical purposes, you're working for Facebook. I've done contract programming, on site, for a blue collar heavy business. I didn't get invited to their functions either. Let's please not try to compare the "plight" of contract tech workers to to the situation that bottom-tier contract service workers are in.
- tyingq 9y ago
  >Let's please not try to compare the "plight" of contract tech workers I don't personally see a difference other than the average wage for what I do. Companies contract other companies for many things. Janitorial, security guards, software work, etc. They shouldn't be involved in the salary of some other company's workers. If there's a wage issue in this case, it's not Facebook's issue to sort it out.
  - kafkaesq 9y ago
    I don't personally see a difference other than the average wage for what I do. There's this "respect" part, which is one of the major points of the article. And the fact that you apparently don't even see it as an issue -- while those on the other side of the coin insist that it is, in fact, quite a huge issue -- is a great part of what makes it such a huge issue. If there's a wage issue in this case, it's not Facebook's issue to sort it out. Right -- it's a matter for the legislators and the courts. And if Facebook can't, or won't do the right thing for their workers, on this front -- they'll be made to do it.

bsimpson 9y ago

I work for a large company, and it frustrates me that they rely so heavily on contractors for campus support positions. At the same time, the incentives are pointed that way. It's easier to hire vendors to manage non-core services (food, massage, etc.) than to develop those processes in-house. At the same time, it's cheaper to not have to provide equal benefits to vendor employees. The lack of access to on-site medical or to cultural events like Take Your Kid To Work Day is presumably to draw a clear line between Vendor and Employee. If a group of vendor workers file a class action suit to be reclassified as employees (with backpay/benefits), a company wants to be able to say "Nope, they were vendors. Look at all the ways we made the distinction clear." If they're treated as employees in every way except the payer of their checks, it's a lot harder to justify why they were classified as vendors and received lesser benefits because of it. I was a temp at another large company before moving to a full-time role at my current one. My contract was capped at 1 year, because without the cap, there was a perceived risk that I could seek to be retroactively classified as an employee and entitled to the benefits I didn't receive as a vendor.

pacaro 9y ago
Yeah, this happened at Microsoft. Back in the day there wasn't such a clear line between contractors and FTEs. The lawsuit did a lot of damage in both directions. It's not clear who benefitted other than the attorneys. Also, if you make these roles direct employees, then you can get into an awkward position wrt 401K contributions, if the delta between your highest and lowest payed employees is too great. My understanding is that this is why Amazon caps salary at 160/185k
- jazzyk 9y ago
  >The lawsuit did a lot of damage in both directions. It's not clear who benefitted other than the attorneys. That lawsuit single-handedly created an additional layer of intermediaries (whole industry, really), which eats up ~30% of consulting revenue and provides close to zero value.
  - bsimpson 9y ago

losteverything 9y ago

How does this hner feel? It is the way it is today. Yet..... There are tradeoffs where being "poor" can be better than "have just enough +" stable. Solving for financial and health concerns together adds a glue to a relationship that money can never buy

golemotron 9y ago

When I'm most cynical I believe that the tech community's preoccupation with diversity is to avoid thinking about social class and lack of social mobility. It's understandable. We're culpable to some degree and that doesn't feel good.

kamaal 9y ago

>>said Nicole of the Facebook employees. “We don’t live the dream. The techies are living the dream. It’s for them.” Im afraid this is no longer about perks at Facebook. To me this looks release of frustration about making bad life and career choices. There are no easy solutions to these peoples problems. The only ray of hope for this people is the modern day economic ecosystem and overall internet place has made it easy to retrain yourself for better paying jobs. Its going to be hard, time consuming and brutal. But that is the only way out.