Bring your own

[BOB BRODY]

Who supplies the tools isn't much of a test for independent contractor
status. A messenger, for instance, whose sole activity is picking up
and delivering packages and provides his/her own car to do so remains an
employee of the company. Even if I contract with him as an independent
contractor, that contract could be invalid and I might still be
subjected to employee taxes, benefits, worker's comp, etc. In terms of
computers et al., whose printer and consumable parts, paper, telephone,
FAX (or Xerox machines), network, floppies, and even electricity is one
using? Who has access to the computer? (As an employer I retain access
rights to inspect the contents of someone's computer.) Under whose
auspices is one working, her own or mine, regardless of who supplied the
tools? Were you required to bring your own tools or offered the option
to do so? Lots of considerations around one's own tools can go into
determining IC status yay or nay.

Bringing one's own computer and/or software, while maybe okay at some
places, is not necessarily a good thing from an employer's standpoint,
be they a large company or a small office. There are many factors (not
the least of which is if the computer is improperly seated, falls over
and breaks someone's foot, be it the owner of the computer's or a
passerby's foot, who's liable?; or if a cable trips somebody up, or is
frayed and electrocutes a late night cleaning person, or if a peripheral
we use fries something in your computer, who's responsible? --
basically, the company and is a reason to think twice about alien
equipment), systems just aren't cross-compatible enough as yet to
encourage a mix (if not mishmosh) of setups in specific departments
(such as word processing, legal, and so forth). Templates, macros,
style sheets, proprietary sub programs and utilities are written to
specs and may or may not work seamlessly on other setups (you couldn't
run our Word macros, nor a Word style sheet, in Word Perfect, for
instance, and since we don't support Word Perfect, there's no one in MIS
to help you if you can't duplicate the dozens of complex macros we use.
Sub programs that are programmed for Word's file format will certainly
not process a WP document, etc. Word hotlinks with company spreadsheets
may not link properly with other word processors, etc.) MIS is trained
to quickly and efficiently solve computing problems as well as stock
spare parts for computers, printers, peripherals that 'we' use but if
they don't know your computer, a breakdown could result in expensive
down time. And then what if you simply don't have the funds at the time
to replace a monitor, hard disk, etc.?

I think a competent computer operator should be flexible enough to adopt
what the company uses, though suggestions for improving should certainly
be encouraged. Their dexterity is more appealing than a single-
mindedness for any one program or system (as well as platform).
IMHO.