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Newly Employed (bwoom!)
Jul. 11th, 2011 06:19 pmSo, precisely five months after my last day at my old job, I've started a contractor position at An Unnamed Large Software Company in Western Washington. (Let's just refer to it as the Empire henceforth, yes?)
This is, at its simplest, incredibly awesome. I'd been really demotivated on jobhunting (like, not actually doing any for several weeks) and this recruiter calls me and hires me for the precise job title I want on a big-name project, out of the blue. Five business days between call and hire, and it would have been two except I stalled on them and was on the other side of the state for the holiday weekend. This job nearly literally landed in my lap.
Not entirely literally because jobs aren't corporeal objects that can be thrown into laps, but that's about all that stopped it.
So woooo!
On the downside, it's a $0.50 pay cut from when I started at my last company four years ago (which I tried to negotiate up even then because it's underpaid for my qualifications), with no PTO (not even holidays). The commute to North Kirkland is three hours round trip, which sucks, and the company culture at the contractor is a bit odd and low-budget. They forgot to ask me for references until today and almost didn't hand me a laptop before they sent me to meet my Empire supervisor. My non-competition agreement says I can't work directly for The Client for a year after I stop here; when I challenged that she said they never stop people, but she can't change the wording for legal reasons. Raised eyebrow here. I believe her, actually, but it feels scuzzy.
On the upside, the coworkers are friendly, the supervisor's very flexible about letting mesquat in empty offices work in the Empire building that's an easier commute and has free chocolate milk, the technical skills are precisely in the center of my sweet spot, and all the social challenges are "You get to take a lot of initiative and make up a new position" which will at best give me really valuable confidence practice and at the very least look fantastic on my resume and give me an excuse to leave when I need to.
So yeah, I'm thinkin' six months, keeping my ear to the ground at the Empire, and looking real hard at what else is out there starting after four of those months.
Anyone on the eastside, I am officially available for lunch starting Now. Anyone on the west, it's going to be a lot harder to reach me for the foreseeable future, but do keep trying. :)
This is, at its simplest, incredibly awesome. I'd been really demotivated on jobhunting (like, not actually doing any for several weeks) and this recruiter calls me and hires me for the precise job title I want on a big-name project, out of the blue. Five business days between call and hire, and it would have been two except I stalled on them and was on the other side of the state for the holiday weekend. This job nearly literally landed in my lap.
Not entirely literally because jobs aren't corporeal objects that can be thrown into laps, but that's about all that stopped it.
So woooo!
On the downside, it's a $0.50 pay cut from when I started at my last company four years ago (which I tried to negotiate up even then because it's underpaid for my qualifications), with no PTO (not even holidays). The commute to North Kirkland is three hours round trip, which sucks, and the company culture at the contractor is a bit odd and low-budget. They forgot to ask me for references until today and almost didn't hand me a laptop before they sent me to meet my Empire supervisor. My non-competition agreement says I can't work directly for The Client for a year after I stop here; when I challenged that she said they never stop people, but she can't change the wording for legal reasons. Raised eyebrow here. I believe her, actually, but it feels scuzzy.
On the upside, the coworkers are friendly, the supervisor's very flexible about letting me
So yeah, I'm thinkin' six months, keeping my ear to the ground at the Empire, and looking real hard at what else is out there starting after four of those months.
Anyone on the eastside, I am officially available for lunch starting Now. Anyone on the west, it's going to be a lot harder to reach me for the foreseeable future, but do keep trying. :)
