In such companies you are not truly a contractor, but employee of the bodyshop company which lease you to the client. As the result you deal with politics in both companies: your employer and their client. And bodyshop has performance reviews as well.

Not really. A staffing co like randstadt won’t give you perf reviews etc. You just work through them for tax reason. You hardly even interact with your account manager.

That’s incredibly disingenuous, randstadt is not a body shop. You are basically lying.

That’s a strange accusation. I never said they were a body shop. They are a staffing company. I’ve known people who have worked through them. Have had good experiences.

I just said you could freelance through them. A lot of people do.

Just a lil' nitpick, you absolutely do have to deal with office politics. Everything else you said was accurate though.

Oh, you absolutely do have performance reviews. Not in the sense that they determine your comp or whether you're promoted, because that will never change, but if you have poor performance they will talk to you about it and possibly cancel your contract. Seen this happen to several a contractor.