Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#111

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #92

RationPhantoms wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel an odd magnetic sway towards the future envisioned in Neil Stephenson's "Snow Crash" where the gig-economy IS the economy.

What could be more alluring, living in a shipping container in one of the shanty slums most of Snow Crash's people live in or being one of the lucky few to live in a corporate enclave? I'm just glad we're going to have the opportunity to live in a cyber-punk dystopia!!!

The best kind of dystopia! Better than a fascist totalitarian surveillance state dystopia, anyway. Or at least it is for the people that can hack the cyber-stuff to get at the sweet cyber-juice inside.

I can't wait to get my first neuro-implant, and to crash my first 747 filled with telephone books into my brain.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#112

Post by maxxxxx » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

nulagrithom wrote: post #107

bsenftner wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this type of organization often. I wonder if there needs to be a deeper evaluation of the costs of delegation. Institutional knowledge becomes even more abstract when trained algorithms and their developers are in the mix.

I was sitting in yet another meeting the other day and started thinking... We have two of our managers on this call, one of their managers, three of their engineers, and me. But I'm only there for some vague technical guidance. I don't even know the system/language they're working in. That's 3 managers for 4 technical people, 1 of which is simply babysitting. So really that's 4 people making sure 3 people do the work…

That's actually a quite good ratio:). When I deal with our IT, it's usually 1 or 2 line managers, 1 business analyst, 1 or 2 project managers and 2 architects. Double this up if two groups are involved. None of them is involved in doing the work. The work goes to India and then if you want to get the work done right you try to schedule night late meetings with the one or two people there and explain everything from scratch.

From the outside it looks like they have a rigorous process of estimating, evaluating, writing requirements and stuff but it's almost pure overhead.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#113

Post by throwmenow_0140 » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:56 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #12

godzillabrennus wrote: post #2

Yes. The problem is that automation will be taking even more jobs away in the near future. It’s going to be a hard transition for people.

We’ve heard the same argument throughout industrialization. And everything was fine. Nothing is uniquely different now. Starving blacksmith, out of work horse trainers; yet an entire new industry, the automobile essentially created from nothing that employed more, created more wealth than all horse related commerce in the history of the world. It’s arrogant to think that this time it’s different, that somehow our tec…

I would love to say something against this because I'm convinced that the industrial revolution is a whole different game than the deep learning / outsourcing / computer revolution, but I can't.

"Everything will be fine." is just too ambiguous to argue against. Being fine is not an objective quality. I'm sure the world will be fine. But maybe it won't be fine in my eyes or for most people in a sense that they'll lose a significant amount of wealth compared to their current situation. But maybe they'll still be fine in another way. So maybe both sides are right - in their own regard.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#114

Post by jcun4128 » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

throwmenow_0140 wrote: post #104

eropple wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can empathize with your goals and your current situation, so please take this in that light: I don't come away from your post thinking that you really understand how the proper nouns in your post really fit together. My initial reaction was "this is pretty word salad-y." If you're going to write a longer thing about tech, it's probably worth investing a little bit of stylistic and structural effort into not dismiss…

> Working on learning Git [...] He's working on those things. I didn't get the impression that he tried to pretend to be a senior developer. I really dislike the attitude that he has to "talk the talk as well as walk the walk". I know exactly what you mean and it's very important especially while freelancing, but in this context it sounds condescending. To paraphrase your words: I wouldn't hire someone who judges oth…

It was a bit lengthy on my part but thanks, yeah I'm behind gotta catchup.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#115

Post by Nursie » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 4:03 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #96

Nursie wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. Rather that than fill in holiday forms, attend company meetings, have annual performance reviews etc etc.

Yeah, but you don't risk going to jail just because you're bad at bookkeeping.

I don't do it myself, I pay an accountant. There are lots of accountants around that cater for this sort of stuff. I pay £120 per month and they keep the company ticking over, let me know what it owes and who to, when I need to pay etc. They also prepare my personal tax return each year.

