I'm working remote as an artist for an indie gamedev company based on LA (team of 15+) which has a fairly successful title that sold roughly 50k copies at $25 per key since I joined in a couple months ago. In my interview, it was made clear that my hourly rate of $20 was higher than expected so I shouldn't hope or ask for a raise anytime soon. I signed an independent contractor agreement which rules me out as an employee, excludes any benefits whatsoever and gives the company ownership of anything I deliver. At the same time it does feel like I'm an employee – I'm expected to inform absences, to attend meetings, to take part on brainstorming and whatnot. Slack channels are now part of my day and every other week I'm supposed to give time estimates of ticket completions for development managers to measure metrics. Meetings are a nightmare on its own, but the worst part is this: everything I do has to be time tracked and individually logged into the invoice document so they only pay for productive time. That is, if I open my email inbox, if I go to the bathroom, if I stretch my legs, if I have a break to eat anything, if I take a moment between finishing a ticket and starting the next one – that's not counting on my hours. To get paid for a complete 8 hour shift I probably have to spend 9 to 10 hours sitting in front of my computer and still manage to hit 8 hours of pure active labor. After my work day (which is usually ending pretty late anyway) I have no energy to have any fun. It's exhausting and it's making my life miserable. If I reduce my hours I can't pay my bills. It's hard enough to get this wage in this industry or even find any full-time job, so I can't just quit. I'm starting to hate life and I don't know how to make it better.