Thank you for your support! n_n

Did anyone else notice that as Ysteena’s relaying all this, her assistant is making like a piece of office furniture? What with that blank expression and her clipboard held up close in her criss-crossed arms like that, I’d say she knows a whole bunch that she doesn’t dare say. Watch yourself Cyprien. Your new boss may be hazardous to your health.

Not always true, the independent contractor may still make more because they aren’t as likely to be wasting resources on stupidity because that will affect their paycheck negatively.

However the employee of the big unyielding organisation can make more exploiting the system for personal benefit. Eg if you waste money you may get a small kickback bribe reward. If you take risks to improve efficiency you may get little reward for success but lose job if failure, and a whole lot of hostility either way “we’ve done it this way for 6 years and its always worked, and you idiot risk things by change!” (There is a reason for example that even with modern tech like GPS that could make it impossible we still have trains that crash into each other)

“If you want to become wealthy you need to sell something with low overhead and or reoccurring costs” walmart disagrees. Sometimes large volume, low profits can work.

“Extra taxes” sometimes the independent contractor can pay much less because they have more deductions from income tax including own house and vehicle.

Eh, she gets armor with her preferred stats and a complimentary office as a “liaison” to the Templars. The Templars are fine with letting her keep the kit and the office because she *is* a director of Argent, which likely means they’re also reaping some very nice benefits for having connections to the most prominent guild in Sylarend, A and B, she walks down the street in Cyan Cross gear and a line of new applicants follow her into the building. It’s the kind of free publicity you wish you could pay for.

Amen, though to me she wasn’t skimming our boy because he’s prominent, but because he was easy to spend on a low survivability mission without being missed, and there was a significant upside should he prevail, which he actually did.

He sees a bright future, now that he finally has eyes. Maybe that’s part of Argent’s vision benefits package.

I’m not forgetting that her quest likely lead to those other real deaths, but this society rewards recklessness rarely, and neither does our own above a certain threshold. Just ask anyone who had an unintentional open mic event which cost them a promising career path, though it could be as simple as saying the wrong thing to a coworker who is backstabby.

Everyone glorifies the independent/contractor but you actually can take home less than an employee because you have to cover your own healthcare, retirement, liability insurance, extra taxes, etcetera. The only thing an independent can do that an employee cannot is support multiple clients at the same time by building an organization to manage the work. The peons still get shafted though.

If you want to become wealthy you need to sell something with low overhead and or reoccurring costs. That’s why software, or Support Services are so lucrative.