Regret conversion to employee 2 weeks later

[HiredGunn]

I have been contracting since 2007 and I felt it was time to ask the sages here for more advice.

Companies product is on the database - prominent SaaS 24x7 database
Billed 70+ all summer working mostly from home after waving 12 month contract under their nose, delaying conversion to W2 by 3 months.
Felt really grateful as my daughter was with me most of the time and custody has been altered.
I agreed to convert after the full 6 months at 1099 but my hours spiked to a final of 89 hours in just 5 days.
Then the trend continued to worsen - 4 all nighters, 2 for 36 hours straight, 2 with 1-2 hours rest.
Next week production was going to lose shared disk per discussions with oracle so I got all the customers off and switched without restore one hour not 45 hours
Switched disk was plumbed to junk-tier storage on SAN, had to lobby again for migration to Tier-1 in emergency mode + aftermath 8 days total continuous effort
Been at maximum effort for about 8 weeks
First 2 weeks of W2 resulted in 120+ hours worked each week.
VP is out of country on honeymoon
HR gal wanted me to hurry up and sign benefits
I walked in and told her I want to switch back to 1099 - *Tilt*
CFO comes over to talk to me, basically repeats what my CPA told me - IRS declared war on 1099, go S-Corp
but CFO wants me to be employee W2 non-salaried at hourly

Other contractor still at 1099 said its fine, yet she dug her heels in and would not discuss it with CFO - period.

I do not mean to make a fuss but this is not what I had anticipated, and with major upgrade + hardware migration + custom upgrade I see only more overtime thru year end.
I told them I can be employee Jan 1st but this current arrangement is not working.
They did bring in another DBA yesterday and he is good but its a little late...9 women, one baby etc.

I guess I just get the W2 hourly in writing but my CPA said hourly had to be time-and-a-half to be legal?

I just want a fair deal and get back to work.  No bait and switch.

Advice welcome - Thanks in advance.

[TRexx]

I guess I just get the W2 hourly in writing but my CPA said hourly had to be time-and-a-half to be legal?

Overtime pay is covered by the (Federal) Fair Labor Standards Act which mandates time-and-a-half.  Unfortunately that law specifically excludes "white collar" jobs such as computer software professionals.  However, you may be protected under your state's labor laws which preempt the federal law if they are more beneficial to the employee.     

[The Gorn]

The last time I checked this, time and a half goes away as a legal requirement if the hourly pay rate is above a certain rate, which last I saw was about $27 per hour. Check your state's labor laws, they should say.

First 2 weeks of W2 resulted in 120+ hours worked each week

That's not healthy. At that level I'd walk out after 50-60 hours.

[choppedwood]

I'm no Sage but I've got a keyboard.

Will you, ever, see your daughter working those hours as an FTE on call 24x7?

OT will vary by state, but, good luck getting it.

Hope you asked for a LOT more than your hourly rate to go FTE.

It also sounds like you have the skills to find work elsewhere.  From personal experience I can tell you that it gets hard to remember that when you are in the middle of something like that.

Good luck with it. 

[benali72]

HG, sorry to hear the OT is suddenly crunching down on you.  I don't understand your situation in its entirety, so perhaps this comment will be off base. But in general, the rule of thumb is --- always remain a contractor and avoid going FTE if at all possible. Once you go FTE you lose all leverage.....  completely, regardless of any pre-existing agreements.

For whatever reason, I've found that remaining a contractor always gives you more power and more respect than signing on as FTE. It probably shouldn't be this way, but that's the way it is.

Good luck.

[Origisaurus]

I'm no Sage but I've got a keyboard.

And everyone is entitled to my opinion.   

Regardless of what you expected, it ain't happening.

Time for undo.  Let's go back to the way it was.

And start looking for another gig.  These guys are crooks. 

[HiredGunn]

That all sounds right.  The summer was great getting to bill 70+ working from home.  Just what I needed to payoff the hospital debt from last year.

CFO told someone else at lunch earlier in the week that he does not understand why rental DBA thru agency we picked up to shoulder some load is 100+ per hour thought we could get these people for 30/hr out of college.   Hmmmm seems to not understand the value we bring.  Entire company was going down, I kept them afloat, this is not a backend server its THE product our customers pay for we have no other revenue.  I told him make it hourly till we are over the big projects, then I want to put in 40-50 and manage the team primarily so someone else can work nights weeekends and carry the pager for 6  months like I have except I will spend the next 3 years with my daughter as she is coming up on 11 already and I do not want to chase the bucks and miss our time together.

