Full Time Employee

I've been sitting on this news for a little while, waiting for all the paperwork to go through and for everything to be completely official. I am pleased to announce that, as of the second week of September, I am no longer a contractor. All of us who were contractors in our little group were offered full time positions with our contracting company. We will continue to do the same work, but the way it is billed to the company for whom we are doing the work will be different. This is a good thing, because it means we are no longer subject to the 3 year rule which says that all contractors can only work for 3 years before being required to take a 6 month break. The company for whom we do the work did not want to lose all of their skilled resources after 3 years (which, for me, would have been in November; has it really been 3 years already?!), and most of us could not afford to just sit for 6 months without pay and then come back, so this was the alternative solution.

I now have medical benefits and (most importantly to me) paid vacation. Best of all, my base salary did not change! Often, when moving from contractor to full time employee, your salary will actually drop, since they are compensating you in other ways. Mine stayed the same, they just added benefits on top. In effect, though, I got a raise, because I am no longer taking time off without pay when we go on trips! It is almost too good to be true, and we are trying very hard to be grateful and not cynical. We'll just keep our fingers crossed and hope the other shoe never drops.

Currently feeling: thrilled