Mourning loss as a remote team
<i>Pete would ask to work more hours. He claimed he could use the money. He was a contractor remember</i><p>Amidst the loss here, this line stood out to me and brings to mind all the terrible ways contractors are taken advantage of, or at least, treated and compensated vastly different than their "staff"/"full-time" peers who are often doing <i>the exact same work</i>. For fun, google the phrase "permatemp".<p>E.g. I had a past job as a middle manager where my team interfaced heavily with a group of contractor developers overseas.  When the time came to demo new features and place superlatives upon the various teams, I noticed my leadership cadre said nothing about the contractors and did not acknowledge any of the work they had done.<p>I spoke up about it when the floor was given for anyone else to give kudos where they desired, and mentioned the overseas team and thanked their team lead for working with me on delivering. He spoke up and expressed his gratitude in kind.<p>Apparently, this got my CTO into "trouble" with "legal" because I guess merely acknowledging contractors was some kind of a "problem". As a result, my boss got in trouble. As a result, I got written up. I was out of that company within six months after relationship with my boss and CTO deteriorated immediately after I opened my darn mouth.<p>For expressing gratitude.<p>To contractors.