Reply to: Doomed....Google lays off contractors, founder says contractors expenses "really high

[Churchill]

Oooh. Someone's feeling grumpy at 3.20 in the morning.

Don't worry Nick.

At 3.25 am you'll probably be feeling Happy instead.

Bashful says "Thank F**k!" he's leaving me alone!

[Purple Dalek]

Oooh. Someone's feeling grumpy at 3.20 in the morning.

Don't worry Nick.

At 3.25 am you'll probably be feeling Happy instead.

A pot noodle doesn't take that long, well not on the adverts anyway.

[Board Game Geek]

NickFitz posted
Luckily for the imbecilic amateur capitalists on here

Oooh. Someone's feeling grumpy at 3.20 in the morning.

Don't worry Nick.

At 3.25 am you'll probably be feeling Happy instead.

[NickFitz]

This makes it perfect daily mail material for CUK then

The Daily Mail at least has the virtue of not being owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Luckily for the imbecilic amateur capitalists on here, it doesn't let that fact stand in the way of conflating a few unrelated details into a ludicrous fabrication and presenting it as "news".

[AtW]

Although the Times story implies that, it's not actually what has been said.

This makes it perfect daily mail material for CUK then

[NickFitz]

The only suprising thing in their announcement is that they plan to cut so many (all contractors?) in one go so early - their staff costs are very high, I'd imagine permies are actually very very expensive but cutting them is more difficult and puts them into bad light, so better not to renew 10k contractors. That's the kind of typical thing you'd expect from Microsoft, don't do evil my ...

Although the Times story implies that, it's not actually what has been said.

The Times story picks up on something Sergey Brin said in mid-October. He simply mentioned that they had about 10,000 contractors, and that they had for some time been planning to reduce the expense involved in using contractors - other sources say that this has been a matter of discussion within Google management for about six months.

At no point has anybody said that 10,000 contractors would be laid off. Brin himself said that they would be seeking to cut costs by converting contractors to permies, and through "vendor management", which basically means shaving agency margins and, presumably, lowering contractors' rates.

Although they may reduce the number of contractors, it isn't the apocalyptic "ten thousand heads must roll" scenario that The Times tries to present - in fact nobody at Google has even talked about reducing total headcount at all. The original comment was solely about reducing the expense associated with utilising contractors.

[Board Game Geek]

I don't know if anyone has said it before, but are your top-coder squirrels known as SQLs ?

[AtW]

You're a tough boss Alex :-)

I don't think there many people in this country who would spend as much on wallnuts for squirrels as I do - skwerrls have to work hard to justify the spending

[Board Game Geek]

You're a tough boss Alex :-)

[AtW]

Let me guess...you pay them peanuts ?

Reported to the RSPCA...

Wallnuts actually - much more expensive so only best squirrels that work well (like one on photo) get them, the rest indeed get peanuts in a shell

[Board Game Geek]

... and hire 12 squirrels instead

Let me guess...you pay them peanuts ?

Reported to the RSPCA...

[AtW]

They should look at AtW's business model, they could reduce their staff overheads by 29,999!

... and hire 12 squirrels instead.

[PAH]

I can't imagine how many projects google must have in the backroom to need 30,000 people, 99% of them will never see the light of day.

They should look at AtW's business model, they could reduce their staff overheads by 29,999!

Sounds like they take on people just so their competitors can't, then give them some poncy project to keep them occupied, all the while knowing it's pointless. The only thing google makes money from is adverts.

I've added them to my blacklist, along with other crap companies like IBM and M$. Would rather be a bin man than work for any of them.

[d000hg]

Indeed, money is supposed to be one thing Google are good at... but then they are basically trying to get the absolute top guys out of university like MS used to. Same principle as Spolsky's thinking that a top guy can be 10-20X more productive than someone good I guess.

[Liability]

They shift them from one job to another in order to avoid Microsoft's problem of having those contractors asking for permanent benefits, so eliminating those could be easy because if someone spends 3-4 months on one job and moves to another is not going to be working on something super strategic - those people who did were surely offered plenty of money to become permie and it would have been hard to resist given share price increases of the past.

Well the good ones they just keep and bench at home - I know as have a previous colleague who has been with them for 4 years now. For what he does he is VERY well paid at just near 900 a day which outside of Google would be 500 a day. When there arent projects they keep them at home and the higher up you are the more they throw money at you if you dont want to go perm.