HR gal said she understood but also said everyone-in-the-office would like to go hourly. 

Answer :I said sure, but have they changed fields from aviation to Network CNE to OOP to Oracle DBA to be in demand ? Have they taken and passed the certifications ?  Are they willing to go take any contract right now that they might have the skills for and hit the ground running and be ok with a sudden hard stop ?  Do they posses the skills to find another one right away ?  No they can just dream about contracting because they have not done these things.

She said maybe I have found work the last 5 years but do I think I can keep finding contracts for the rest of my life ?
Answer : Is your startup going to be an ongoing company that I can work at for the rest of my life ?   Let me know when you have that answer.

She said I need to take the weekend and think about what I want to do. 
Answer: I told now I do not I know what I want I just told you.

Funny how during conversion she mentioned salary 10k below what I had agreed to with VP who is out of town.  I was cool and said check with him.  He was out of town quickly but I never heard anything back from her.  So yesterday when I walked in there and told her guess what the first thing that popped out of her mouth was ?  She said oh yeah I checked and its all good with your number.  I had to push though. So if I go hourly and get this upgrade  pushed thru for the VP, I will see how they treat me after that and will move on if I have better.  But right now I think I need it in writing - whatever we agree to on Monday because they only come thru when I force them to.  Now the VP came thru on every single thing he said.  Never questioned one billing invoice never complained about working from home.

I want fulfill commitment to him but don't trust the rest of them.

[ronin]

I may be wrong, but you bring to mind someone who posts off and on across various sites.  Anyway, congrats on your accomplishments.  I did the Oracle DBA certs, too, and they are not that easy.

From what you have already posted, my guess is that you are operating at a much higher career level than most all the posters who will read your questions.  I think many 1099ers and w-2 S corp contractors have been inundated by off-shoring and corporate/lobbyist/Congressional supported visa tidal wave.  Add to that the tech slump and financial system woes.  But you seem to be functioning at a level where you can still call some shots.  That's great.

The HR person's remark about can you keep nailing down contracts the rest of your life:  She has a small point there.  But if she is selling her company's "job security", tell her to sell it some place else.  They don't sound like they will be in business this time next year.  A CFO that thinks complex DBA work can be done by recent grads at 30/hr clearly does not understand the value you are providing.  The managers seem like the type that will eventually drink the "desi/Jim Jones/Kool Aid" and end up wrecking their company.

These people at your company are taking advantage of you, even if unknowingly.  You are going to have to nail down some type of hourly arrangement until you can move on to a better job.  This can be your 1099, your S corp, an enforced agreement in your perm job that will limit hrs (good luck but it probably won't stick).  Let's face it.  Every OT hour you work free is just one less hour they have to pay someone else.  If they have allowed you to work the hours you said (as a perm), I don't think they are going to back off any through the rest of the year.  Neither would a coke addict turn down a free line.

Your company's main beef may be that allowing you an hourly arrangement makes it hard for them to justify not doing same for other perm.  Ok, and I hate to suggest this, but locate a halfway-reputable DBA contracting co. in your area, take the deal to them, give them their 20% cut for an hourly arrangement, and work it this way until you can move on.  That gives current employer "cover" with IRS and its other perms.

Is your CPA any good?  Nobody I know in I.T. contracting or private industry perm jobs is getting 1.5 time for O.T.--have never heard of that except for maybe perm gov workers.
 
Just a thought for the intermediate to long term-  Have you thought about nailing down a state or federal DBA job, then working some contracts on the side?  This would provide a stable base for you, with very limited overtime, or at least the on-call would be comp-timed back in a given pay period (usually two-weeks).  That's how it works in my agency (federal), and reading the federal worker web sites, seems to be the norm.  These government agencies are absolutely fanatical about time-keeping and "playing by the book" on employee hours, whereas private industry just plays fast and loose with same.  Once you get your security clearance, that adds a measure of job security (you do need clean criminal/drug/background/credit/references).  And you will not see h1bs, cause, guess what, they are not eligible for clearance or, for that matter, even eligible for any federal (or most state) civil service jobs.  You would need to discuss up-front what restrictions there might be on "outside" work, but I know some who are doing it.  Go to USAJOBS site.  This has been my approach, and it is working ok so far.  But I run a very lean life style and understand that you have parental and other financial responsibilities.

