I never know what to make of these articles. I started out with low pay in Silicon Valley, too; I took a job at a startup in 1999 making $15/hour doing IT desktop support. In 2002 (edit: this was 2002, not 2001), when I quit to do consulting and start my own company, things were miserable in the Valley--and my salary as a developer was still only $49,500/year then.
I am a college dropout. By traditional standards, then, this guy has more than I do: He has a college degree. Working at a tech company, he had to see that the developers/sysadmins/computer folks made more than he did.
I find this juxtaposition interesting because, certainly, a similar article could have been written about me in 1999. $15 an hour was a terrible wage then in the Valley, too.
Faced with something similar, I asked several of the developers at our company to teach me development. They were amused at this young 18-year-old girl asking them what a "for loop" was. But they taught me.
It took me a while to pick up Linux system administration, bash shell scripting, Perl and PHP (this was in 1999-2000.) When I dropped out of school in 2001, my parents cut me off financially, so I shared tiny apartments, slept on couches, and made ends meet.
Now, at age 32, I've bootstrapped a startup to a 7-figure sale and am now the CEO of a funded startup.
For most of my life, I've dealt with depression and believing I was not "good enough." In that way, I empathize with Manny. If he's reading this, I would like to say to him: I stand here as proof that a minority with no college degree and no formal education can make it in this world. You live in Silicon Valley. If you really want to pull yourself out of poverty, all doors can be open to you. The first step is believing that you can do it.
It's not clear to me how your life experience in Silicon Valley is at all comparable to the experience of the man in this story. You mention that he has a college degree and, in my opinion, imply that he should be doing better than he is. The article clearly states that he recently finished college (this semester) and has already moved on to full-time work. So he is doing better and has already left this part-time position. I couldn't find any reference to this man's interest in software development or administration in the text.
Minimum wage was still insufficient for this person to support themselves and their family without supplementing with a food pantry. I suspect that in 1999, this was also the case.
Further, the point is also made that this large and wealthy company is saving money by dividing their workforce into two classes: employees and contractors. Certainly this is nothing new but it is an important point, for instance, below is an article about how Amazon is agressively hiring more and more contractors.
I don't really believe you were trying to say that anyone with sufficient drive can be a CEO with a seven figure salary, but that is how it came off. Clearly there are not enough CEO positions for everyone that would like one, regardless of their skills or credentials.
The thing is that there are plenty of people who did everything you did and still didn't have any luck, just as there are people who did it the "right way" and still didn't luck out.
You are 100% the creator of your own happiness, not your financial success in life.
I don't know, maybe some people who lives there might find some sense in the story, but to me it just doesn't make any sense (I'm east European living in London). Seems just like another try to blame someone else for his own choices how to live a life.
In the end, if you want to be equal with other employers, maybe it is time to consider what makes them being more equal and try to reach it yourself instead of just telling the world how unfair the world is.
But that just my personal opinion, maybe now it is considered O.K. to act like that.
I dislike the implication that external contractors are basically second-class employees that are being exploited by the hiring company. Google has no idea what this person makes. Google hired a security company to perform a service. Event/site security is not Google's core competency.
I am well aware of the external contractor dynamic. I work at a small company that provides services to $Fortune_500_company. My access badge is a different color than $Fortune_500_company employees, and I am not allowed to partake in certain employee perks. In fact, $Fortune_500_company is very clear that despite working on their computer, having their email address, having an assigned seat at their campus, and being on their phone system, I am not an employee of theirs. I am OK with this.
There are plenty of ways to be screwed in your career. Your contractor/staff status should be considered an unrelated byproduct.
They can certainly find out. Just like ethically sourced coffee beans are a thing; ethically sourced menial labour can be a thing. It's hip and cool to use ethically sourced labor that isn't toxic to the society you live in. :-)
"Google hired a security company to perform a service."
That's kind of a cop out. Like saying Apple isn't responsible for the treatment of the workers in Foxconn in any way (though I am sure there are some people who agree with that point of view).
Does anybody see a link to this guys github profile? I wonder how far along he is on any side projects that he's working on. Surely he must hang out at any of the many coworking spaces in SF on the weekend, right?
I don't mean to be crass here, but...there are SO MANY programs available for this guy to learn to code, and then get the employee benefit of taking home free food from his employer (seriously? He's upset they don't let him take free food?)
