worldwithpyramids
Member
The “real journalism” phase of gaming media needs to end. These idiots think they‘re exposing watergate and it’s always just a few former workers who have common work related grievances.
I got enough problems with my own job to give half a fuck about what goes on at Nintendo. That's for people who post on the pink forum to be concerned about.Nintendo is a religion confirmed and some of its fans are integrists blind to reality. I am not one of those fans. Fuck Nintendo for what it does to its fans and employers.
Temp workers are common in every industry.
A bunch of failures acting like they know anything about running a company.
When IGN publishes an article (any article, but especially one like this), the first question to ask yourself is:
What agenda are they trying to further with this one?
Yeah no.As have I.
My big break in the industry was the small no name company I worked for being brought by a big name company. I updated my resume to say that I worked for big name company immediately and sent it out. Which after the company I worked for was brought out was actually true.
I then very quickly got a job at a bigger name company based on the fact that my current employee was a big name. Technically I gamed the system, but I now had two big names on my resume and the rest is history. On paper I'm "Big talent" but more "Fake it till you make it".
Yeah no.
I’d love see it too, but how do you unionize something that’s not permanent. Just don’t do temp work? And something that’s international?I’d love to see temp worked unionized.
I mean that is the best way to deal with poor working conditions, collective bargaining is important.
Hunger strike.I’d love see it too, but how do you unionize something that’s not permanent. Just don’t do temp work? And something that’s international?
"Here I am — transgender, bi, and on top of that, Mexican…I'm sitting there with a straight white woman and a straight white man discussing the Pride parade, and yet I was the only one there who was qualified to be in it," she says."
I don't understand what this means. Does she think that only people who are in the parade can talk about it? do you have to work in the film industry to discuss movies? do you have to create hot dogs to judge them?"Here I am — transgender, bi, and on top of that, Mexican…I'm sitting there with a straight white woman and a straight white man discussing the Pride parade, and yet I was the only one there who was qualified to be in it," she says."
That's not true. Contractors usually come through in one of two ways. They either come in as independent contractors on a 1099 or they come in via a consulting company.They don't agree to be temporary, they have no other choice if people aren't employing them permanently. The decision is no job or a temp job.
This is a practice done by people in power for the sole purpose of off loading risk onto someone else and generate more money by being flexible, again at the cost of others people security.
I’d love see it too, but how do you unionize something that’s not permanent. Just don’t do temp work? And something that’s international?
Freelance work =/= temp work.That's not true. Contractors usually come through in one of two ways. They either come in as independent contractors on a 1099 or they come in via a consulting company.
If they come in via 1099 that's a choice they made and they are legally responsible for all of the expenses related to their income, including payroll taxes and health insurance. It's literally the definition of 1099 status. That's why independent contractors charge $60 to $100+ per hour for their services in IT-related fields. These are always highly skilled people who know their worth and choose to work this way. They could get full time salary work if they want it. They agree to a term when we sign the contract. They literally agree to be temporary.
If they come in through a consulting company then they are also almost always full-time employees, but they are employed by the consulting company and not by me. They get their benefits and perks from the consulting company, not mine. I use third party contractors for break/fix and QA because there are times when I need extra capacity for a project. Then at the end of the project their employer assigns them to work somewhere else. If they aren't good at the job their employer assigns them somewhere else. They always know this is a possibility. There's never an assumption that these folks are contract to hire and non-compete agreements keep me from hiring them even if I want to.
In the case the video is talking about, the source worked for a consulting company that provided customer support services to Nintendo. It's very common to outsource help desk or support work to other companies. They're typically lower skill entry level jobs with high turnover and it's very disruptive to company operations to manage a revolving door of people trying to climb the career ladder by hopping jobs every 6 months. So while these folks work at Nintendo, they never work for Nintendo.
If a customer service help desk job at a company Nintendo outsources to is all someone can get that's not a forced temporary contract labor situation. It's still a job like any other job. They won't get the same perks as Nintendo employees because they don't work for Nintendo. If you keep that job for 10 years hoping that Nintendo senpai will notice you and hire you into the company to do the job they're outsourcing you're probably just fooling yourself.
