rossz's Journal: Contract Work

Contract IT works sucks. You don't have the security of a full time job (whatever the hell that's worth these days). It's even worse when the bastards decide to cut the contract short by an entire month due to "budgetary contraints". Am I an idiot to expect a company to have allocated the damn budget before hiring a contract worker?

If you haven't guessed by now, I'm looking for another job. As usual, I want a permanent position, but will probably end up settling for a contract job. Oh, and the "big bucks" you normally expect for contract work? Forget it. They know they can get away with paying half of what they should.

At least.

[t0qer]

You're not digging at the bottom of the barrel like I am now. 8 fucking years of XP, not to mention I live breath and have eaten computers since I was a kid.

You know what i'm doing for work now? Friday / Saturday nights I bounce at the 7 bamboo karaoke bar. A whole fucking 45 dollars a night. I've reduced my diet to ramen and $2.50 a package burritos. Sometimes I get a nice little bonus doing some on the side consulting for neighbors, but the work is always word of mouth, and never really gives me eno

Re:At least.

[rossz]

I was out of work for about a year before I got my last contract job (which was supposed to last at least 3 months but only lasted 2). My wife's income isn't enough to support our family of three and no one will give me the time of day for a shit job (overqualified, of course). I've borrowed about as much money as I can from family members.

I'm seriously considering getting training in a different field, like real estate).

International

[GMontag]

If you don't mind working where the action is, lots of Defense related IT firms are advertising on Monster right now.

Watch out for SAIC, you might as well be a contractor with them but there is a tiny bit more security there. Full disclosure: I did apply for an Iraq database developer position with them.

Also, some government jobs are on there as well as government contractor jobs that could lead to government employment, or at least fill the pay gap until something you like comes up.

Re:International

[rossz]

I don't think my wife or daughter would want me working in Baghdad. Besides, don't those jobs require security clearances - which I don't have and can take several months to clear.

Re:International

[GMontag]

Well, yea, most at least require a US Government Secret of some sort. The ones I am putting in for require it, but my clearance was just renewed earlier this month. The USAR is buisly trying to screw it up too (long story, but they decided to do a parallell investigation and appear to be ignoring my answers to credit history questions that were resolved when DOHA cleared me).

Since my only child is in college and I only see him a few weeks/yr anyway it is not a big deal to me where I work.

Plus, I spoke t