I'm not going to jail anytime soon.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#116

Post by ElysianEagle » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 4:03 PM UTC

wvh wrote: post #11

I've done mostly contract work because I liked the freedom when I was younger. Now I notice a lot of people my age have moved on to management or jobs "higher on the ladder" while I stress about the uncertainty of income when contracts end. I assume the lifestyle might suit people who are extraordinarily good networkers, but I feel mostly tired these days. My younger self didn't know about the fatigue the responsibil…

I worked contract for a while in NYC. The pay was great but the contract was abruptly terminated with just a few days notice about a year or so in. I landed on my feet but don't think I'd go contract again because as a single individual things can get pretty stressful, as you mentioned.

It seems to work pretty nicely, however, if you have a partner that has a stable, full-time gig while you work contract. The full-time gig usually has higher stability + health benefits, while the contract gig brings in more money. Also, if your contract is suddenly gone, at least you don't have to jump into survival mode ASAP since there's still money comin in.

That's the most common arrangment I noticed among my contractor peers at least, at the time.

The other thing I learned was that I was only entitled to unemployment support if I had been on a W-2 sometime in the previous two years in NY. While this was not the case for me, fortunately, I had been in CA on a W-2 so I qualified for unemployment from CA. Had I been contracting for more than two years straight, that support would not have been available. Something to keep in mind.

Agree with all else you mentioned, though.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#117

Post by corpMaverick » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

a3n wrote: post #29

godzillabrennus wrote: post #2

Yes. The problem is that automation will be taking even more jobs away in the near future. It’s going to be a hard transition for people.

Yes, automation will replace people in a lot of jobs. That worries me, as an individual subject to that disruption, and as a citizen/steward of my country. But I've also been wondering if there might be a new kind of job coming, "person who does a new thing until it can be understood well enough to be 'autoficialized'." Artificial intelligence may be great at running complex but well bounded problems, but intelligenc…

In addition to your point let me provide an example. We can get machines to cook burgers or pizzas because the task is bounded and there is an economy of scale to do it. But it is a lot harder to build a machine that can cook anything.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#118

Post by Balero » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #59

maxxxxx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for every qualified contractor you have 20 clueless people hired from some body shop who make a mess of things. Good contractors are a rare breed.

Eh, so are good employees are in the UK. I've been contracting five years, and the state of software engineering seems woeful in the small and medium sized countries of the UK.

As is the state of software engineering pay, and being lumped in with "IT".

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#119

Post by crispyambulance » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 4:09 PM UTC

nulagrithom wrote: post #107

bsenftner wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this type of organization often. I wonder if there needs to be a deeper evaluation of the costs of delegation. Institutional knowledge becomes even more abstract when trained algorithms and their developers are in the mix.

I was sitting in yet another meeting the other day and started thinking... We have two of our managers on this call, one of their managers, three of their engineers, and me. But I'm only there for some vague technical guidance. I don't even know the system/language they're working in. That's 3 managers for 4 technical people, 1 of which is simply babysitting. So really that's 4 people making sure 3 people do the work…

Yup, at one place I worked, I got the epiphany that everything was going straight to hell when I realized during the hazy stupor of an interminable conference call that I was the only non-PM. There were 6 people on the call. I got out of there shortly thereafter.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#120

Post by nulagrithom » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 4:13 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #112

nulagrithom wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sitting in yet another meeting the other day and started thinking... We have two of our managers on this call, one of their managers, three of their engineers, and me. But I'm only there for some vague technical guidance. I don't even know the system/language they're working in. That's 3 managers for 4 technical people, 1 of which is simply babysitting. So really that's 4 people making sure 3 people do the work…

That's actually a quite good ratio:). When I deal with our IT, it's usually 1 or 2 line managers, 1 business analyst, 1 or 2 project managers and 2 architects. Double this up if two groups are involved. None of them is involved in doing the work. The work goes to India and then if you want to get the work done right you try to schedule night late meetings with the one or two people there and explain everything from s…

Ugh, pure overhead, exactly... Apparently someone produces some technical looking but actually vague document every week as a result of these meetings. Some date is thrown out, and _something_ is always deployed by that date, albiet buggy and destined to get rolled back. Eventually, someone figures out that the implementation doesn't actually work at all, and we go back to the weekly meeting with the "new requirements", and repeat until the thing actually works in some semblance of the manner that we need -- or run out of time, scrap it, and move on to more pressing things.

Maybe I should try scheduling some late-night meetings with the senior guy... He's sharp as hell, but we never get too technical during the meetings because that would just confuse people.