IT_no longer a consultant

After consulting on various small through large environments with a few different consulting firms, I tendered my resignation last Friday to take a job as a permanent/full time internal System Administrator at the public highway authority (a certain toll road if you are familiar with the Denver Area) in Denver. The pay is exactly the same, but the reality is that I will work much less and I will get more benefits like retirement, vacation, etc.

Among the first couple of things I have to do:

Migrate them off of E2K3 to E2K10
Migrate them off of Cisco Ironports (probably to postini)
Configure their Hyper-V environment with Failover clustering
etc
etc
etc

There is a possibility that after 7 months I will be bored out of my skull. If that is the case, I can always go back to consulting.

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chopsticks

Congrads!

cyberguypr

Congrats on the new gig. Now get that nickname changed

veritas_libertas

Congratulations! Just getting benefits is a nice change of pace

Everyone

Congrats!

it_consultant wrote: »

There is a possibility that after 7 months I will be bored out of my skull. If that is the case, I can always go back to consulting.

Or start your own consulting biz on the side... work towards working for yourself instead of someone else.

erpadmin

Welcome to not only perm work, but the public sector as well.

You're gonna find that the work will be challenging in and of itself.

Best advice I can give you is to not get lazy and complacent...very easy to do in the public sector. Also, keep this in your mind now...SLOW DOWN...right now, you want to do more listening than talking. You'll see what I mean after the first week on the job.

it_consultant

Everyone wrote: »

Congrats!

Or start your own consulting biz on the side... work towards working for yourself instead of someone else.

I am going to start a LLC or something soon so I can do night and weekend work for my current consulting firm. No need to unnecessarily burn bridges.

erpadmin

it_consultant wrote: »

I am going to start a LLC or something soon so I can do night and weekend work for my current consulting firm. No need to unnecessarily burn bridges.

I don't know about Colorado, but in New Jersey, thanks to the ethics law, outside work has to be disclosed to your employer (to make sure that you can't use your position within state government in a conflict of interest situation.)

You might want to research that to see if CO has the same type of deal. The HR department at your new gig can answer that for you.

it_consultant

erpadmin wrote: »

I don't know about Colorado, but in New Jersey, thanks to the ethics law, outside work has to be disclosed to your employer (to make sure that you can't use your position within state government in a conflict of interest situation.)

You might want to research that to see if CO has the same type of deal. The HR department at your new gig can answer that for you.

I will have to check on this. I am not actually being hired or will work for the state. Even though it is a "public highway" it is a private company. However it is still subject to government like disclosure laws, so it is kind of public. We get a 401a as opposed to a 401k but we don't get state benefits or seniority.

For example, all state agencies are moving to gmail (good luck with that) to save money. My employer is not subject to this requirement since they are not controlled by the state. Weird huh? Its like working for the power company I guess.

ptilsen

it_consultant wrote: »

There is a possibility that after 7 months I will be bored out of my skull. If that is the case, I can always go back to consulting.

This has been my major concern with the possibility of leaving the MSP and consulting world to go back to being in-house. I got bored before and I think I would again. Can't argue with how much less work it is, though.

erpadmin

it_consultant wrote: »

I will have to check on this. I am not actually being hired or will work for the state. Even though it is a "public highway" it is a private company. However it is still subject to government like disclosure laws, so it is kind of public. We get a 401a as opposed to a 401k but we don't get state benefits or seniority.

For example, all state agencies are moving to gmail (good luck with that) to save money. My employer is not subject to this requirement since they are not controlled by the state. Weird huh? Its like working for the power company I guess.

Not weird at all. All of the state colleges and universities are autonomous, but we are all subject to civil service. All that means is that we are subject to the whims of Trenton (the good and bad) but we do not report to Trenton, directly. In your example, our Port Authority (which reports to NY and NJ) is kinda run the same way your new gig is set up.

As for CO going to gmail, I had heared that New Mexico had gone to gmail sometime ago (either gmail/Google apps or perhaps both.) Many state colleges here have gone to either gmail or MS' live.edu for students. (Staff is still on Exchange or internal mail servers.)

In any event, it sounds like you're in for an adventure. I look forward to hearing more about it.

Congrats once again.

zenhound

I am in the state system in Colorado. If you were a classified state employee, you'd definitely have to request permission to do outside work. Some work you wouldn't be allowed to do, depending on your position (tax pros can't do contracting because of the appearance of impropriety, for example). In your case, who knows?

