Re: RFC Series Editor (RSE) Statement of Work

[Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>]

On 7/27/2019 3:38 PM, Livingood, Jason wrote:
> On 7/25/19, 3:52 PM, "ietf on behalf of John Wroclawski" <[e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]> wrote:
>>     The basic gestalt of a search committee process is to find the best person in the world for a job, whether or not that person would have otherwise applied, or even whether they had any idea beforehand that the job existed and they’d be good at it.
>>     The basic mindset of an RFP process is to pick the best person that applies.
>>     I think the IETF wants option one.
>      
> [JL] If this is the case, I wonder if it much matters to the community whether the role is an employee (full or part time) or a contractor (full or part time)? Or whether that might be left open-ended to depend upon the particulars of the country in which someone resides or their other commitments & preferences. IIRC, Sean Turner raised this question perhaps six months ago - which of course predated the current situation (so views may have changed).
>
> Jason
>      
>

Hi Jason -

Let me run a few terms past you (we can quibble about each, but this 
seems to be the general  set I've seen - there are variations within each):

Employee, contract employee, employee with a contract, 
contractor/consultant.

* Employee - generally at will employment, most positions within a 
company, can be told what to do, when to do it and how to do it 
generally by anyone above them in the food chain.  Generally only has a 
single employer (at least for salaried employees).

* Contract employee - an employee of an organization that is contracted 
by a second organization for work.  AKA Body shop contractor (but there 
are other variations on this for more senior folk - something like 
outside counsel arrangements with law firms).

* Employee with a contract - an employee, but with a contract that 
spells out conditions and modifications to the general labor practices 
of the company, may include bonus, and exceptional compensation items 
(e.g. golden parachutes); usually the way a number of the C staff in 
larger companies are hired.  Employment is generally not at will, but 
there are mechanisms for termination that can be exercised by each 
party.  Usual manager is either CEO or the board, or rarely another C staff.

* Contractor/consultant.  Has a contract for services to a given 
company, may do work for multiple entities.  May be tasked by the 
company (generally a specific contract POC), *_but not told when or how 
to do it_*.    May be an individual or a company.   Includes both common 
services contractors (e.g. IT) and Subject matter expert consultants.  
Contracts may be very specific in deliverables, or much more open 
ended.  May be duration or task based.

The main problem I see with trying to do this role as an "employee",  is 
that the LLC doesn't have a deep enough organization to handle an 
employee as senior and independent as the role needs to be.   It's 
possible that the "employee with a contract" model might work, but given 
our experience with Heather and the fact that we were only utilizing  
about 50% or so of her time, it might be difficult to cover the 
additional 50% of an full time employee and keep them fully engaged and 
interested year after year.

SME Consultant with a lot more constraints on who gets to give the RSE 
direction than we currently have seems to  me to be a better choice than 
either of the employee variations.

As I was writing the above, something struck me.   Heather (and Jon, Bob 
and Joyce before her) is as senior and competent in her field as the 
various lawyers we've engaged to deal with the LLC, Trust etc over the 
years are in theirs.  We wouldn't think it would be a good idea to 
micromanage the lawyers (and I'm sure they wouldn't tolerate it).  I'm 
not quite sure why we thought it was a good idea to provide the level of 
"oversight" and management to such a senior level position, and that 
appears to have been part of the problem.

Later, Mike