4 ms·

> It's comparatively much easier for you. No, it isn't. It's way harder to deal with each employee than it is for the person to deal with their stuff as a cont

> It's comparatively much easier for you. No, it isn't. It's way harder to deal with each employee than it is for the person to deal with their stuff as a contractor.

vkou 8y ago
Maybe if you were contracting for someone, while knowing what you know about all those systems. If I were a contractor, I wouldn't know where to start. I'd need to spend hours figuring the law out, figuring out which forms need to be filled and when, how to deal with weird one-off edge cases. Multiply that by the number of employees that you have, and there's the social cost that decentralizing this inflicts. Because this is a process I'd do once a year (Or four times a year as a contractor?), I wouldn't remember what the hell I did last year, what software I was using, where I found the forms in question (Maybe they moved, maybe the government changed the rules, maybe the website that I learned all I know from is dead/out-of-date), etc. A company's HR department/accountant does this all the time. This is their core competency. This is not my core competency. This is the same thing as with self-checkout lines at the grocery. I've yet to see a single customer be half as efficient at scanning and bagging groceries as the clerks. Yet, it's cheaper for the store, because their customers' shopping time is 'free'. [1] What changes when I'm on paternity leave? Unpaid time off due to sickness? This is something that most people do once, maybe twice in their lives. This is something that most HR people, working for businesses deal with all the time.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  > A company's HR department/accountant does this all the time. This is their core competency. This is not my core competency. My small business doesn't have money for anything like that. It's me, the owner, doing it instead of doing my business.
  - vkou 8y ago
    So, instead, you're giving all this work as unpaid homework for your employees. Unless their personal time is worthless, it's functionally the same thing as lowering their wages, and contracting out to an accountant. Except that an accountant would probably do it faster and cheaper. In another sub-thread, you said that this should be automated, and that nobody should have to do this busywork. I strongly agree. That's not the world we live in, though. As of today, somebody has to do this busywork - and when that somebody is an expert, they can probably do it a lot better then I can.
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      > So, instead, you're giving all this work as unpaid homework for your employees. I literally said that I'm doing it myself. Also, if you're a contractor and don't charge for doing work, that's your problem, not mine - you should adjust your prices.
      - vkou 8y ago
        How is it that you can afford your contractors charging you more, because they are wasting their time doing something they aren't good at, but you can't afford hiring someone who is good at that task? Do you also pay your employees to wash the windows, and vaccum the office, instead of contracting this out to a cleaning service, that can do that busywork cheaper, and better? If my boss wants me to waste my on-the-clock time to wash windows, that's fine with me, but it's poor business sense. I'm not very good at it, and my hourly rates are higher.
        TomMarius 8y ago
        > How is it that you can afford your contractors charging you more, because they are wasting their time doing something they aren't good at, but you can't afford hiring someone who is good at that task? Because a contractor has way less paperwork than I have to deal with for each employee - at least in my country. We're also free to set our own terms instead of the lawfully required ones, and generally, contractors in IT want that. I'm even doing the contractor paperwork for some of my contractors as it's very easy - I can basically generate it automatically; definitely not the case with employees. An employee also costs way more money (that goes to the government). > Do you also pay your employees to wash the windows, and vaccum the office Irrelevant argumentative foul. No paperwork is eliminated doing that and no other advantage is gained doing that, so of course I'm not doing it.
        vkou 8y ago
        > No paperwork is eliminated doing that and no other advantage is gained doing that, so of course I'm not doing it. > Because a contractor has way less paperwork than I have to deal with for each employee Are you saying that: Amount of paperwork that you have to do for an employee + amount of paperwork that one of your employees has to do for himself > Amount of paperwork that you have to do for a contractor + amount of paperwork that one of your contractors has to do for himself? I strongly doubt that is the case. But I'm not a contractor, and I haven't enumerated the work involved.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
SerLava 8y ago
Per employee?
eropple 8y ago
Having done both, I strongly disagree. Contracting in the United States creates an extreme amount of risk both financial (doing your taxes correctly is very, very difficult, and if the next words on my screen from you are "pay an accountant" you are acknowledging that your position perpetuates the problem) and personal (even with the ACA and living in one of the best states in the nation for individual health care finding a plan where I'm not fucked if I get hurt is very difficult). I'm going back to a full-time job in two weeks and the difficulty of managing stuff that individuals just shouldn't have to deal with is a large factor as to why.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  My argument is that no one should be forced to do this. It should be heavily automated at the very least.
  - eropple 8y ago
    Sure, nobody should. But we don't live in that world, and so it is not useful to form political positions off of things that don't exist. In the real world? If you run a corporation, you are afforded, by society, extremely powerful and beneficial rights, and as part of the social contract you should be handling these sorts of affairs on behalf of the people who make you your money. It is mere decency, and "well employees should do it" without that automation that we both agree needs to exist--but, rather critically, tends to always be step two for certain folks, after "set them off on their ice floe", not step one--is morally super not great.
    - everdev 8y ago
      Or, just make it easy for the contractor to manage their own affairs. It's not like the heavy burden has to be carried by the company or the worker, we can eliminate the heavy burden itself.
      - eropple 8y ago
        I think I just agreed with that? What I am saying is that it is all-too-convenient to say "oh, we'll eliminate that heavy burden we are now placing on you" and then, once it is so placed, proceed to do exactly nothing about it because, hey--the owners are happy, and who cares what anyone else thinks once they're happy? (This is one of many reasons why the Ubers of the world are so nasty; they shirk their responsibilities and leave their de-facto employees holding the bag.) To do justice, one must eliminate that heavy burden, and only the ownership class has sufficient political pull to ever really do anything about it--so they need to continue feeling the pain of it until they do.

