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Tesla reviewing contractors, firing everyone not vouched for by an employee

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla reviewing contractors, firing everyone not vouched for by an employee

#11

Post by tzs »

lsc wrote: post #2

Sounds shocking... but having worked as a contractor for a goodly portion of my career, I'd argue that something is seriously wrong if you can't get at least one employee to vouch for you. Really, every place I've worked, you could say this happens every month; almost always I've needed an employee to sign off on my hours, either the person I report to or the person they report to. I always took that as a vote of con…

> Sounds shocking... but having worked as a contractor for a goodly portion of my career, I'd argue that something is seriously wrong if you can't get at least one employee to vouch for you.

That sounds reasonable, although I could see a need for some exceptions. For example, I could see a company using a contractor for its front end web development and another contractor for running the web server. The first contractor would be working with employees, such as sales and marketing that decide what is supposed to go on the site, and they could vouch for that contractor. The second contractor, the one running the web server, could easily end up only interacting with the front end web contractor.

Re: Tesla reviewing contractors, firing everyone not vouched for by an employee

#12

Post by icanhackit »

Being a hard ass CEO isn't sexy, but it's what so many successful CEO's are.

> Often, it is like a Russian nesting doll of contractor, subcontractor, sub-subcontractor, etc. before you finally find someone doing actual work.

I'd also argue that these multi-level contractor setups are a major security concern. Ideally they should make it policy to have no more than one additional level between Tesla and the contractor performing the work.

Aggregate contracting will make assigning liability a difficult task and it's likely the person working for you is being underpaid as each layer takes their cut. Meanwhile you get 100% of the shit-storm from any media backlash about worker salary/conditions.

Re: Tesla reviewing contractors, firing everyone not vouched for by an employee

#13

Post by gk1 »

cbanek wrote: post #10

Having an employee vouch for you... does this not imply they don't even know where their money is going as a company and who is valuable and who is not? I agree, that having the line worker / employee using the part's blessing is important, but surely there are more holistic top-down ways of evaluating this?

> surely there are more holistic top-down ways of evaluating this?

Which would take months. This is about sending a message as much as it is about cutting costs (fast).

Re: Tesla reviewing contractors, firing everyone not vouched for by an employee

#16

Post by rdl »

Tesla seems like a company where people would place a premium on being a direct employee, vs. another organization. I'd certainly feel more 'pride' in saying "I work for Tesla" than "I work for X" for almost all non-SpaceX or tiny-startup values of X, and that's probably generally held by people who would contract for Tesla.

Re: Tesla reviewing contractors, firing everyone not vouched for by an employee

#17

Post by walshemj »

lsc wrote: post #2

Sounds shocking... but having worked as a contractor for a goodly portion of my career, I'd argue that something is seriously wrong if you can't get at least one employee to vouch for you. Really, every place I've worked, you could say this happens every month; almost always I've needed an employee to sign off on my hours, either the person I report to or the person they report to. I always took that as a vote of con…

I don't think this is individual IT/DEV self employed contractors here.

Re: Tesla reviewing contractors, firing everyone not vouched for by an employee

#18

Post by walshemj »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #15

Don't contractors have managers that are supposed to, well, manage them?

Not that sort of singleton contractor - and technically having a company employee manage your day to day tasks will be take by the tax man as disguised employment - not a good idea.

Re: Tesla reviewing contractors, firing everyone not vouched for by an employee

#19

Post by WalterSear »

lsc wrote: post #2

Sounds shocking... but having worked as a contractor for a goodly portion of my career, I'd argue that something is seriously wrong if you can't get at least one employee to vouch for you. Really, every place I've worked, you could say this happens every month; almost always I've needed an employee to sign off on my hours, either the person I report to or the person they report to. I always took that as a vote of con…

> I'd argue that something is seriously wrong if you can't get at least one employee to vouch for you.

The corollary to that is that if you get to the point where you need to check on the vouchsafety of all your contractors - en masse - something is seriously wrong with your company.

Re: Tesla reviewing contractors, firing everyone not vouched for by an employee

#20

Post by analog31 »

lsc wrote: post #8
analog31 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a regular employee, and I don't see it being any different. Figuratively speaking, my boss has to sign my paycheck every two weeks. If they don't like me, they can fire me.

see, I think there is a big cultural difference. Like, I always had that attitude as an employee, but I think that as an employee, it holds me back. I think the key is that as an employee, you are expected to act in the interest of the company in ways that are different from what you are expected to do as a contractor. My perception and experience is that as a contractor, I'm supposed to do what you tell me to do. If…

I tend to think of myself as a professional first, and employee second. The distinction between employee and contractor becomes a matter of accounting and tax law.

>>> The company, by making them the boss, has said that the company thinks the boss knows more than I do, so maybe the right thing to do is to go along with it?

I don't assume that for one minute. I work in a job where there is literally nobody else in the company with my expertise.

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