I have seen companies exclude consultants from company events. But these folks are not and never were employees of Nintendo. They should be going to the outsourcing company Christmas party, which probably doesn't have one. It can feel hurtful to not get invited to the Nintendo Christmas party or the summer picnic. It sucks. I include contractors when I'm allowed, so team lunches and birthday cakes and stuff like that. But there are some legal restrictions to how companies can interact with non-employees in regard to company functions because it gives the impression that they work for the company, so the law requires that separation. Thats why these relationships are based on contracts and not empathy.
Both means 0 goodiesFreelance work =/= temp work.
Like a lot of the discontent-employer stories, it's based on a few employees and not the whole company.
This apparently, is the main cause for this video? they said they "spoke" to many others, but how many or who?
If I say this "I heard it through the grapevine" approach makes the entire thing pointless. It's hearsay, for all we know they spoke to 3 guys at the same call center and made all these assumptions from that. (the call-center person also said she loved working at Nintendo.)
How do you know jenn was the voice of anyone else?Gotta practice proper possessive placement folks. No such thing as "Nintendo Fun" much less any facade to it.
That's not how this works. If someone who has been with the company for a DECADE comes out and says "Yeah this environment isn't great" the first response shouldn't be "Oh my god it's just one person and like they're talking to IGN so we should dismiss it anyway!" More, why is the first instinct to come down on the side of the multinational company here?
Again. Not how this works. People speaking to a reporter on background usually do so because they DON'T want to be identified. "Jenn" speaks on the record because they aren't with the company anymore; those that are, you really expect them to come out and say "I'm X and I work in Y Dept. and this is why NINTENDO sucks."
Literally how journalisming is done.
. . .honestly this all is some weak "Herp Derp Vidya Game Journalism" content. The video, while having an obvious position on the issue, was quite fair in their arguments: they literally referenced numerous people who said they enjoyed working at NINTENDO (proper) and that most people knew a NINTENDO lifer (i.e. there must be SOMETHING keeping people at the company) and that once in people don't leave. They brought in Reggie to offer the corporate side take on things including getting him on the record as pushing back AGAINST the allegations of a divide between contract and permanent employee and finally brought in the former permanent public-facing hosts to offer their mixed take on their experience and departure. All of this to counterbalance the clearly burnt-out Jenn as the voice of those who weren't willing to speak on the record.
This video report isn't going to win a Pulitzer, but in terms of "fair and balanced" it is about as good as one can expect. Handwringing that they aren't going to do what no other journalistic body would do is silly.
Most companies, likely Nintendo included, don’t allow the contractors to list themselves as Nintendo employees on a resume. They can list the name of temp agency and say they were contracted at Nintendo but if they claim to have been a Nintendo employee Nintendo will deny they ever were in any employment check.This is true.
However having Nintendo on your resume is a pretty good plus that you can use to get a job under better conditions in the local area. If the person bothers to look and cares more about career progression than the cred of working for Nintendo.
Working is trash doesn't matter the place, we all should be rich as f and enjoy strip clubs, videogames and cocaine.
Or else this is just slander from unprofessional outlets. Which this is.
The clickbait title alone would make people think Nintendo is murdering temp. employees. This is no different than the thousands of companies using temp employees.What was the slanderous statement that was made in the video? And no, a former employee talking about their bad experience at the end of their tenure or what they perceive as a lack of opportunity/appreciation for contract staff is not slanderous.
Nah. Or at least by far not "typically".Contract work does suck. You are typically treated like a second class citizen. This applies in basically all employers and industries. You are treated that way because you are seen as an expendable temporary workforce. The primary benefit of doing contract work is padding your resume with specific kinds of skills and experience that will make obtaining a permanent position in the future easier.
IGN said there are problems with the work culture at Nintendo, but to prove that, you need to be able to make a claim that can be recognized as a pattern across the workplace.What was the slanderous statement that was made in the video? And no, a former employee talking about their bad experience at the end of their tenure or what they perceive as a lack of opportunity/appreciation for contract staff is not slanderous.