I don't really buy the excuse anymore that people are just being held down by "the system", especially in tech.
I've tried with /so many/ people who are in similar "woe is me" situations to teach them to program. I've bought VPSs for them, I've set up curricula for them, I've invited them to hackathons, offered to work on projects with them, etc. etc. etc.
And they don't take it.
One friend, who I got a job with my employer as a part time support person, needed help building his resume. At the time, I was building a new mail server for us, and I told him I wanted him to help me with it so that he could add some linux sys admin work to his resume.
Did he accept it? Nope! He spent his time at home watching Netflix and playing WoW, or age of empires or something.
A month later these people are on facebook complaining about how the evil wealthy people are holding them down.
--
He's working 30 hours a week, and lives with his mom. C'mon, man, you're being handed the ability to learn to code and build a github profile of a freaking golden platter. Get to it! Or...stop complaining about making $18/hr and only getting to /eat/ the free gourmet buffet, when you wish you could take it home.
--
Furthermore, move out of the bay area, man! That's one of the most expensive places to live in the country! Go move to Iowa, or North Dakota. Those places have high qualities of life, good wages, and low costs of living.
The Bay is one of the most desirable places in the WORLD to live. I'd love to have sympathy for a guy making $18/hr and living the San Jose, but I just can't bring myself to.
Furthermore, move out of the bay area, man! That's one of the most expensive places to live in the country!
Whenever I see these articles, I think about what makes the Bay Area expensive. The key factor is housing prices.
There's a limited amount of land available near the centers of SV because of mountains and natural areas. Supply is strictly constrained and demand is very strong because of industry growth. The result is spiraling prices far above what would seem reasonable elsewhere.
Supply constraint isn't really a natural limit, though. Bay Area housing is spread out, low density, even sprawling. Even San Francisco is only half the density of Brooklyn. San Jose and San Mateo county mostly look like a suburb of Omaha.
Market demand would indicate big profit opportunities for anyone who can buy up a subdivision and build a neighborhood of three story flats on wide sidewalks and two lane streets. That would be over double the density of San Francisco and ten times the density of a typical San Mateo subdivision. You could easily afford to buy up property, knock down current buildings and carry away a huge profit. But you can't get permission from planning boards.
Or you could build like Tokyo, which is a little less dense than Brooklyn. You'd make free standing two or three story single family homes with very little yard on 15' single lane streets and small blocks. That's the same density as Brooklyn, 2.5 times San Francisco.
Or you could even build like San Francisco, but in San Jose. That's efficient enough in land per housing unit to make big money.
But it's all prohibited.
The Bay Area has chosen to be unlivable and unpleasant by its choice of public officials. Those city officials have prohibited the practices that make city living affordable. The result of bad public officials is an unhappy public.
> The Bay is one of the most desirable places in the WORLD to live.
It's unfortunate you believe the hype so completely.
Hundreds of millions of people living in developed countries wouldn't move to the The Bay if you paid them to. You might not know it, but most of us think living in the USA sucks.
(I'm a Software Engineer - I lived in CA for a while. I would never, ever want to have a family or buy a house in the USA. Life there is not very nice.)
Fair point but remember its possible that he knows he will never make the grade at programming. He can know that from trying similar things before again and again. Some 'nerds' will never make the grade at football. They don't need to keep trying in order to know that and if you keep pushing it on them they find it insulting and possibly even humiliating.
> Furthermore, move out of the bay area, man! That's one of the most expensive places to live in the country! Go move to Iowa, or North Dakota. Those places have high qualities of life, good wages, and low costs of living.
Yea, he should probably abandon his daughter.
Not everyone is a programmer and even if everyone could program well, there wouldn't be a market large enough to support it. Communities need to be able to support people in different occupations and income ranges.
If your solution is for all of the security guards to become programmers, who will be the security guards?
Or perhaps you just want enough poor people to move away/up until there's high enough demand for low skill jobs that their income increases. Sound Economics 101, but much more nuanced in reality.
Update: I was just informed "/s" means sarcasm. Mea culpa.