I am older than almost every one else still in I.T. and have been through many recessions.  We will get out of this one eventually.  And there will (I think) be some push back against outsourcing/globalism/open borders, etc.  Then your skills will blow past "marketable" all the way to "gold"

Obviously, only you can decide how to mix the superdba and superman roles.  Problem with the superman role is that, ultimately, we are all human, and the kind of hours you are working will eventually grind anyone down.  Probably to the detriment of your relationship with you child.  Maybe not 7-10 years from now, when she is on her own, but for the short/intermediate term, yes.

[The Gorn]

From what you have already posted, my guess is that you are operating at a much higher career level than most all the posters who will read your questions.  I think many 1099ers and w-2 S corp contractors have been inundated by off-shoring and corporate/lobbyist/Congressional supported visa tidal wave.  Add to that the tech slump and financial system woes.  But you seem to be functioning at a level where you can still call some shots.  That's great.

Probably, but he is worried about how to negotiate this situation, enough so to address other contractors on the topic. So IMO he's more like most of us, than operating at a stratospheric career level.

He's still selling his own effort, and that's where he is like "us." The supply/demand dynamics are simply much more in his favor than for most others. He's at a different point on the demand axis.

Although I do truly respect the hell out of where HiredGunn has clawed himself to career wise.

When the person starts selling projects and starts subcontracting his own hires on his projects, that is when they are not like anyone else on this board.

I do not think we have one current participating member who runs major projects and hires their own people.

I am older than almost every one else still in I.T. and have been through many recessions.  We will get out of this one eventually.  And there will (I think) be some push back against outsourcing/globalism/open borders, etc.  Then your skills will blow past "marketable" all the way to "gold".

I disagree... I personally think we have already witnessed about as much push back against outsourcing in IT as we will ever see in our lifetimes. Managers are now fairly jaded about outsourcing. But it is still reserved as a "best practice" to be considered when you don't like the available labor pool. The issue is that the internet and open borders opened up this new level of competition.

IT supply/demand might experience some reversion to a lucrative home market situation if national policy in the US and the voters pushed back very, very hard against globalism. It is happening some. But USians as a whole are too stupid and disorganized to keep a thought in mind like "the entire system is set on tearing down the middle class, we need to resist vigilantly and make appropriate sacrifices." In general this deterioration has happened by slow erosion and in general most people in the US buy the idea that economic life is ultra-hard in order to give us all a test of our character. In short, I doubt we will ever identify an appropriate way to push back. And IT will be the last to fall because it's so damned easy to offshore IT work.

Again, I think the only way to create a truly beneficial distinction for your services is to raise your game. Stop just selling your own time and effort, and start bundling your own services in a way that creates more value than when the team that you bring in is hired individually.

[HiredGunn]

Ronin,

You provided a good review of all angles and what to expect down the road.  That is the big question here, it spans business into the philosophical.  I was expecting some voices to say 1099 is dead go ahead and take the w-2 hourly+ nothing to fear there and be glad your getting it because jobs are tight.  I noticed dice is at 83k. No matter if its partial b.s. jobs it used to be 40k when things looked really bad a couple years back. This is also THE best time of year with kids back on school an managers back at their desks.

Still digesting all the info you provided. Comforting to think about government job as available to cover the bases as I grow older.  I have no convictions for crimes violent or drug related or any crimes of any kind.  I have old reckless driving convictions but my understanding is that the clearance is more about loyalty to the US and could you be leveraged by debt or embarrassing behavior to compromise your loyalty to the US.  No problem there and I have no friends outside the US and have not traveled there.  I no longer drink.

I had to ream out a returning from vacation younger perm who may have caused the failure that resulted in a 2nd 120 hour week.  I was in no mood to sugar coat things and told him I don't want to hear about his spin on the failure of his team that I had to cleanup and chief complaint in there was that I converted to employee and need to keep hours closer to 40. When I started new months ago I pulled him aside and explained we need to work together and it was like talking to a teenager as he explained he converted after 90 days and wants no part of overtime and his job is to keep his job not do any more than that.  So the point I am trying to make is they all think I am w-2 40 hour guy now so nobody need be the wiser if I get overtime thru year end.  But that is a nice plan 'B' as the agency I dumped would love to dip their cup back into my revenue stream.

