ChaCha Cuts Pay Rate In Half, Prepares For Implosion

Bay_Wolf · Post by **Bay_Wolf** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 12:37 pm

I actually work for ChaCha and am pretty upset about the announcement but the reason I'm posting this is to see if you think it's fair or not.

http://digg.com/tech_news/ChaCha_Cuts_P ... _Implosion

Regards,
Bay_wolf.

EDIT: Please digg this!

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:03 pm

Why would anyone use this? Google has never failed me before...

wallydawg · Post by **wallydawg** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:18 pm

Honestly I didn't think anyone used this site for it's proper use. Only time I've ever heard it mentioned was when people raided the site.

Bay_Wolf · Post by **Bay_Wolf** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:23 pm

I don't see why anyone would use it either but they do. Probably for the mobile messaging but we get a lot of prank messages. Anyway back on the subject: do you think it's fair they are cutting their guides pay in half?

Regards,
Bay_wolf.

Rekarp · Post by **Rekarp** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:30 pm

Bay_Wolf wrote:I don't see why anyone would use it either but they do. Probably for the mobile messaging but we get a lot of prank messages. Anyway back on the subject: do you think it's fair they are cutting their guides pay in half?

Regards,
Bay_wolf.

Fair?

/conservative mode on

Its a private buisness in a free market. They can do as they please. If you don't like it find a new job.

/conservative mode off

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:35 pm

I'm not sure if it was that particular site, but my friend would get on and start talking to the searchers. He got a couple of them that would carry on a pretty good conversation.
I personally don't see the point. I use wikipedia for general knowledge stuff and google if I need something specific. If I ask someone else to look, it'll probably take at least as long as for them to find it as it would for you. And you know what you're looking for, and probably find something else interesting, too.

Post by **Triton** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:38 pm

Fair?

/conservative mode on

Its a private buisness in a free market. They can do as they please. If you don't like it find a new job.

/conservative mode off

well how would you like it if somebody commissioned a snes portable from you and when its done they say "well i'm only going to give you 300 instead of 600, have a nice day!"? its the same difference. an employer shouldnt be able to just randomly cut wages in half, i cant imagine they are making all that much to begin with anyway.

grossaffe · Post by **grossaffe** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:40 pm

Triton wrote:
Fair?

/conservative mode on

Its a private buisness in a free market. They can do as they please. If you don't like it find a new job.

/conservative mode off
well how would you like it if somebody commissioned a snes portable from you and when its done they say "well i'm only going to give you 300 instead of 600, have a nice day!"? its the same difference. an employer shouldnt be able to just randomly cut wages in half, i cant imagine they are making all that much to begin with anyway.

well your analogy doesn't exactly fit since in the analogy the sale is being retroactively reduced in price. Cutting wages only affects the future.

Rekarp · Post by **Rekarp** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:41 pm

Triton wrote:
Fair?

/conservative mode on

Its a private buisness in a free market. They can do as they please. If you don't like it find a new job.

/conservative mode off
well how would you like it if somebody commissioned a snes portable from you and when its done they say "well i'm only going to give you 300 instead of 600, have a nice day!"? its the same difference. an employer shouldnt be able to just randomly cut wages in half, i cant imagine they are making all that much to begin with anyway.

Actually I had that happen to me and I told the guy to copulate off and I sold it 24 hours later on Atari Age.

Bay_Wolf · Post by **Bay_Wolf** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 2:11 pm

Well just to add some fuel to the fire a member at the ChaCha forums had this to say about the legality of it:

Originally Posted by Jeremyo2675 -
Just got off the phone with a business lawyer, no they did NOT cover there backside on this. Sent him a PDF of the agreement. There are SEVERAL places they are at the employee/contractor line. This particular one is where they try to define us as contractors "(c) you control the time, the date, the order, sequence, details, manner and means of performing all Services, subject to any and all applicable ChaCha policies, procedures and guidelines;" ChaCha's "guidelines" however CANNOT take control over time, date, order, sequence, details, manner and/or means or performing services, the moment they do we cease to be contractor's and become employees. It doesn't matter what the contract states on this issue, any portion of said contract that tries to state otherwise is legally invalid. The legal grounds for claiming workers are contractors rather than employees REQUIRES this freedom. By tying our PAY on FUTURE jobs rather than simply the availability of future jobs to the speed at which we perform CURRENT jobs, they effectively remove this freedom and violate the contract, at which point we become employees in the eyes of the law. That is the advice my business attorney gave me (I own a business, so I simply asked the Attorney who deals with my business matters about this). IT DOES NOT MATTER that the contract states "subject to any and all applicable ChaCha policies, procedures and guidelines" because we are dealing with the legal classification of a worker, which is governed by laws regardless of what contract an Individual signed. Laws created to prevent companies from doing exactly what ChaCha is attempting, claiming workers as subcontractors to the IRS and then controlling the work in a manner not in keeping with that status. You can find the IRS guidelines on subcontractor vs Employee on there website, It is educational to say the least. If your attorney stated otherwise he may need to re-read the contract. Mine already offered to take the case if this goes live should I wish to pursue it. I would simply walk away of course as I have no real desire to see ChaCha go under, which would happen should any class action be successful. In short ChaCha is violating guides status as Independent Contractors by attempting to link past job performance to future job pay. Each question is a separate singular job, and performance can legally, as a contractor, only affect pay on THAT JOB, except that ChaCha CAN terminate the contract for poor performance. They CANNOT base pay on Job #3 on performance on Job #1 because each one is separate from the other. It would be like you stating you were only going to pay 1/2 the contract price for a garage painting because the contractor didn't meet speed requirement X when he painted your house. If ChaCha wants to change entirely how much they pay per query across the board, thats one thing. Performance based pay is not valid for subcontracting when it involves penalties that take away the freedoms required to be legally classified as a contractor in the first place regardless of who signed what or what is claimed in the "contract". Period.

Regards,
Bay_wolf.

mothatrucka · Post by **mothatrucka** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 2:38 pm

*shrug* Of course it isn't fair if you're involved. It never is. Is it fair that after a year and a half of working this job, I get my salary docked, lose my benefits, and somehow have to pay for my utilities out of this reduced pay? No, I didn't think so, but the fact is there's no money to keep paying me. It' a fact, elsewhere, too. Money's a problem, and some people are getting screwed.

Valium · Post by **Valium** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:25 pm

I like chacha, they helped me make the perfect team in pokemon silver.

Post by **CronoTriggerfan** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:55 pm

The free market sets wages via supply and demand, as rekarp said, that's capitalism. Don't like it? Move to China.

Besides, ChaCha's that thing where you text people answers to questions, right? That's free money, quit your whining.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:17 pm

Harshboy wrote:Why would anyone use this? Google has never failed me before...

To answer that question really quick, in a story, so this might take a minute. A friend of mine works at a fab shop, and they wanted all metric tape measures. They spent about a year looking, they even had a few of the guys that lived in Canada check Home Depot there. No luck. He called me up a week or so ago, and asked me to look. I spent about 2 hours checking on google, and found them.

So to summerize there is google, but most people don't know how to use it properly. You can't always put in the info and there's your answer, you have to refine what you ask to get the right answer. And I guess ChaCha is trying to do that.

On the topic, I'd like to say that I do feel that they just screwed a lot of people. Trying to maintain a 95+% quality is really tough no matter the situation. I do feel for the company that they want to clear themselves of the average lazy larry's but really this is kind of an extreme way to go about it.

It sucks, but hey that's life. You always have the choice to move on to something better.