So let me get this straight. This guy got a girl who wasn't (or isn't anymore) his wife pregnant when he was 20 and didn't have a college degree. No shit it's going to be hard to get along. For fuck's sake, you can get FREE condoms from Planned Parenthood or another local health clinic. The sense of entitlement people have is just astonishing to me.
A sense of entitlement that is not present in the article in any way. In fact, this man worked hard and recently graduate college; he has moved on to a full-time position. He's concerned with his older co-workers and how they will manage to get by.
But he says many security guards are much older, and
it would be hard for them to find another job.
Hard working, moving forward, concerned about his fellow man... I'm not sure where this "sense of entitlement" you mention is coming from.
Couldn't agree more. Most of us started at the bottom and worked very hard to get where we are. Kids cost money, try refraining from having them until you can afford it. I'm sure his mom is loving the situation.
I think you're forgetting the phrase "shit happens". There is no way of knowing what happened to the mom or their relationship. And I don't think it matters either. How would his having a wife have any impact on his situation? If she didn't work, it would be another person to take care of. If she did work, they'd have the same childcare problems mentioned in the article. He seems like he's working hard to take care of his kid but like most people wishes the huge company he works for would help a little more. Where's the entitlement?
"This guy" has a "sense of entitlement" in your little world....because he's taking care of his daughter, worked at a menial job to make ends meets and while he kept studyting and just got his college degree, programs on the side, just got a new job, and took the time and energy to try to improve conditions for his fellow employees....and then geniuses like you whine about "free condoms" and "entitlement"?
I don't think it's a bad thing that Google treats each employee differently.
There's no reason why contractors should have the same benefits as regular employees. Google is a business, not a charity. When Google gives engineers to-go boxes, they don't do it because they like them better than other employees, they do it because it's a competitive market out there, and they want to keep the best.
Besides, maybe letting contractors take food home is too expensive for the company. Maybe they couldn't afford free food at all if they give to EVERYONE.
If the security guard wants to earn more, he should either start a business on his own or improve his skills to get a better job.
People who make this argument tend to make it sound as if it were a discrimination issue, it's not. The reason engineers get paid better isn't because they're white, taller or prettier, it's because they're more prepared and thus add more value to the company.
> If the security guard wants to earn more, he should either start a business on his own or improve his skills to get a better job.
Part of the reason people are engineers is because they've been exposed to good examples and opportunities over a lifetime, not because they are especially or particularly motivated over anyone else. There are all sorts of factors which lead to people having the profession that they do. Work ethic is one among many, and probably not very high on the list.
And, being taller and prettier is absolutely a predictor for being better paid.
> Besides, maybe letting contractors take food home is too expensive for the company. Maybe they couldn't afford free food at all if they give to EVERYONE.
It's because a company needs to keep a very clear distinction between employees and not-employees. If a to-go box is an employee benefit, and those boxes are given to contractors who are not employees, then there is the risk that a court will decide that the not-employee is indeed an employee. After that the employee says, "where are my retroactive stock options?" For reference, see Microsoft in the 90s.
Actually, at the Googleplex, when you see someone boarding an early shuttle with a stack of to-go boxes for their friends and neighbors it's most commonly a contractor.
It's interesting to note that this guy NEVER gets more than 30 hours. This is most likely to make sure the employee can't be considered full-time. I'm sure Google would rather hire 15 guys at 40-60 hours instead of 40 guys at 20 hours, but the sad reality is that the costs of compliance for a full-time employee are just not worth it.
Google hasn't hired anybody. The security company was awarded a contract to provide security services, which is fulfilled by employing some people at < 30 hours/week. If there is an issue with the < 30 hours/week loophole, the security company is where it should be addressed.
"But Google is benefiting from this exploitation!" you might say.
Yes. Google can pay less for security services because the guards ultimately cost less. If the guards worked 40 hours/week, the contract cost would have to increase, and another lower cost security company may have won the contract. The reality is that security services are only worth so much. Not every job (even at full time) can or should be expected to pay a livable wage.
I'm not sure this is the driver. Instead, the primary factor is likely the fact that hourly employees cost a 50% more the moment they cross 40 hours in a week.
>> Google would rather hire 15 guys at 40-60 hours instead of 40 guys at 20 hours
Not if they are paid hourly, they wouldn't. It would just be throwing money away.
