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Some backstory:

December 2019 I started as a full-time employee at a software development company. They outsourced me for a German project.

There were many red flags and I had to leave.

I continued working as a contractor for the German client. This was kind of complicated to pull off since there were legal issues and whatnot, but eventually it worked. The problem was that there was quite a bit of drama which "exhausted" both me and the client.

Recently, I had some ideas for the project we're working on and I went to the office to try them out, sadly, I found out that my laptop went bust.

I found a replacement, but it's really bad. I obviously need a new one to continue working efficiently. We're using a very heavy to compile language and you need an above average machine to be efficient.

Thing is, I'm not earning too much and I'm paying rent for my office out of my own pocket. I really like the project and especially the client, but conditions-wise, this isn't really the best workplace setup.

Now I would like to ask for a budget for a new laptop, but I don't know how. Given that we were in a very tense situation until very recently, it's kind of hard to ask for money.

How do I ask for a budget without appearing greedy? I'm also concerned that this "my laptop went bust" thing may seem staged.

Update: Thank you all for your answers! As much as I don't want to, I'll pay from my own pocket and not raise this issue with the client. It's entirely my fault that I've gotten into the position I'm now, where I have all the downsides of full-time employment and zero upsides. I'll try and learn from my mistake.

user259590
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  • @gnat It's an entirely different approach as a contractor – Old_Lamplighter Feb 10 '20 at 12:00
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    @RuiFRibeiro It wouldn't have happened if the situation weren't as tense. I wasn't looking for a contracting job, things just happened. I realize I put myself into kind of a mess, but I guess that's life sometimes. – user259590 Feb 10 '20 at 12:26
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    @gnat No, I'm not an employee anymore but a contractor. – user259590 Feb 10 '20 at 12:26
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    Were you ever really an employee of the first place if they never paid you? – Carduus Feb 10 '20 at 14:29
  • This is really long and contains a lot of details that don't seem relevant. On most stackexchange sites, questions are supposed to be of interest to other people, not just the person asking the question. Please edit the question to eliminate all the irrelevant and distracting details. –  Feb 10 '20 at 20:39
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    Ask them if they have any laptops they can give you while you work on the project. – Koray Tugay Feb 11 '20 at 01:11
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    "As a contractor, how do I ask my employer" - when you are a contractor, you are your own employer. – Martin Schröder Feb 11 '20 at 06:26
  • Also, Swedish tax is rather high, so if you return home to a lower tax country, you will save money. – Mawg says reinstate Monica Feb 11 '20 at 06:40
  • @Carduus They eventually paid my salary. (2 months late). You guys are right that I messed up on the negotiation part. The real situation is a bit more complicated since I still have an intermediary (an agent, which I'm in a bad relationship with). I'll try and settle this situation in the future when I've done more work. – user259590 Feb 11 '20 at 10:47
  • How much company stuff is there on the laptop (e.g. company programs, proprietary data, etc)? – Acccumulation Feb 12 '20 at 00:43
  • As a contractor you don't have an employer. You have a client. – user207421 Feb 12 '20 at 23:45

5 Answers5

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@Tymoteusz Paul's answer is good and I agree with him. I'll try to offer a different perspective, though.

As a general rule of thumb, if you're a contractor, you need to supply your own tools (i.e. both hardware and software) to work. You're not your client's employee. You're providing them with a service for an agreed amount of money. If you hire someone to fix your plumbing at home, they need to bring their own tools.

There are companies that will provide equipment to contractors. Mainly for simplicity and security reasons. This is not always the case, though.

Contracting is a different mindset and it has pros and cons, of course. One of the benefits is that you can choose your rate (needless to say, your client may refuse to pay what you ask for and find someone else) and who you want to work with. Rates for contractors are normally significantly higher than for full-time employees, to compensate for situations like this. Similarly, you can have multiple clients. Maybe you can get another client to make some more money? Maybe you can get a better client instead of the current one? These are questions only you can answer.

