Given that they're likely to agree on most policy questions, the candidates will be fighting to distinguish themselves based on their résumés.

I certainly hope the Stranger will do more than just post excerpts from the candidates' résumés. Voters need to know where the candidates' personal and professional allegiances and conflicts of interests lie, and this can take some actual investigative work.

"I have challenged and advocated against some of most powerful companies in state of Washington on behalf of workers," Courtney says. "I think that's a strength I bring to the campaign that differentiates me from some of the other candidates."

In a state where a handful of mega-corporations and their billionaire shareholders give the legislature its marching orders, that's a powerful argument.

(This is going to be long.)

Up until recently, I thought unionization and software development would never mesh - given the flexibility needed, leaning curves, red-herrings in troubleshooting, etc. I've had a long history with Microsoft, including FTE, a-dash and v-dash contract work, and more recently a new way that Microsoft and some agencies are forging - called a managed service outsourcing arrangement.

This new "outsourcing" arrangement is not a time and materials pricing formula. But meant to be truly outsourced as a way to avoid a vendor having to take a six month break after 18 months of service - a policy Microsoft announced last year. (Other companies, including Amazon, have similar mandatory break policies to avoid the "perma-temp" issue and, I can concur, for valid reasons for corporate security.)

The work is to assigned to the vendor by the agency, not by Microsoft. The vendor's manager is the agency project manager. The agency project manager works with a Microsoft business manager as a client. Just like if the vendor was a baker for the company's cafeteria.

But the "outpouring" is a bit to a huge stretch. On some teams and assignments, the vendor can work from home but is still interacting with Microsoft teams via e-mail. On other assignments the vendor is on-site, partial, or all the time. Attending meetings, discussing schedules, etc. Essentially a virtual a-dash.

Well, all this came crashing down on yours truly late last month when my project manager informed me that Microsoft "blew their budget" and was laying off all vendor writers in this particular area of one of Microsoft's most cutting edge endeavors. I had to wrap things up by the end of the month. Nice to have had leap year this year.
Two things:
A - Microsoft did not "blow it's budget". Microsoft measures everything at all times. Do they not have alerts when expenditures exceed a particular level? Of course they do. No, they took risks that jeopardized a good faith agreement with the agency. Being unbound by contracts that are renewed or not-renewed on a quarterly basis throughout the fiscal year -- they can pull the plug on this arrangement at any time.

B - I will be writing letters to the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. While there appears to be no compensation fraud, this tossed salad arrangement of insourcing and outsourcing should be investigated.

C - Maybe guilds are a good idea in this profession after all.