In my way-back days working hourly jobs in retail/fast food/etc., we would game this by trying to get as many excess hours as possible early in the week, so that we could get to 40+ hours by the 5th/6th day. Then, we'd aggressively try to get extra shifts from people who called in sick, etc. But management always tried to prevent this.
True. That's partially due to Obamacare. If more than 30 hours, the employer has to provide coverage, which greatly increases the cost of that employee.
This is explored to a degree in a pop psychology book by Daniel Gilbert called "Stumbling on Happiness". There are certainly better sources, such as the papers Gilbert uses as his primary sources, but the book is an accessible way to learn about the high degree to which our happiness depends on subjective interpretation of our self-comparison to others.
There's a theory out there that we evaluate ourselves mostly against people we can reasonably consider our peers (e.g. college classmates or the kid who grew up down the street, not Barack Obama or Steve Jobs) because they are the best proxy for what our lives could have been like had we made different choices with the same starting point (e.g. medical school instead of starting a business). These peers represent our best experimental data given a world of singular outcomes.
The double-edged sword of you achieving success is that those hundred or so people you compare yourself to sit high up on an asymptotic curve of outcomes. That is, if your peer group all has advanced degrees and decades of experience, the outcome-difference between the least and most successful will be extreme. "Low success" peer groups sit at the flatter part of the curve, so peers you compare yourself to will "look more like you", thus avoiding the unhappiness of comparative failure when you judge yourself.
I'm forgetting whether this particular idea comes from Gilbert's book or another source, like perhaps "Status Anxiety" by Alain de Botton.
I work for a major telecom company doing field service.
I'm a contractor, I get a fair wage, but not much else.
Real employees get, company truck, 20% more pay, 100% paid benefits, company phone and a bunch of intangibles.
Like a good example when my manager goes on vacation even though I drive my own vehicle and am paid mileage, none of my mileage requests are paid, right now I'm floating about a month worth of mileage and other expenses, to the tune of 700+ dollars. If I were an employee, I would have a company vehicle, company gas card, company expense card, and it wouldn't be coming out of my pocket.
This is a sad consequence of the dynamism of the tech economy, and while no individual is directly to blame, it behooves us to do what we can to help out those around us. Pointing fingers at this guy, blaming him for his own mistakes, while possibly true (who's to say?) isn't worthwhile.
The rising inequality in the bay area is spurring the protests in SF aimed at tech workers, and are just the beginning of a turning point which will result in the tech elite becoming demonized at large[1], and by extension (and likely less so) your average tech worker.
Becoming involved in the community, expressing sympathy, volunteering at food banks, what have you, are all ways in which we can help avoid that fate.
It's interesting you choose to compare a developed country to a developing country.
You're comparing a team that is supposedly in the A league to a team in the B league, then saying the former is good because it beats the latter. That's nonsensical.
For a real comparison, you must compare A teams to A teams.
The question should be: Is it better to have "low pay" in San Jose or low pay in Australia/NZ/UK/Japan/Germany/France/Netherlands/etc./etc.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, more people have moved from the USA to Mexico than from Mexico to the USA in each of the past six years. The reverse flow was strong in the 1990's. That's one clue that maybe low pay in Tijuana is getting to be better than San Jose, at least compared to before.
I don't know of specific data between Tijuana and San Jose.
I do know recent college graduates in SF and Mexico City, though. It's clear that the average wage in relation to the cost of living is higher in Mexico City. My impression is that unskilled and low wage workers are probably a lot better off north of the Río Bravo, though maybe not at SF/SJ prices.
[+] [-] ericabiz|12 years ago|reply
I am a college dropout. By traditional standards, then, this guy has more than I do: He has a college degree. Working at a tech company, he had to see that the developers/sysadmins/computer folks made more than he did.
I find this juxtaposition interesting because, certainly, a similar article could have been written about me in 1999. $15 an hour was a terrible wage then in the Valley, too.
Faced with something similar, I asked several of the developers at our company to teach me development. They were amused at this young 18-year-old girl asking them what a "for loop" was. But they taught me.
It took me a while to pick up Linux system administration, bash shell scripting, Perl and PHP (this was in 1999-2000.) When I dropped out of school in 2001, my parents cut me off financially, so I shared tiny apartments, slept on couches, and made ends meet.
