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Ok, but at Arm my red (intern) badge was no more 'demeaning' than my blue (permanent) badge. Not least because they only left my pocket when I needed to open a door...

(Colours from memory, I think that's right, they were certainly different anyway.)

Point is you can certainly learn not to treat contractors like employees, have badged access, etc., without having such hostility attached to it.

Edit: no! Red actually was a 'badge of shame', that was 'I forgot my badge today and had to get a spare from reception'. Anyway, it's beside the point exactly what was what. Different badges and access/treatment don't have to bleed into social treatment, they don't even have to be that visible.




This conversation isn't about the difference between intern and full time employee but rather the difference between contractor and full time employee.


It's about 'demeaning' different badges, and an intern is inherently temporary, which is the T in 'TVC'.


Interns always got the FTE type experience (able to eat at celebrations, got Schwag, etc!).

They weren’t temp in the same sense as T temps - which are temporary workers hired from temp agencies.


Yep. Some companies even give interns legitimate (taxable!) benefits, too, which almost no company will give their TVCs.


Depends on when you interned! Before 2018 you would get a green badge as an intern, 2018 and onwards you got the same blue as everyone else, when they moved all the offices to GDAS.

Contractors (cleaners, catering staff, etc) got yellow ones IIRC

(I interned at ARM in Cambridge 2017 and 2018)




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