[ztoben]

I contracted for about 8 months through a large staffing firm. A few things I liked:

* Hours were fairly flexible

* Not too much supervision, was mostly given things to work on and expected to finish them in a certain amount of time

* Didn't get pulled in to as many meetings in the office

* The pay was excellent

Some things I didn't like:

* No/little vacation/pto/sick

* If you don't work, you don't get paid (if you're paid hourly)

* No/little job security. I was around for 2 rounds of layoffs and had a young child at home, so this wasn't ideal

At the end of the day it made more sense for me to go back to a normal employment role due to family and a few other factors with job security. I did enjoy my time as a contractor though. Enough so that I still pick up hours through some old employers occasionally.

[aliencat]

The flexible hour and no much supervision sounds excellent! Does that mean you can come to work late or leave work early as long as you work for 8 hours a day?

[goatlover]

I think it means you work whenever you want as long as the job is done on time. If you're working remote with little supervision, then it makes no sense to stick to an 8 hour 9 to 5 schedule, unless that's your optimal working window.

[mdocherty]

That is pretty specific to the role. I have done contract work where I just had to get stuff done in and couldn't bill more than 40 hours a week. Other roles were up to 45 hours a week but had to have ass in seat in office mon-friday 8-5

[0xffff2]

I get to do that as a normal FTE. Hell, I don't even have to work 8 hrs/day; the only requirement is that I work 80 hours every two weeks. I thought that was pretty standard in the tech world. Is it not?

[walshemj]

For salaried supposedly so - its up to you to manage your time.

[ztoben]

That was pretty much the case for me, yes. I usually preferred working 6:30-3:00 and it fit my schedule really well.

[LoSboccacc]

well that's the whole point. if they dictate the contractor work hour, work environment or workload outside the contract deliverables it's employment masked as contract work and there are hefty fines and the possibility to be forced to hire the person.

[ccajas]

As someone who has had non-trivial contract experience, how much leeway is given to independent contractors in the US to work on-site, with the in-house employees? I'm almost 100% sure I was mis-classified as an independent contractor while getting employee-like wages. I was told to show up from 9 to 5 on the premises.

I don't think anyone really punished the company though. They were a pretty small and insignificant web agency just hiring a couple local people but tons of off-shore work.

Does that mean that ICs generally work remotely? Or what is actually the deal with company offices and ICs?

Moving ahead, I wish I could help out the industry by shielding the naive new workforce from mis-classification and similar forms of work exploitation.

[LoSboccacc]

I’m unsure about US law so I can’t help with concrete advice for your situation. Anyway, it is not something it will be investigated without the employee initiating the action and documenting it in a lawsuit, which is going to strain your relationship and generally makes sense only if a large amount of the workforce is missclassified and takes collective action.

Game theory and all that applies. Best recourse is not to fall into one such firms.

In broad terms the contractor vs employee test is similar across the world, because is derived from the same forces (tax and welfare avoidance for the employer, better cashflow for the employees that don’t care about welfare yet)

You really need to check in your jurisdiction but in general: you have work hours vs contracted goals, you have no agency to work for multiple clients concurrently, you work on employee machinery.

Work remotely locally etc is a consequence of those general tests. It help thinking that it’s a contract between to business. Would you ask a cake shop exclusive work, to be at your house 9-5 and to work on your oven? That’s not a cake shop, that’s a baker.

[walshemj]

That's not self employed though? which is what the OP as asking about I think.

[ztoben]

No, they just asked what it's like working as a contractor. They said they were offered a job through a company similar to what I was employed through.