I work for Honda and it's the same mindset. Our Paint manager's assistant came to America 3 years ago and was shocked that we get Saturdays and Sundays off.It's a japanese company
People work 20h per day and they also go to work on weekends just because
Japanese work culture is to blame, not specifically Nintendo
I worked at a japanese bank here in Brazil, and lots of japanese employees went to work on weekends (dressed with suits, mind you) because that's how they roll in Japan
ExactlyI work for Honda and it's the same mindset. Our Paint manager's assistant came to America 3 years ago and was shocked that we get Saturdays and Sundays off.
IGN said there are problems with the work culture at Nintendo, but to prove that -
The audacity of complaining about perks when there is people in the world living in abject slavery.
Well, the thing is these people can easily work for other company. I don't see how someone can chose to stay for 10 years working on a position that is readily available in many other places.There is nothing to "prove." This is a subjective statement about the work environment for contract workers at NOA. There is nothing slanderous about interviewing a former employee about their experience, speaking to other employees on background and making an editorial statement couched in what you've learned, as this author has done.
This is Journalisming 101 and is how larger, endemic issues within a company start coming to light. This idea that the journalist needed to interview more than half of contractors working for NOA to come to some sort of authoritative conclusion is laughable. The real issue would be if this video/story ONLY took this single group at their word and didn't offer an opposite take. . .which they did.
The audacity of using the internet when their are people in the world without electricity!
It's not slander to speak to a few people and make a company-wide characterization? if I go and interview one person at McDonald's, do you think that's enough to claim McDonald's has problems?There is nothing to "prove." This is a subjective statement about the work environment for contract workers at NOA. There is nothing slanderous about interviewing a former employee about their experience, speaking to other employees on background and making an editorial statement couched in what you've learned, as this author has done.
This is Journalisming 101 and is how larger, endemic issues within a company start coming to light. This idea that the journalist needed to interview more than half of contractors working for NOA to come to some sort of authoritative conclusion is laughable. The real issue would be if this video/story ONLY took this single group at their word and didn't offer an opposite take. . .which they did.
The audacity of using the internet when their are people in the world without electricity!
Well, the thing is these people can easily work for other company. I don't see how someone can chose to stay for 10 years working on a position that is readily available in many other places.
So, if you want to compare it would be like complaining about getting slow internet when they could walk 50 meters and get a better signal. Not only decide no to walk those 50 meters but to expect to outrage the public so they pressure the Internet company so they can have better signal.
Sorry, it's difficult for me to feel empathy for people complaining about their jobs when they could find another one easily. As long as they stay, the company won't change. Why do consumers have to do anything about it? It's just a fake concern expectation anyway because the fact that we are using electronic devices most likely is proof that we don't give a shit about working conditions. Sad? Yes. True? Also yes.
Nah. Or at least by far not "typically".
I've been a freelancer in IT (software development, to be vague) doing contract work for over a decade now. What that grants me (off the top of my head) is:
- Practically free choice of when I work (as long as the results fit)
- Practically free choice of who I work with (way more requests than I could ever work off)
- No need to stick around shitty jobs as there is more work than there are workers
- I say when I go on holiday, etc. and don't need to ask for permission (although I still discuss it, of course, cause I'm not a dick)
- Working almost entirely from home
- Higher payment than someone doing the same job with a permanent position at the company (since they don't need to pay me any benefits), which I can use (minus taxes, etc.) as I see fit instead of getting some benefits I'll never use anyway
- Much broader skillset aquired over the years than if I had hung around the same position doing the same thing for years
I did actually start out at a permanent position, but quit that after two years cause I saw all the downsides of it (just apply the opposite of the above).
Now, granted, that will only be true if what you are doing is something that has too much or just about enough work available for the "recruitment pool".
But that's a choice everyone has to make when deciding what career path they want to pursue.
Either way, I'd say that most contractors I have seen (so by far not only software dev) work in an area with more work than there are workers.
I can imagine a different situation if it is the other way around, but in that case, things will suck no matter if you are a contractor or not. Being easily replaceable is never a strong position.
Well the whole contractors being treated like second class citizens is pretty standard practice for the industry. Most QA/support roles are filled by contractors working for a temp agency and are not recognized as actual employees and are pretty much treated like expendable dirt and looked down upon by the full time employees.