[mgraczyk]

I never understand articles like this. Am I supposed to feel bad for playtesters because they don't have access to a soccer field and D-pad shaped couches?

Most people have jobs without those perks. Does the fact that you do work for a company "in tech" make it worse that you're not showered with benefits? The margins aren't high and the work they are doing can be done by almost anyone.

[crooked-v]

It's not about being "showered with benefits", it's about the basic workplace culture leaving employees so uncomfortable and paranoid that (as noted in the article) they literally reenact cartoon plots to auto-press a keyboard so they can go the bathroom without being hassled.

[mgraczyk]

I'm just saying the article talks a lot about benefits these people don't have, but almost nobody has such benefits.

If the article only talked about conditions like what you're describing, it would be 1/8th as long and I wouldn't have complained.

[fzeroracer]

Can you explain to me which benefits exactly the article is describing that is over the line? With quotes from the article.

[mgraczyk]

"outdated equipment and software"

"still possible to find bins of old VHS tapes"

"the soccer pitch, which is also off-limits"

"employees apologizing profusely if they left even 15 minutes early."

"being fired if they missed three days of work"

"Contractors are excluded from ... the company holiday party"

"feel unwelcome ... staying too long in Cafe Mario"

"the internal webpage we were encouraged to look at that showed ... benefits (like a sizable Christmas bonus)"

"march with Nintendo of America in the annual Pride parade"

...

[fzeroracer]

Most of what you mentioned aren't benefits? I'm very confused as to what you're trying to accomplish here, considering I explicitly called out benefits.

1/2 are examples of an outdated workplace (and is meant to be an example of how bad the job is), 3 is an example of how different contractors are treated (and is rather silly), 4/5/6/7 are examples of an awful workplace, 8 is a further example of how they are treated as second class employees and 8 is similar to 3.

A lot of people deal with toxic workplaces, yes. That doesn't mean a crab in a pot mentality is a good one to have because it just ends up dragging everyone down to the most toxic workplace. Instead people should work on calling out and improving their workplaces, which was the intent of this article.

[fzeroracer]

Every single thing that a company does to contractors is something they eventually want to do to full time employees. If they could, they would convert everyone to contractor status, force awful methods of monitoring employee activity and more.

The mistake I see my fellow engineers make is assuming they're not disposable because they're full time, or that the axe won't eventually turn on them.

[OminousWeapons]

I think you could take the opposite view as well. Yes, if they could treat employees poorly then they would, but they can't so they don't. There is more demand for talent than there is supply of talent. I work at a company that has both contractors and full time employees, and it is very obvious when looking at work product why the contractors are the contractors and the full time employees are the full time employees.

Contractor output is frequently technically shoddy or lazy; their reports are riddled with grammatical mistakes and frequently difficult to understand; and there is no way that they could take point when interfacing with a customer as their English skills simply aren't good enough.

[fzeroracer]

Contractors often work for a business like any other. I've worked with companies where the contractors were better than the employees and vice versa.

But the quality of the contractors is ultimately irrelevant because we're talking about workplace protections and benefits. You SHOULD be blaming your company instead for taking cost saving measures that impact the rest of your organization. If your company is working with contractors that are core to your business then they should be treated the same as your employees. And we should be eliminating the middle area where companies want to treat contractors as lesser employees so they can pay them less for the same work.

[fullshark]

What am I supposed to do with this lesson?

[shadowgovt]

The larger concern around contractors, which the article touches on a bit but doesn't really crack open, is that all incentives are structured around the contracted company firing a trouble employee instead of working with them. And by "trouble employee" here, I mean "an employee who has suffered abuse, up to and including actual sexual harassment, from the main company and its staff and could therefore cause legal trouble for the main company."

Protections at the interface of two companies, where the employee is not technically an employee of the main company, are thin on the ground and legally complicated. And whether intentional or not, this has the consequence of making a fertile ground for all manner of quasi-legal employee abuse.

I worked at a company where a contracted employee was sexually harassed by a full-time engineer, and the "support" she got from her boss was clear adavice to keep silent because if the main company felt the situation was too problematic she could cost everyone their job when the main company decided to contract out to another provider. Because that'd be easier for them than even confronting the full-timer responsible.

(... the videogame industry brings its own flavor of sickness to the table above and beyond these general concerns. While my friend was humiliated and depressed as hell about the situation, the reason the threat from her boss even held weight is because they would be there months down the road. A lot of game studios cut their contractors loose when the game is out the door; there's no job security to be had).

[gunfighthacksaw]

The startup I currently work for has (IMO) a reasonable number of benefits

- weekly lunch

- get drunk on the company a handful of times a year

- dogfooding our product for free

- certs + professional development

A company offering substantially less than that I’d consider stingy or too up tight. Not appreciative of the workers. Look at low margin industries like the warehouse.

A company offering more, Id feel good about.

A company offering bean bags, video games, excessive alcohol, I’d definitely feel suspicious about. Who are you trying to buy with these trinkets?

[BoorishBears]

It's all relative

Some people are so disconnected they think our company is stingy because our world class chef only oversees lunch service and dinner meals are only comped after 6....

Tech in general has a crazy entitlement problem when it comes to perks.

[beebmam]

I have a hard time taking any company seriously that facilitates the consumption of alcohol during work hours, with the exception of parties/celebrations.

[InitialBP]

I've worked for plenty of places that facilitate alcohol during work hours. For 99% of people that work there they enjoy a beer after lunch while they knock out some evening work or internal meetings, or just choose not to participate. Some people like to casually drink and while that isn't true of all individuals, depending on your team that might be a big morale boost for people that can drink responsibly in the workplace.

[gunfighthacksaw]

I was mostly referring to parties, though a liquid lunch during a (rare) slow week is not unheard of and can prove quite conducive to meetings.

[mcphage]

> The margins aren't high

Nintendo’s margins are almost 30%.

[wjamesg]

Wow