Good distinction there between Superman and SuperDBA.  I crossed over from Novell and always felt I was masquerading as a Unix DBA so I work as Superman to counter that while the other DBA's are telling me - your already there dude.  Now the rental guy is great with virtual OS layer and hope to round out my sysadmin skills by working with him.  Baby Exadata concerns me because if you can really write poor performing SQL and plug them into this thing no problemo then the DBA role erodes quite a bit into datamodeler or sysadmin emphasis.

The Gorn,

That is the problem isn't it ?  Unless you can build a name and a brand for yourself it is very hard to scale up beyond one paycheck.  I discussed this with the gal who is digging her heels in and remaining contractor and she knows that is a tough hill to climb.  I have one friend I hired off this board and his solution is to simply work two paychecks.  Bravo.

This discussion is really energizing.  Thanks for taking the time to contribute.

[datagirl]

HG -

I seem to remember that you had a serious health issue awhile back.  Wouldn't working so many hours in so short a time have health repercussions?

If you have the chops to move on, I think it would be wise to do so.
Best wishes to you and your daughter.
-DG

[The Gorn]

That is the big question here, it spans business into the philosophical.  I was expecting some voices to say 1099 is dead go ahead and take the w-2 hourly+ nothing to fear there and be glad your getting it because jobs are tight.  I noticed dice is at 83k. ...

I absolutely agree - the decision to hang tough or to go FTE is a philosophic one. It comes down, in my view, to whether you believe that you can trust your "employer".

I haven't found one place in the last 10 years worth trusting beyond the current payment cycle.

And I absolutely hate that type of cowardly offered "advice" with a passion. It's completely wrong headed.

FTE is about as stable as contracting. You've busted your ass for years, and you are now supposed to go hat in hand and let some crappy employer of the moment with absolutely no commitment to your career pin a commodity player label on you?

I see the comments like "you should be glad you have a job" to be like the crabs in the bucket clawing the crab back who tries to escape.

If you can plausibly contract you should be doing it, already. 

"Plausibly" here means that there is a sufficient differential between the market salaries and what you can bill reliably per hour that it makes clear sense to contract rather than accept FTE offers.

Unless you can build a name and a brand for yourself it is very hard to scale up beyond one paycheck.  I discussed this with the gal who is digging her heels in and remaining contractor and she knows that is a tough hill to climb.  I have one friend I hired off this board and his solution is to simply work two paychecks.  Bravo.

You hired someone off this board? Hurray CCF! 

I was going to say that there are an infinite number of ways to monetize knowledge and skill. You contract now. You could start a boutique service firm as has been mentioned by me already.

Another angle is to drop the provision of service altogether and do something else with your knowledge.

Examples:

give seminars or training

teach

develop a product that solves a unique problem that is not getting solved by current tools

partner in a startup that uniquely leverages your knowledge, contacts and/or skills.

I'm not saying any of it is easy but that it is really "easy" to keep doing what you have been doing all along. The current income is a powerful reinforcement of your past/current  niche.

[HiredGunn]

HG -

I seem to remember that you had a serious health issue awhile back.  Wouldn't working so many hours in so short a time have health repercussions?

If you have the chops to move on, I think it would be wise to do so.
Best wishes to you and your daughter.
-DG

Yep, instead of the usual summers end flare of internal bleeding from something akin to Crohns I got diagnosed with just 5 years ago I ended up with a Sagital Sinus Thrombosis ( venus not arterial as in 'stroke' ) from it and was in the ICU, the 1 year anniversary of taking myself to the ICU was last monday.   I instructed them to look for meningitis.

"Cerebral sinus thrombosis has been reported as an uncommon complication of ulcerative colitis (UC), occurring in up to 7.5% of cases. It is suspected to be a consequence of genetic predisposition and the hypercoagulable state occurring during disease relapse. We report a case of a 23-year-old male patient with one-year history of UC. He presented to the Emergency Room with left-sided progressive hemiparesis, numbness, hemiparesthesia, and pain, which followed a recent exacerbation of UC. The patient died 3 days after admission and an autopsy revealed superior and inferior sagittal sinus and cortical vein thrombosis with associated cerebral edema, hemorrhagic infarction, and herniation. "

For me it was the UC + hypercoagulable state and my 'right' arm began to not function.  My platelet count was nearly 700.  I do regular bloodwork now to stay ahead of the game and I am currently half that at 350.  However this year the flare never came as I focused on constant hydration and limited outdoor time to cardio and no long yard projects in the heat.  I basically blasted the AC and worked as many hours from home indoors as I could.  If I ever do not feel right I simply restrict my diet to food you could only get 500 years ago and then I am fine.  This autoimmune disease is a 1st-world only problem.  I no longer drink soda, canned energy drinks nor alcohol. I just drink purifed water with minerals and electrolytes added back in.  This all started from three back to back antibiotic prescriptions from being impatient about being sick.

