[teg4n_]

Some of the attitude expressed in this comment section show just how out of touch a lot of you are. These contractors are not contractors by choice. They are not even contractors in the sense you probably think like sending an invoice to Nintendo and having it paid. They work for shitty companies like Aerotek that provide very little benefits AND they can only work 10 out of the 12 months of the year due to laws trying to prevent exactly what Nintendo is doing which is using contractors as discount full time employees. The tax payer is subsidizing Nintendo because these people end up on unemployment for two months every year.

[heavyset_go]

It's this. Think Cognizant, Accenture, CyberCoders, etc. They aren't making $200+ an hour as contractors, they're being paid like $40 an hour without any benefits and are treated like garbage.

[jabroni_salad]

These workers are part of retail and callcenter, they are surely under $20.

My callcenter experience can be summed up as "better than fastfood or retail I guess"

[EarlKing]

$40 and hour is still $40 and hour. Live like a Bohemian, pile up your cash for a year, two years, four years... and then bounce to something better. Learned helplessness and expecting a daddy to come along and fix everything for you is not productive.

[teg4n_]

It’s not actually $40 an hour in my experience. It’s closer to $25 and even then the amount of stress and responsibility you have is absurd for being a lowly contractor.

[EarlKing]

Then don't work there, or do as I directed and leverage time there to get better work elsewhere. A company that is determined to treat people as "human resources" will not be deterred just because you complain. It will be deterred only by failure. So let them fail and in the meantime use their failure as a means to get a leg up yourself.

[hammyhavoc]

"Then don't work there". Christ, what privilege.

[wjamesg]

A lot of that going on around here, as per usual

[EarlKing]

ITT we learn that making intelligent decisions that require sacrifice is somehow "privilege"... but whining about making bad decisions isn't.

[selimthegrim]

Gee I’m sure my managers at Intel as a green badge would really have appreciated that waiting to fail speech from me when I was getting paid $35/hour (with some benefits, I’ll admit) in 2013 via W-2 contract.

[heavyset_go]

Weird that you think it's learned helplessness when I'm advocating on the behalf of others.

[tick_tock_tick]

They are contractors because they desperately want to work in the game industry but don't have valuable skills. Everyone knows the pay is bad, the work conditions suck, even the simplest of google searches gives you all that information and more but people keep signing up by the truckload. That's why people here have no sympathy.

> The tax payer is subsidizing Nintendo because these people end up on unemployment for two months every year.

Contract workers are not eligible for unemployment except under a very small number of circumstances and simply not renewing a contract is not one of them.

[teg4n_]

Well I know people who do exactly what I said so I think you don’t understand the situation as well as you think you do. It has nothing to do with contract renewal it is a forced 2 month break between contracts.

Also, they are not 1099 contractors they work directly under companies such as Aerotek or whoever and get a regular W-2. Those companies then contract them to Nintendo.

[wjamesg]

I completely agree. Lots of out of touch in this discussion thread. “They are contractors, what do they expect!?”

[baisq]

If anything, this demonstrates that unemployment benefits should be harshly cut.