> It's comparatively much easier for you. No, it isn't. It's way harder to deal with each employee than it is for the person to deal with their stuff as a contractor.

vkou 8y ago

Maybe if you were contracting for someone, while knowing what you know about all those systems. If I were a contractor, I wouldn't know where to start. I'd need to spend hours figuring the law out, figuring out which forms need to be filled and when, how to deal with weird one-off edge cases. Multiply that by the number of employees that you have, and there's the social cost that decentralizing this inflicts. Because this is a process I'd do once a year (Or four times a year as a contractor?), I wouldn't remember what the hell I did last year, what software I was using, where I found the forms in question (Maybe they moved, maybe the government changed the rules, maybe the website that I learned all I know from is dead/out-of-date), etc. A company's HR department/accountant does this all the time. This is their core competency. This is not my core competency. This is the same thing as with self-checkout lines at the grocery. I've yet to see a single customer be half as efficient at scanning and bagging groceries as the clerks. Yet, it's cheaper for the store, because their customers' shopping time is 'free'. [1] What changes when I'm on paternity leave? Unpaid time off due to sickness? This is something that most people do once, maybe twice in their lives. This is something that most HR people, working for businesses deal with all the time.

TomMarius 8y ago
> A company's HR department/accountant does this all the time. This is their core competency. This is not my core competency. My small business doesn't have money for anything like that. It's me, the owner, doing it instead of doing my business.
- vkou 8y ago
  So, instead, you're giving all this work as unpaid homework for your employees. Unless their personal time is worthless, it's functionally the same thing as lowering their wages, and contracting out to an accountant. Except that an accountant would probably do it faster and cheaper. In another sub-thread, you said that this should be automated, and that nobody should have to do this busywork. I strongly agree. That's not the world we live in, though. As of today, somebody has to do this busywork - and when that somebody is an expert, they can probably do it a lot better then I can.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    > So, instead, you're giving all this work as unpaid homework for your employees. I literally said that I'm doing it myself. Also, if you're a contractor and don't charge for doing work, that's your problem, not mine - you should adjust your prices.
    - vkou 8y ago
      How is it that you can afford your contractors charging you more, because they are wasting their time doing something they aren't good at, but you can't afford hiring someone who is good at that task? Do you also pay your employees to wash the windows, and vaccum the office, instead of contracting this out to a cleaning service, that can do that busywork cheaper, and better? If my boss wants me to waste my on-the-clock time to wash windows, that's fine with me, but it's poor business sense. I'm not very good at it, and my hourly rates are higher.
      - TomMarius 8y ago
        > How is it that you can afford your contractors charging you more, because they are wasting their time doing something they aren't good at, but you can't afford hiring someone who is good at that task? Because a contractor has way less paperwork than I have to deal with for each employee - at least in my country. We're also free to set our own terms instead of the lawfully required ones, and generally, contractors in IT want that. I'm even doing the contractor paperwork for some of my contractors as it's very easy - I can basically generate it automatically; definitely not the case with employees. An employee also costs way more money (that goes to the government). > Do you also pay your employees to wash the windows, and vaccum the office Irrelevant argumentative foul. No paperwork is eliminated doing that and no other advantage is gained doing that, so of course I'm not doing it.
        vkou 8y ago
        > No paperwork is eliminated doing that and no other advantage is gained doing that, so of course I'm not doing it. > Because a contractor has way less paperwork than I have to deal with for each employee Are you saying that: Amount of paperwork that you have to do for an employee + amount of paperwork that one of your employees has to do for himself > Amount of paperwork that you have to do for a contractor + amount of paperwork that one of your contractors has to do for himself? I strongly doubt that is the case. But I'm not a contractor, and I haven't enumerated the work involved.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

SerLava 8y ago

Per employee?

eropple 8y ago

Having done both, I strongly disagree. Contracting in the United States creates an extreme amount of risk both financial (doing your taxes correctly is very, very difficult, and if the next words on my screen from you are "pay an accountant" you are acknowledging that your position perpetuates the problem) and personal (even with the ACA and living in one of the best states in the nation for individual health care finding a plan where I'm not fucked if I get hurt is very difficult). I'm going back to a full-time job in two weeks and the difficulty of managing stuff that individuals just shouldn't have to deal with is a large factor as to why.

TomMarius 8y ago
My argument is that no one should be forced to do this. It should be heavily automated at the very least.
- eropple 8y ago
  Sure, nobody should. But we don't live in that world, and so it is not useful to form political positions off of things that don't exist. In the real world? If you run a corporation, you are afforded, by society, extremely powerful and beneficial rights, and as part of the social contract you should be handling these sorts of affairs on behalf of the people who make you your money. It is mere decency, and "well employees should do it" without that automation that we both agree needs to exist--but, rather critically, tends to always be step two for certain folks, after "set them off on their ice floe", not step one--is morally super not great.
  - everdev 8y ago
    Or, just make it easy for the contractor to manage their own affairs. It's not like the heavy burden has to be carried by the company or the worker, we can eliminate the heavy burden itself.
    - eropple 8y ago
      I think I just agreed with that? What I am saying is that it is all-too-convenient to say "oh, we'll eliminate that heavy burden we are now placing on you" and then, once it is so placed, proceed to do exactly nothing about it because, hey--the owners are happy, and who cares what anyone else thinks once they're happy? (This is one of many reasons why the Ubers of the world are so nasty; they shirk their responsibilities and leave their de-facto employees holding the bag.) To do justice, one must eliminate that heavy burden, and only the ownership class has sufficient political pull to ever really do anything about it--so they need to continue feeling the pain of it until they do.