I had an interview yesterday for a 6 month contract. I really liked the facility and the work environment seemed very clean and nice. The people I interviewed with were very nice. The only problem I have with it, is the length of the contract. My biggest worry is about not being extended. Both of the people I spoke with spoke long-term so that made me feel a bit better, I just can’t shake the worry though. I thought I’d make a list of pro’s and con’s of my current and prospective contracts.

Current company pros

  • Relatively stable – current contract expires in Sept 2008 but there is an extension in the hands of the client’s legal department awaiting approval that would expire in Sept 2010.
  • I am allowed to work from home one day a week.
  • Pay is good, benefits are decent and fairly inexpensive

Current company cons

  • I’m fucking miserable here!
  • I’m writing code about 10% of the time, the other 90% is spent analyzing production data and modifying it since it’s been screwed up by the system – basically, I feel like I work on a help desk.
  • Being on-call. I have a pager that I have to “man” once every 10 days (approximately speaking); every 5th weekend, I’m on-call and basically can’t leave my house.
  • I now how 3 time sheets to fill out! One of them, the newest, easily takes about 30mins/day to fill out.
  • I’m not learning anything new here since I’m barely writing any code.
  • I have to commute 62 miles (round trip) and spend about 45 minutes on I4 (with smooth traffic, no accidents).

Contract position pros

  • Major pay increase, 66% from my current hourly rate – dollar for dollar, not including how much my benefits cost. Meri would pick up the benefits from working part-time at her job.
  • 20 mile round trip from my house to client site.
  • I would be writing code again!
  • No more on-call support (and therefore no more feeling like I work on a help desk).

Contract position cons

  • Only a guaranteed 6 month contract. The company has a very strong history of extending their contractors and eventually offering them full-time positions, but that is not guaranteed. The only guarantee is that I’ll have a paycheck for 6 months.

If the client decided not to renew the contract at the end of the 6 month period, they would have to let me know 45 days prior to the end of contract and vice versa if I decided not to stay with them either. If the contract expired in 6 months and was not renewed, we would be able to live on the “extra” money that I made from the hourly increase for about 4 months after the contract was over. That would give me 4 months to either look for another job or find another contract. If I was unable to find another full-time position somewhere else in Orlando. Moving out of Orlando is not an option. If I did have to start working other contracts, then I would potentially have to travel a lot.

So basically, I’m not sure what to do. Any ideas?