Now, at age 32, I've bootstrapped a startup to a 7-figure sale and am now the CEO of a funded startup.
For most of my life, I've dealt with depression and believing I was not "good enough." In that way, I empathize with Manny. If he's reading this, I would like to say to him: I stand here as proof that a minority with no college degree and no formal education can make it in this world. You live in Silicon Valley. If you really want to pull yourself out of poverty, all doors can be open to you. The first step is believing that you can do it.
[+] [-] grecy|12 years ago|reply
You were making $50k - (in 2001?) - that's $65k in 2012 dollars.
This guy is making $16,800 ($1,400/mo). That's 4 times less than you were, and you think you're comparable?
[+] [-] stephencanon|12 years ago|reply
Not everyone will be as lucky as you were.
[+] [-] cmiles74|12 years ago|reply
Minimum wage was still insufficient for this person to support themselves and their family without supplementing with a food pantry. I suspect that in 1999, this was also the case.
Further, the point is also made that this large and wealthy company is saving money by dividing their workforce into two classes: employees and contractors. Certainly this is nothing new but it is an important point, for instance, below is an article about how Amazon is agressively hiring more and more contractors.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazo...
I don't really believe you were trying to say that anyone with sufficient drive can be a CEO with a seven figure salary, but that is how it came off. Clearly there are not enough CEO positions for everyone that would like one, regardless of their skills or credentials.
[+] [-] astral303|12 years ago|reply
Also note that he's not allowed to work over 30 hours, so even at a somewhat comparative actual rate, he has an upper limit on weekly income.
[+] [-] ThomPete|12 years ago|reply
You are 100% the creator of your own happiness, not your financial success in life.
[+] [-] MattGrommes|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdrulia|12 years ago|reply
In the end, if you want to be equal with other employers, maybe it is time to consider what makes them being more equal and try to reach it yourself instead of just telling the world how unfair the world is.
But that just my personal opinion, maybe now it is considered O.K. to act like that.
[+] [-] dkokelley|12 years ago|reply
I am well aware of the external contractor dynamic. I work at a small company that provides services to $Fortune_500_company. My access badge is a different color than $Fortune_500_company employees, and I am not allowed to partake in certain employee perks. In fact, $Fortune_500_company is very clear that despite working on their computer, having their email address, having an assigned seat at their campus, and being on their phone system, I am not an employee of theirs. I am OK with this.
There are plenty of ways to be screwed in your career. Your contractor/staff status should be considered an unrelated byproduct.
[+] [-] olefoo|12 years ago|reply
They can certainly find out. Just like ethically sourced coffee beans are a thing; ethically sourced menial labour can be a thing. It's hip and cool to use ethically sourced labor that isn't toxic to the society you live in. :-)
[+] [-] collyw|12 years ago|reply
That's kind of a cop out. Like saying Apple isn't responsible for the treatment of the workers in Foxconn in any way (though I am sure there are some people who agree with that point of view).
[+] [-] blhack|12 years ago|reply
Does anybody see a link to this guys github profile? I wonder how far along he is on any side projects that he's working on. Surely he must hang out at any of the many coworking spaces in SF on the weekend, right?
I don't mean to be crass here, but...there are SO MANY programs available for this guy to learn to code, and then get the employee benefit of taking home free food from his employer (seriously? He's upset they don't let him take free food?)
I don't really buy the excuse anymore that people are just being held down by "the system", especially in tech.
I've tried with /so many/ people who are in similar "woe is me" situations to teach them to program. I've bought VPSs for them, I've set up curricula for them, I've invited them to hackathons, offered to work on projects with them, etc. etc. etc.
And they don't take it.
One friend, who I got a job with my employer as a part time support person, needed help building his resume. At the time, I was building a new mail server for us, and I told him I wanted him to help me with it so that he could add some linux sys admin work to his resume.
Did he accept it? Nope! He spent his time at home watching Netflix and playing WoW, or age of empires or something.
A month later these people are on facebook complaining about how the evil wealthy people are holding them down.
--
He's working 30 hours a week, and lives with his mom. C'mon, man, you're being handed the ability to learn to code and build a github profile of a freaking golden platter. Get to it! Or...stop complaining about making $18/hr and only getting to /eat/ the free gourmet buffet, when you wish you could take it home.
