A Modern Labor Force - Almost

I have started to run into some barriers that I only noticed in a cultural sense at the beginning of my time at EA. I suppose that as a contract employee, I should have expected to be regarded as "the other". However, despite people noticing that I do not have a permanent badge, or that my picture is not in the online phone directory, there hadn't been any real consequences.

Yesterday, however, I was not allowed to see an internal website due to my contract status, which inconvenienced me slightly (I hope slightly). Even at Northrup, (or I should probably say, especially at Northrop,) we had rules about what contractors could or couldn't do. It made sense to me at the time, because many of our contractors were engineering companies, and often times direct major competitors, like Lockheed, Boeing, or Raytheon.

In my case, however, I work for a staffing company. They do not actually sell anything. They have no engineering staff. My learning from EA is not in any way useful to my staffing firm.

So, from my perspective, it appears that EA trusts employees more than contractors, which in my case is merely a distinction of where the W2 comes from for tax purposes, and also the types of compensation given (benefits, overtime, etc.)

I know this is not unique to EA, and it tells me that our U.S. labor market is still not as free-wheeling and flexible as it should be. It seems reasonable to me that I should simply be able to sign a confidentiality agreement or a non-disclosure agreement, or whatever it is that employees sign that makes them trustworthy.

I have a feeling the problem lies in the bureaucracy being unable to distinguish between types of contractors. Since they do subcontract in some cases, subcontractor rules are being applied to me in a one-size-fits-all system.

Oh, well. I'll muddle through, as they say.