As a contractor, how do I ask my employer for a new laptop?

It definitely depends on legislations and the agreement you have with your client, but if this hasn't been discussed, you can ask if they're willing to provide you with a working laptop to do the work for their company. You'll need to explain why that would be beneficial for both your client and you. In my humble opinion, saying "because mine went bust" is unprofessional and won't be taken positively, especially since you mentioned the relationship is tense at the moment. Hence, I don't recommend raising this with your client at this stage.

Your best bet is probably to try to get a second-hand laptop that can do the job. Keep in mind that as a contractor, and again, depending on your location and its legislations, your laptop could be tax-deductible.

Charmander
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    It should be added that as a contractor your bills should be substantially higher than the salary of an employee to compensate you for this. And the computer would be tax deductible. – gnasher729 Feb 10 '20 at 09:50
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    True, @gnasher729. I'll add it to my answer. – Charmander Feb 10 '20 at 10:04
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    @gnasher729 5x times higher typically... – Rui F Ribeiro Feb 10 '20 at 11:44
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    @Charmander um... the analogy breaks when you consider the facts that 1)A pipe wrench will never contain information that could be damaging to the home-owner. 2)A pipe wrench won't introduce vulnerabilities to the house's plumbing that could be exploited by a third party and 3)A plumber who is a contractor is usually employed by a third party, who indeed WILL supply the proper tools. – Old_Lamplighter Feb 10 '20 at 13:50
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    As someone who contracts to a large firm, I have been supplied with a laptop in order to do my work because: 1) It's a standard laptop and load 2) the security of the device is maintained by that company's IT 3) it has compete access to all of the needed internal systems because I have an email address from that company that utilizes all of the company's requisite internal access controls. – Peter M Feb 10 '20 at 14:23
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    @RuiFRibeiro, 5x higher seems a little extreme. That is very situation dependent, but saying an employee makes $70/hr and a contractor will make $350/hr is way more than I've seen (software field). – JPhi1618 Feb 10 '20 at 17:04
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    @JPhi1618, I agree. Even when working as a contractor for a temp agency, the typical rate is 2-2.5x the "standard" employee rate. This extra goes towards any insurance, taxes, and any benefits the employee gets, with some going to the company. As an individual contractor, that same rate would apply to remain competitive, but they should still have the same insurance and business tax costs, but more goes to the individual to supply their own equipment and work area, unless the contractor is working onsite. Then equipment is usually supplied by the employer. – computercarguy Feb 10 '20 at 17:13
  • @RichardSaysReinstateMonica If they have an electric tool (drill, whatever), and it was improperly maintained it, it could catch on fire and burn down the house. Responsibility for things like that is why the distinction between contractor and employee is very specific--and who has to carry liability insurance! – user3067860 Feb 10 '20 at 20:44
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    As a general rule of thumb, if you're a contractor, you need to supply your own tools (i.e. both hardware and software) to work Been in software development for 20 yrs, and I've never seen a contractor using their own computer at work. Ever. – Grimm The Opiner Feb 11 '20 at 08:21
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    @GrimmTheOpiner I've been a contractor on and off for over 20 years, and more often than not we're expected to bring our own equipment. Exceptions are some banking and government operations where security is such that only managed machines are allowed on the network, but even there ever more there is the expactation you bring your own laptop and they provide you with Citrix or VPN access (for example) to needed resources. – jwenting Feb 11 '20 at 10:14
  • Thank you! You guys are right, a contractor like now I am now should've negotiated a much higher rate than what you'd earn on salary. I'm accepting this answer and will not raise this issue with the client. – user259590 Feb 11 '20 at 10:43
  • @GrimmTheOpiner OP doesn't say he's working at the client's office. He's working out of his own office. – Beanluc Feb 12 '20 at 20:30
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    As a side note, contracting someone instead of hiring that person is oftentimes misused by companies to circumvent obligations to pay for social security/insurances. In Germany this is called "Scheinselbstständigkeit" and this is illegal. There are a number of factors used by authorities to determine whether you fall in this category and one of these factors is whether the contractor uses his own equipment. – yankee Feb 12 '20 at 20:33
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How do I ask for a budget without appearing greedy?

