Psychotomy

talking to folks at the game day we had yesterday, i was reminded that i’m starting to near that line in my job. i had all that teaching experience and couldn’t get a job b/c i had the ivory-tower taint.

now, it’s been a little over 4 years at this job. government. after 5 there’s a government taint that’s hard to overcome, and i end up moving gov job to gov job as a contractor until (unless?) i get the break and snag a civi position. or i get the axe when my company loses a contract and has to toss people overboard.

so, if i’m gonna look for another job, i need to start now. but i LIKE my job (i just can’t stand the people i usually work with; but AFAIK that’s called “work”), good benefits and i’m working from home mon/fri now part days, so plenty of relaxation. but i’m at the top of my payscale, next step up is management, i think, and i have no one to manage nor any interest in managing. so i may kindof be stuck. and last years review discussion edged on the concept of raises, and my manager basically suggested that i go out, start doing extra work for other people/groups to get my foot in the door, so maybe they’ll ask for me. except, in the meantime, i’m supposed to do this extra work free. basically off the clock. and with my schedule, wtf do i do that?

may need to talk to him this summer about it so that i can start looking in september if i know i’m gonna bail. rather than waiting until i get my raise letter in mid january or something to find out “hey, anotehr 3%! that doesn’t even cover gas increases last year!” and start looking THEN.

i’m also starting to check craigs and guru for contractual gigs that i can like hammer out something and get paid in small chunks. everyone keeps telling me there’s all these great contracts “do this script for me” on craigs, bu all i ever find is “hey, i need someone to rebuild my whole site, looking to pay 15-20$ for the site” which if it’s /hr or /pg or something is one thing, but 20$ for a whole site? no

found a posting on craigs that looks interesting, php dev in columbia. payrate is DOE. I hate that nothing ever shows a payrate/range b/c if they’re offering 50k i’m not going, but if it’s 90, sure. but as i recall, pay never enters into it until late in the interview process, so i have to waste a lot of everyone’s time before i find out that they’re max is less than i’m making now, ok, later!

i hate looking for a job. i hate being broke. and i don’t think i much like getting pigeonholed and stuck in a specific track. but if i can get some good contract stuff that i can do on the side, that’d be great.

this has been another daily babbling

Posted in: work by attriel /