5 ms·
He got paid more and he has more expenses. No health coverage - he'll be lucky to find a group policy with an organization or professional association. No match
by MJR 16y ago
He got paid more and he has more expenses. No health coverage - he'll be lucky to find a group policy with an organization or professional association. No matching 401K, no tuition reimbursement, and on and on. It's not a valid comparison. Line up the employee's benefits and income against the contractor's expenses and income and then see where you come out.
Then realize you've only looked at one piece of the equation and you can start weighing the pros and cons of continued employment, opportunities for career advancement, etc.
- bradhe 16y agoWhat I hated about contracting was not working with other people. I wasn't afforded opportunities to learnbfrom senior people like some of my peers were. When I did decide to get a "9-5" I was a bit behind everyone else,
- angrycoder 16y agoWith stack overflow, blogs, irc, message boards, etc I think the idea of a live expert is face to face is overrated. Rather than going to the guru and eating his words as gospel, I can go on the internet and get 10 different opinions on a problem I am having. Then I can critically evaluate those different viewpoints and pick the one that is right for the way I work.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- bradhe 16y agoThere are some nuances I'm sure you've missed. Likewise, the opportunity to bounce things off othervpeople with a vested interest is invaluable.
- angrycoder 16y agoNot really. If I need a face to with the people who have a vested interest, it has never been prevented by the fact that I am a contractor. If I need someone to bounce ideas off of, I just go to lunch with one of my developer friends. Being a contractor only makes you isolated if you let it.
- dirkstoop 16y agoFor concrete problem solving, sure. Esp. If the problems are small or common enough. But there's more that you get out of working closely together with someone who can teach you something.
- c1sc0 16y agoIn my experience listening to the company's 'experts' is often a great way to learn outdated skills.
- swombat 16y agoTechnical skills are only one small part of the skill set of a modern technical worker. You can learn a hell of a lot about people-management from the right mentor, and that's going to make a whole lot more difference to your career than learning to solve technical problems.
- msy 16y agoFinding the best way of solving problem X isn't what you learn by being under/around good senior developers, what you learn is a set of mental tools and approaches for solving problems & your ethos as a developer. You can't learn that stuff on Stack Overflow.
- farmerbuzz 16y agoAnything that can be learned via talking to people can be learned via Stack Overflow assuming you can communicate well using text (although it may get tagged with the feared Subjective tag).
- farmerbuzz 16y agoWhy is this comment not welcome here? I would like not to repeat my mistake in the future but I'm not sure what I did wrong.
- Gobiner 16y agoYou can't seriously believe that using StackOverflow is comparable to working alongside an expert.
- gaius 16y agoThe thing to remember about contractors is they're not fellow employees, they're another company providing services to your company. There's a strong case IMHO that contractors shouldn't even be paid during the period they're "getting up to speed" - what is the service that they're providing during that period? Certainly many I've worked with should have been paying us for teaching them basic IT skills!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- stuff4ben 16y agoHe said he was getting paid more than twice the amount his fried was. Are you saying that your benefits equal your salary? Highly doubtful unless your salary is artificially low (I assume you're a developer-type). Benefits aren't that high for contractors, usually it's just the healthcare that gets you. But even if you pay a non-group, family rate, it's only 15-20K a year which is chump change if you're charging $100+ an hour. Then you get into tax deductions that you just don't get as a full time employee.
- mgkimsal 16y ago20k per year? Wow. Even the most expensive family plans I've seen for family with pre-existing conditions was around $1100/month - $13k. I feel like I'm getting ripped off and we only pay around $300/month!