As you get older, it's tougher and tougher to walk away from FTE for Contract

DatabaseHead

At least in my situations, but some of these opportunities from an exciting challenge stand point are soooooo hard to shoot down. I am currently stuck in a lull which is fine, great pay, benefits, paid time off (lots) and several other pluses.

But the work is silo'd etc....

It's so freaking tough. Anyone else experiencing this in your market?

paul78

Define older

I think it's really about your wiliness and confidence to take the risks/reward tradeoff and not an age thing. For me, as I have gotten older, I'm more willing to those tradeoffs.

LordQarlyn

In general many things get tougher as we get older. That said, however, much of it depends on one's attitude. You can look at the calendar and get bummed by the number of years that have elapsed, that's normal. You can also acknowledge your age, but not let it define you or your goals and ambitions. Never too old to start new ventures. A French woman cut her first album at 120 years old. I personally know former teachers who went to law school in their 50s and even became successful lawyers. I read often of 60 and 70 somethings who decided to start their own business in retirement and a lot of them were moderately successful. The most notorious example was Colonel Sanders of KFC, broke and went nowhere for his whole life, retired on a pension less than $200 a month. Out of desperation he tried a recipe that proved popular. The rest is history, he died a billionaire in his 80s. All right I know that not everyone will have that success, which is not my point. My point is yes things can get more challenging as we get older, we will face ageism especially in technology. How we choose to respond makes the difference; we can make excuses or we can leverage it for our benefit and see it as just another challenge waiting to be overcome.

My late grandmother told me on her 100th birthday, getting old sucks but it sure beats the alternative.

jam022316

I get what you're saying though. I'm the sole bread winner with a wife and two kids. No way am I going to leave my job with benefits for a contract job. However if my wife made enough money and could carry us on insurance, then I'd definitely do the contract thing. Lots of cool opportunities and big bucks to be made.

scaredoftests

All in the attitude.

tedjames

I'm just over six years from retirement. I don't know if I'll be able to afford to retire at that time (economy and all). I'm fully vested now, which means I get benefits for life. When I do retire, I may start collecting my state pension and work contracts for awhile just to build up savings until I'm ready to stop work altogether. Of course, I really love what I'm doing now and don't think I'll be ready to stop in six years. I still have a lot to learn and a lot of places to go with my career.

DatabaseHead

Not as old as some, lol.....

It's frustrating because you have so many opportunties (great pay, new technologies, different industries etc...) but these opportunities are in the form of a 6 month right to hire and the benefits are REALLY bad....

On the flip side, if you stick with the same technology and tools you aren't growing especially if the environment is aging. That poses it's own set of risk.

I appreciate the inputs.... Helpful

Node Man

opinions, opinions. all point of view. I see 'older' people changing jobs every 2-3 years just because there is so much neat stuff going on in tech.

blargoe

I am in exactly the same boat. Safe, permanent position, great pay for my area, grandfathered into a retirement benefit that new hires don't get and are better than other area companies, inexpensive and good health insurance, great managers. But the company itself is the most dysfunctional place I have ever worked and from an IT perspective is far too siloed for the size of the company and mired in a 1990's mindset.

I will have to jump off the merry go round at some point or I will be too obsolete to find permanent work near the salary that I am making now when the time comes. I have at least 25 more years to go.

DatabaseHead

blargoe wrote: »

I am in exactly the same boat. Safe, permanent position, great pay for my area, grandfathered into a retirement benefit that new hires don't get and are better than other area companies, inexpensive and good health insurance, great managers. But the company itself is the most dysfunctional place I have ever worked and from an IT perspective is far too siloed for the size of the company and mired in a 1990's mindset.

I will have to jump off the merry go round at some point or I will be too obsolete to find permanent work near the salary that I am making now when the time comes. I have at least 25 more years to go.

I am so glad you chimed in.

Everything you posted is the same thing I am experiencing.....

I'm still learning, but it's not technology it's how systems interface back in forth between others and finally into a data warehouse and eventually into data marts. It's crazy and you'll never learn it all. So there is that piece of the challenge, but the tech is 1990's.

I'm concerned being in a Silo will rot my chances to move on up and eventually out.