So back to the work/health balance.   I was amazed at my stamina in recent weeks.  Seems I can go for long periods without rest now because when I do sleep it is deep sleep because I take  5-HTP and I get something out of it.

With this job the big upgrade coming is going to be good experience and possibility to manage which I am already doing.  If I could cut my hours back at the start of the year and focus on my daughter it could work.  Monday we are going to find out what they are offering.  They have a notion of people signing up as employees forever apparently.  That is unlikely but if I work from home a lot and am here for my daughter and still working with cutting edge technology then I could see coasting here for a stretch. I wanted to see if folks thought I was expecting too much from the field / economy and should just take a good salary ( after they revise it tomorrow ), benefits and additional hourly + wfh + mgmt experience and stop whining.  So far the reaction seems to suggest not selling myself short because the market is better than this.

I noticed 2 kinds of stress, when I had to move production multi-terabytes of data in an emergency off disks  that were going to fail because they were already wiped out in the headers and only a single lone node was still running off an in-memory image I had to go down there and persuade people we were on borrowed time and Oracle confirmed it was zeroed out by a sysadmin and that we needed to prepare for failure.  This stress seemed manageable and I did not internalize the stress via the enteric nervous system into my gut.  However if my ex-wife drops by and sleeps on the sofa and begins arguing with me as I tuck our daughter in I have little control over that stress and I feel it immediately - I threw her out the last time.

I cannot take care of anyone or anything if I do not stay healthy.  Now I have a new neighbor who has a lonely dog every 4:00 am and the barking wakes me up. Going to have to sign complaints and fight with these people. Backing to open space it has been quiet for years now they show up and are wrecking my deep sleep. 3 doors down, loud dog.

[Origisaurus]

BTDT.

All free advice worth price charged.

HG, it seems you have three sources of stress -

• Ridiculous demands from your job.  You can't do that forever, as your body has already told you.  You need a nine-to-five schedule for your health and for your parenting.  And time to work on fitness.
• Misbehaving ex.  You need to minimize contact with her, and especially in your daughter's presence.  It is totally out of line for her to interfere with your visitation time (or custody, not clear which).  You should discuss this with your lawyer or the Friend of the Court.  They will tell you the same - avoid conflict by minimizing contact.
• Your laudable desire to be a parent to your daughter.  This is good and you should do what you can to optimize that.

As you noted, you must be alive and well in order to take care of your daughter.  That should be your first priority.

As to the job, it's clear that the suits don't appreciate your contribution and the woman who tried to scam you shows no respect for your contribution and a policy of operating their business at the expense of the employees.  If your contribution is critical, what would happen if you were unable to work long-term - for example like Yasser Arafat, who is in stable condition after dying in a Paris hospital?

It's likely that this business will go under at the first major setback.  Not a good bet for long-term employment.

Q.  What do you call the rats that leave the sinking ship?

A.  Survivors.

[HiredGunn]

Origisaurus,

All good points.  I am dealing much better with the UC as I am past the hot summer and never flareup in winter.  Important to not get cocky that has burned me in the past.  The startup is a bit odd, it is at least 15 years old.  It went public then eventually hit the pink sheets, redesigned its business and is growing again.  The fact that we got Oracle as a customer impresses me that they will hang around as they always have.  HR gal said 'well we would hate to see you leave - would we go out of business....I don't think so'.  Well they were nearly down for an entire week and that would have chased off a few already angry customers.  Performant queries against massive data is not their thing and they will need help there when I get done fighting fires.  Now the software guys, the Director understands what I bring to the party and so does the VP because people tell him but yes the CFO admitted he has no idea what I do and how good I do it - others need to return to this continent and tell him so.  Overall they have a bad history of not respecting DBA's hence the reason for the previous pair to leave.   Tomorrow if they work me into their schedule it will be basically what the VP said from his honeymoon trip  ( not my choice that he got interrupted over this ) that we will sit down Monday and make it fair and make it right.  He did last time and likely will this time.  It is up to them now - I have told them what I want.