UPDATE: My "contract" job may turn into a "perm" job!!! :D

by Elsewhere 31 Replies latest jw friends

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  Elsewhere

  Quick update:

  Today I received an email with an official application for employment with instructions to complete it and fax it back.

  A few weeks ago my supervisor flew off to a corporate meeting regarding budgets and the future of the IT department in general. It seemed a bit ominous because all of the talk from upper management has been of budget cuts... possibly even dissolving development groups like ours and moving all of the work to a central location in another state (The company has many developers scattered all over the US and we all work together via phone, email and teleconference).

  Well, my supervisor came back with some good news... for our group at least. There are going to be budget cuts and lay-offs throughout the IT departments, with the exception of our group! In fact we are going to be getting an increased budget! It turns out that our group is the most efficient group of developers in the company!

  This means that they will be able to move me from being a contract worker to a full-time perm employee!
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  desib77

  Congratulations!
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  Sassy

  Woo Hoo!! That is great!!
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  Simon

  Well done Elsewhere & congratulations ...

  ... even though you are going over to 'the dark side' of permie-ness (I've been contracting for about 6 years)
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  Elsewhere

  Join the dark side Simon... it is your destiny!!!
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  kls

  Congratulations Elsewhere. Things are definitely going your way and a new house to .
  
  
  How is the grunt house going ?
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  Elsewhere

  Today my supervisor made a verbal offer... everything unofficial and preliminary It was $18,000 less than what I make as an hourly contract worker. Ouch!

  I countered with something that was between $3,000 and $8,000 more than their offer. He will talk to HR.

  The benefits are not clear yet in terms of what they offer in health insurance. He said he would try to get some paperwork that described what was available how how much it costs. Right now I am paying $40 a month for my PPO and $80 a month for my long-term disability. I do know that they have 20 vacation days and 10 sick days. Basically I can take a month and a half off with pay. For those outside the US, this is very good vacation time because most companies offer about two weeks vacation and five or six sick days. I asked about bonuses and he said that right now they are not very good (if anything at all) due to the cutbacks I mentioned before. He also said that a signing bonus was almost out of the question because I have been here as a contractor for awhile.

  I made a very stupid mistake filling out the application they gave me. When an application asks about college, I normally put down: Degree - Applied Science (No mention that it is an Associates). For some stupid reason I put down Associates Degree, which my supervisor said had an affect on the offer.

  Ok... so what do you think?
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  Double Edge

  Sounds like your supervisor is on your side. The good news is that even though you're a new hire, you're not an unknown entity to them.... that's a plus. They'll probably come back with a counter offer. If you like it, take it, but you might try countering with something else besides pay.... flex time, paid unused sick days, whatever.

  All in all it sounds good. Congrats!!
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  Panda

  E, This is great. One word of caution though ... don't count your paychecks until they're written.
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  rebuilding

  Congratulations!

  I hope it goes well for you.

  Rebuilding