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posted by n1 on Sunday September 06 2015, @12:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-can-start-tomorrow...-and-finish-next-friday dept.

Over at the Harvard Business Review there's speculation that the paradigm of people working full-time for a single employer has outlived its usefulness:

Our vision is straightforward: most people will become independent contractors who have the flexibility to work part-time for several organizations at the same time, or do a series of short full-time gigs with different companies over the course of a year. Companies will maintain only a minimal full-time staff of executives, key managers, and professionals and bring in the rest of the required talent as needed in a targeted, flexible, and deliberate way.

There are two reasons such a flexible work system is now plausible. The first is societal values. Work-life balance and family-friendly scheduling are much more important to today's workers, and companies are increasingly willing to accommodate them. The second is technology. Advances in the last five years have greatly improved the ease with which people can work and collaborate remotely and companies and contract workers can find each other.

The opinion piece goes on to list how workers, employers and society in general will benefit from this shift. What seems to be missing is speculation on the down sides, both to employers and contractors. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 07 2015, @03:04AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 07 2015, @03:04AM (#233122) Journal

    Be thankful for your situation, but don't hold accountable others for their misfortune.

    The obvious rebuttal is that you could have quit earlier and found another job. Your boss isn't that well connected or his story that persuasive. After all, why would he continually spread stories about your incompetence, while continuing to employ you? Anyone can read between those lines should you ever choose to bring it up.

    It's remarkable in these sorts of stories how little people are willing to attempt to improve their lives. I hate to say it, but it sounds to me like you are a coward. I don't see the need or benefit to extend extra advantages to people just because they are cowards.

    although technically, for the overtime, I'm owed a few hundred thousands

    If you didn't agree to extra pay for overtime, then you aren't owed that money. Else I'm owed a lot of faux money for overtime that I agreed to by my previous employers too. Piles of it! And I'm sure my government owes me faux money because they went off the gold standard half a century ago or because they aren't spending it like I want them to or chemtrails or whatever.