Be honest and explain your current situation. While you are a contractor, which means that you generally are responsible for your own tools, they are getting you on the cheap (from what your post says) and clearly like you, there may be some things to do. They could lend you one of their laptops, or extend you a loan against your pay to get one, or maybe decide to do you a solid and buy you a laptop. If you won't ask, you won't know.

I wouldn't worry much about looking greedy from it, especially if you will explain that you are looking for a work laptop, not a handout. This frames the discussion around solving that problem, not about money directly, and as long as you stay reasonable and open to compromise (which includes handling the No/Not now well) it should be fine. Definitely not the most unreasonable request in the world, especially given the history and that they know your cash-strapped situation due to no-pay from old job.

Aida Paul
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  • I worked with contractors - they were given office space, desk, chair and computers supplied... So are you assuming a contractor that works from home? – Solar Mike Feb 10 '20 at 10:09
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    @SolarMike Those sound more like employees hidden as contractors, a common thing lately, and usually how people get caught for hiding employees to reduce taxes. But I digress, and Op situation is work from home (hence why the coworking space) so indeed it's adjusted for him. – Aida Paul Feb 10 '20 at 10:11
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    Not lately - don't make assumptions... This was a long time ago and I was employed as one of them... – Solar Mike Feb 10 '20 at 10:14
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    @TymoteuszPaul, I've been an in-house "contractor" and the way it worked was the company paid a staffing company that I worked for as the "middle man". So, to the company and everyone I worked with, I was a "contractor", but I was actually getting paid on W2 from that staffing company. No hiding, no tax dodging, just a flexible way for the company to bring in extra workers on short notice. – JPhi1618 Feb 10 '20 at 17:09
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    Especially in IT inhouse is pretty standard. You put together a project team of 20 developers all freelancers - obviously they work from your one location and on your provided laptops. The opposite is rare in the IT field. Although obviously the all have (at least most) much better equipment available. – TomTom Feb 10 '20 at 17:13
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    Some companies take security so seriously they wouldn't even allow contractors to use their own computers, and would instead provide one. – jpa Feb 10 '20 at 17:59
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    I think the loan-against pay option is an excellent fallback if the company isn't willing to provide one of their own. The hardware will be yours upon repayment of the loan (a benefit to you) and they will see increased productivity from you being properly equipped (a benefit to them). – Doktor J Feb 10 '20 at 18:00
  • @SolarMike OP mentions leasing a shared office space, which suggests that they're not working from home but also not working in the client office. – GalacticCowboy Feb 10 '20 at 21:59
  • @TomTom Have never seen the in-house setup you describe in IT but the other way (whole teams of individual people working remotely or some contractors joining an in-house team and bringing their own equipment, sometimes with the option to use in-house machines if need be) quite a few times; your perspective seems subjective, perhaps applying more regional or to special sub-groups of companies in IT. – Frank Hopkins Feb 11 '20 at 09:00
  • Funny. This is pretty much what I have seen in 90% of the proejcts of the last 25 years working in IT. – TomTom Feb 11 '20 at 09:56
  • @jpa yes, or only allow access to specific areas of the network. Where I work for example we've very specifically separated areas of the network for company hardware, BYOD hardware, and guests, plus a VPN, stepstone servers, the works. – jwenting Feb 11 '20 at 10:18
  • There are at least two reasons to explain this: sure they might help you, but you don't have to ask for that, having your laptop go south will impact your timeline. Report such impacts early. In addition they might not want you to just toss the old one. Find out what procedures they need followed before your old one can be disposed of. I feel a lot better waiting while you go to the store if you've told me your tool broke. – candied_orange Feb 12 '20 at 18:25
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If you genuinely are a contractor, then you have to buy your own equipment. In the USA at least, if they provide equipment for you, you might be seen as a "statutory employee" which can get both you and them in a lot of trouble, with deliberately-punitive tax penalties.