--
Furthermore, move out of the bay area, man! That's one of the most expensive places to live in the country! Go move to Iowa, or North Dakota. Those places have high qualities of life, good wages, and low costs of living.
The Bay is one of the most desirable places in the WORLD to live. I'd love to have sympathy for a guy making $18/hr and living the San Jose, but I just can't bring myself to.
[+] [-] WildUtah|12 years ago|reply
Whenever I see these articles, I think about what makes the Bay Area expensive. The key factor is housing prices.
There's a limited amount of land available near the centers of SV because of mountains and natural areas. Supply is strictly constrained and demand is very strong because of industry growth. The result is spiraling prices far above what would seem reasonable elsewhere.
Supply constraint isn't really a natural limit, though. Bay Area housing is spread out, low density, even sprawling. Even San Francisco is only half the density of Brooklyn. San Jose and San Mateo county mostly look like a suburb of Omaha.
Market demand would indicate big profit opportunities for anyone who can buy up a subdivision and build a neighborhood of three story flats on wide sidewalks and two lane streets. That would be over double the density of San Francisco and ten times the density of a typical San Mateo subdivision. You could easily afford to buy up property, knock down current buildings and carry away a huge profit. But you can't get permission from planning boards.
Or you could build like Tokyo, which is a little less dense than Brooklyn. You'd make free standing two or three story single family homes with very little yard on 15' single lane streets and small blocks. That's the same density as Brooklyn, 2.5 times San Francisco.
Or you could even build like San Francisco, but in San Jose. That's efficient enough in land per housing unit to make big money.
But it's all prohibited.
The Bay Area has chosen to be unlivable and unpleasant by its choice of public officials. Those city officials have prohibited the practices that make city living affordable. The result of bad public officials is an unhappy public.
[+] [-] grecy|12 years ago|reply
It's unfortunate you believe the hype so completely.
Hundreds of millions of people living in developed countries wouldn't move to the The Bay if you paid them to. You might not know it, but most of us think living in the USA sucks.
(I'm a Software Engineer - I lived in CA for a while. I would never, ever want to have a family or buy a house in the USA. Life there is not very nice.)
[+] [-] discreteevent|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonknee|12 years ago|reply
Yea, he should probably abandon his daughter.
Not everyone is a programmer and even if everyone could program well, there wouldn't be a market large enough to support it. Communities need to be able to support people in different occupations and income ranges.
[+] [-] schmichael|12 years ago|reply
Or perhaps you just want enough poor people to move away/up until there's high enough demand for low skill jobs that their income increases. Sound Economics 101, but much more nuanced in reality.
Update: I was just informed "/s" means sarcasm. Mea culpa.
[+] [-] chinasmith|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] w1ntermute|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmiles74|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bottompair|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MattGrommes|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logjam|12 years ago|reply
"This guy" has a "sense of entitlement" in your little world....because he's taking care of his daughter, worked at a menial job to make ends meets and while he kept studyting and just got his college degree, programs on the side, just got a new job, and took the time and energy to try to improve conditions for his fellow employees....and then geniuses like you whine about "free condoms" and "entitlement"?
Please. Just delete your comment.
[+] [-] nickelite|12 years ago|reply
There's no reason why contractors should have the same benefits as regular employees. Google is a business, not a charity. When Google gives engineers to-go boxes, they don't do it because they like them better than other employees, they do it because it's a competitive market out there, and they want to keep the best.
Besides, maybe letting contractors take food home is too expensive for the company. Maybe they couldn't afford free food at all if they give to EVERYONE.
If the security guard wants to earn more, he should either start a business on his own or improve his skills to get a better job.
People who make this argument tend to make it sound as if it were a discrimination issue, it's not. The reason engineers get paid better isn't because they're white, taller or prettier, it's because they're more prepared and thus add more value to the company.
[+] [-] scelerat|12 years ago|reply
Part of the reason people are engineers is because they've been exposed to good examples and opportunities over a lifetime, not because they are especially or particularly motivated over anyone else. There are all sorts of factors which lead to people having the profession that they do. Work ethic is one among many, and probably not very high on the list.
And, being taller and prettier is absolutely a predictor for being better paid.
http://www.livescience.com/5552-taller-people-earn-money.htm... http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405297020368750...