Do you qualify for PERA? It's a hugely attractive benefit. I would have moved on long ago if not for that. I am still probably going to leave because my department seems dysfunctional. But it's so tempting.

N2IT

Congratz on your new gig!

networker050184

Congrats man!

YuckTheFankees

Congrats! I didn't know you lived in the Denver area as well.

cknapp78

erpadmin wrote: »

I don't know about Colorado, but in New Jersey, thanks to the ethics law, outside work has to be disclosed to your employer (to make sure that you can't use your position within state government in a conflict of interest situation.)

You might want to research that to see if CO has the same type of deal. The HR department at your new gig can answer that for you.

Don't you just love NJ for that reason and more? I have been here 20 years as a transplant from South CA and I still can't get used to some things.

cknapp78

Congrats man! I am recently in the same mode as you...long term consultant and new FT Salary employee. Best of luck to you.

erpadmin

zenhound wrote: »

Do you qualify for PERA? It's a hugely attractive benefit. I would have moved on long ago if not for that. I am still probably going to leave because my department seems dysfunctional. But it's so tempting.

I have 15 years in PERS (NJ's pension system) come next month. I can technically retire now, but if I wait twenty more years, I can retire with full benefits and medical...but in addition to the time, I have to have the age (55). Best thing to do for folks like us who have time in is to go to another agency for more money. Otherwise, in order to get promoted, I have to wait until someone dies/retires...

cknapp78 wrote: »

Don't you just love NJ for that reason and more? I have been here 20 years as a transplant from South CA and I still can't get used to some things.

What was interesting is that the guy who "strengthened" that ethics bit for state employees is the same guy who scammed some financial firm out of millions of dollars.....[Corzine...] Then when Christie took over, it was not clear what he was going to do to our pensions...a lot of rumors that he would prevent people from buying back any time from previous civil service employment [like a moron...I took a withdrawal from the pension from my first civil service job when I was younger. I intended on buying that time back via my 457(b) that I also contribute to...I had just made the amount needed to buy back my time in the summer of 2010. Of course, he didn't do anything with that...just said we had to pay more into the pension and then made the promise that the state will finally contribute....we'll see how that goes.]

Yes, welcome to Jersey........lmao. I may retire from Jersey but I won't live here in retirement.

RTmarc

it_consultant wrote: »

After consulting on various small through large environments with a few different consulting firms, I tendered my resignation last Friday to take a job as a permanent/full time internal System Administrator at the public highway authority (a certain toll road if you are familiar with the Denver Area) in Denver. The pay is exactly the same, but the reality is that I will work much less and I will get more benefits like retirement, vacation, etc.

Among the first couple of things I have to do:

Migrate them off of E2K3 to E2K10
Migrate them off of Cisco Ironports (probably to postini)
Configure their Hyper-V environment with Failover clustering
etc
etc
etc

There is a possibility that after 7 months I will be bored out of my skull. If that is the case, I can always go back to consulting.

The migration to 2010 is easy enough. I'm curious about the migration away from the IronPorts; mostly why?

I loved the jump from consulting to a single company. One network, one environment, one set of irate users, etc. Good luck.

rsutton

RTmarc wrote: »

The migration to 2010 is easy enough.

This made me chuckle.

onesaint

Congrats on the move.

Maybe if boredom sets in, in 7 months time, you can bang out some new certs.

it_consultant

RTmarc wrote: »

The migration to 2010 is easy enough. I'm curious about the migration away from the IronPorts; mostly why?

I loved the jump from consulting to a single company. One network, one environment, one set of irate users, etc. Good luck.

I don't have any particular love for ironports, I feel like you pay a lot for what you get, but my feelings are actually neutral. They mentioned the idea of moving off of them and I would be more than happy to shove them off onto postini or mxlogic - one less potential device failure. The question is whether or not they ever want to use an encrypted email service like CRES, this works a lot more easily if you have a device.

it_consultant

zenhound wrote: »

I am in the state system in Colorado. If you were a classified state employee, you'd definitely have to request permission to do outside work. Some work you wouldn't be allowed to do, depending on your position (tax pros can't do contracting because of the appearance of impropriety, for example). In your case, who knows?

Do you qualify for PERA? It's a hugely attractive benefit. I would have moved on long ago if not for that. I am still probably going to leave because my department seems dysfunctional. But it's so tempting.

I just checked the hire paperwork. We don't get PERA and we don't pay Social Security. Because of the lack of SS we are required to buy disability insurance, which is interesting.