In the USA, however, that computer can be "fully depreciated in one year" under Section 179, which can significantly reduce your tax bill.

Have you considered inviting the Swedish company to hire you? As for me, I don't work as a contractor anymore: you have to hire me, even just for the duration, which means that my situation is no longer nearly so interesting to the tax-man, and you have to take care of the paperwork. I don't have to monkey around with self-employment taxes or with trying to persuade the tax-man that I'm following the rules. The rules have become so arduous that they're not worth having to deal with anymore: that's why companies have accountants and human-resource staff. "Better them than me."

Mike Robinson
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    This is a very valid point. It would've been great if they could hire me, but the real situation is a bit more complicated than what I posted. I still have an intermediary between me and the client which prevents them from hiring me directly. – user259590 Feb 11 '20 at 10:51
  • Would the intermediary be content to let the client hire you, if the client pay the intermediary a finder's fee - something roughly in line with what they'd typically pay to a recruiter? – James_pic Feb 11 '20 at 12:16
  • @James_pic Sadly, no. He requested an absurd compensation which won't be worth the hassle. – user259590 Feb 11 '20 at 14:14
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If you're writing Haskell and you're not making enough to cover living expenses and a new laptop, you are being severely ripped off. I would approach whoever is paying you and explain that your laptop broke, that you are not being paid well enough to replace it on your own, and that it will affect your deliverables. They should happily supply you with a new laptop. If they do not, then you have a hard decision to make: keep getting screwed over financially (albeit with other positives that outweigh the lack of pay, right?), or find another job. Good luck to you. It's hard to know your market value, but I guarantee you are not receiving it.

Tim
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  • Thank you for your answer. You're right, perhaps I should've negotiated a higher rate. I've decided to not raise the laptop issue and renegotiate in a few months. – user259590 Feb 11 '20 at 10:49
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I would like to challenge a bit the question and propose an alternative solution:

You can rent a cloud hosted environment that fits your needs.

Depending on your needs it costs a few cents/euros an hour. You can shut it down everytime you're not using it and thus you only pay for the storage when the environment is shut down (which is ridiculously low).

On the long run it will cost more than a new laptop but in the mean time it's easier to tell your customer you need 100€/month to pay your cloud hosted environment rather than asking upfront for 2000€.

You can also ask your customer if he wants to put this environment on his own paid subscription so he owns your development environment and he'll be able to reuse it if you happen to leave or be in vacation etc.

Also another interesting feature of the cloud hosted environments is the backups are really easy to setup (at the cost of a few euros a month) so you do not run into your current situation again.

Edit:

I see in the comments some people saying he still needs a laptop to use the cloud hosted environment. I want to remind you that in the question it is said that :

I found a replacement, but it's really bad. I obviously need a new one to continue working efficiently. We're using Haskell, which is very heavy to compile and you need an above average machine to be efficient.

So there is a laptop available, it is just not good enough to develop.

Maxime
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    irrelevant as without a laptop he can't access that cloud hosted environment... – jwenting Feb 11 '20 at 10:20
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    Actually this is a great idea, he can buy a cheap, even old and used, laptop that will enable him access to a high performance environment – Rsf Feb 11 '20 at 15:30
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    @jwenting Actually he has a functionnal laptop as per this sentence : "I found a replacement, but it's really bad. I obviously need a new one to continue working efficiently. We're using Haskell, which is very heavy to compile and you need an above average machine to be efficient." So his problem is not browsing internet of checking his mail, or even rdp to another environment but compiling Haskell, which would be solved by renting his development machine. – Maxime Feb 11 '20 at 15:43