[+] [-] mikestew|12 years ago|reply
It's because a company needs to keep a very clear distinction between employees and not-employees. If a to-go box is an employee benefit, and those boxes are given to contractors who are not employees, then there is the risk that a court will decide that the not-employee is indeed an employee. After that the employee says, "where are my retroactive stock options?" For reference, see Microsoft in the 90s.
[+] [-] d6928230|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] altoz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dkokelley|12 years ago|reply
"But Google is benefiting from this exploitation!" you might say.
Yes. Google can pay less for security services because the guards ultimately cost less. If the guards worked 40 hours/week, the contract cost would have to increase, and another lower cost security company may have won the contract. The reality is that security services are only worth so much. Not every job (even at full time) can or should be expected to pay a livable wage.
[+] [-] angersock|12 years ago|reply
My heart bleeds for these poor, hamstrung corporations.
[+] [-] runako|12 years ago|reply
I'm not sure this is the driver. Instead, the primary factor is likely the fact that hourly employees cost a 50% more the moment they cross 40 hours in a week.
>> Google would rather hire 15 guys at 40-60 hours instead of 40 guys at 20 hours
Not if they are paid hourly, they wouldn't. It would just be throwing money away.
In my way-back days working hourly jobs in retail/fast food/etc., we would game this by trying to get as many excess hours as possible early in the week, so that we could get to 40+ hours by the 5th/6th day. Then, we'd aggressively try to get extra shifts from people who called in sick, etc. But management always tried to prevent this.
[+] [-] eplanit|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshklein|12 years ago|reply
There's a theory out there that we evaluate ourselves mostly against people we can reasonably consider our peers (e.g. college classmates or the kid who grew up down the street, not Barack Obama or Steve Jobs) because they are the best proxy for what our lives could have been like had we made different choices with the same starting point (e.g. medical school instead of starting a business). These peers represent our best experimental data given a world of singular outcomes.
The double-edged sword of you achieving success is that those hundred or so people you compare yourself to sit high up on an asymptotic curve of outcomes. That is, if your peer group all has advanced degrees and decades of experience, the outcome-difference between the least and most successful will be extreme. "Low success" peer groups sit at the flatter part of the curve, so peers you compare yourself to will "look more like you", thus avoiding the unhappiness of comparative failure when you judge yourself.
I'm forgetting whether this particular idea comes from Gilbert's book or another source, like perhaps "Status Anxiety" by Alain de Botton.
[+] [-] dhugiaskmak|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aloha|12 years ago|reply
I'm a contractor, I get a fair wage, but not much else.
Real employees get, company truck, 20% more pay, 100% paid benefits, company phone and a bunch of intangibles.
Like a good example when my manager goes on vacation even though I drive my own vehicle and am paid mileage, none of my mileage requests are paid, right now I'm floating about a month worth of mileage and other expenses, to the tune of 700+ dollars. If I were an employee, I would have a company vehicle, company gas card, company expense card, and it wouldn't be coming out of my pocket.
[+] [-] cperry|12 years ago|reply
The rising inequality in the bay area is spurring the protests in SF aimed at tech workers, and are just the beginning of a turning point which will result in the tech elite becoming demonized at large[1], and by extension (and likely less so) your average tech worker.
Becoming involved in the community, expressing sympathy, volunteering at food banks, what have you, are all ways in which we can help avoid that fate.
[1] http://www.economist.com/news/21588893-tech-elite-will-join-...
[+] [-] alexeisadeski3|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|12 years ago|reply
You're comparing a team that is supposedly in the A league to a team in the B league, then saying the former is good because it beats the latter. That's nonsensical.
For a real comparison, you must compare A teams to A teams.
The question should be: Is it better to have "low pay" in San Jose or low pay in Australia/NZ/UK/Japan/Germany/France/Netherlands/etc./etc.
[+] [-] WildUtah|12 years ago|reply
I don't know of specific data between Tijuana and San Jose.
I do know recent college graduates in SF and Mexico City, though. It's clear that the average wage in relation to the cost of living is higher in Mexico City. My impression is that unskilled and low wage workers are probably a lot better off north of the Río Bravo, though maybe not at SF/SJ prices.
[+] [-] fennecfoxen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pessimizer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmorris|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sunnybythesea|12 years ago|reply