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Subject:Re: The Worst Thing About Contracting From:Mike Stockman <stockman -at- JAGUNET -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 8 Apr 1999 15:37:20 -0400
On 4/8/1999 9:53 AM, Maurice King (benadam -at- CYBERDUDE -dot- COM) wrote:
> I would have preferred a permanent job, but when I took one, I learned
>quite painfully how meaningless the word "permanent" is when the company
>downsized overnight, leaving the entire technical documentation team
>without work. I had been in that job only a bit under five months, shorter
>than many contract jobs.
>
>[snip]
>
>What bothers me about contracting, however, are two things: the insecure
>existence and the tendency to be branded as a contractor forever.
I think it's odd to see both of these thoughts in the same e-mail... you
were laid off of a job after five months, but you dislike contracting
because it's not secure enough.
I realized many years ago that there *are* no permanent jobs. I was laid
off from a job after one year, which basically happened because I
finished my second big project there and they couldn't think of what else
to have me work on. They *should* have hired a contractor at the
beginning, but instead they fooled me into thinking it was a "permanent"
position. (The same company tried to hire me back as a contractor about 6
months later, but they couldn't afford it...)
I like contracting mainly because it provides me with projects that span
more technologies than a job at one company for the same period of time
would have, assuming I even found a position that lasted that long. I'm
well-versed in accounting, voice and sound input, networking, database
analysis, more networking, information retrieval, natural language input,
telephony, and a few others that I'm forgetting, simply because of
contracting and bouncing from one interesting project to another.
In the "permanent" world I'd be labeled a job-hopper and viewed with
suspicion, but in the contracting world I'm seen as well-rounded and
experienced. The only thing I miss are the possibility of stock options,
but when I find the perfect startup, maybe I'll consider settling down...
;-)
