As I mentioned before, work has been more chaotic than usual.

So the day after the layoff announcement, a coworker comes to me and asks, "how would you like to work in a job with a somewhat engineering focus?"

My first thought was "Heck yeah! I've been wanting to do that for years now!". One of my other coworkers had already turned down the opportunity since he had planned on leaving the electronics business once his employment was finished (at the end of January). I was the second choice.

So the contact was an engineer who had worked (for a very long time) at my current employer. He put me in contact with his current employer, who was a contract employer/engineering consulting company. He told me that this contract employer had kept him employed since he had been laid off from my current employer (about two years or so). That sounded pretty good so I called the number and asked for the guy.

Well, there were two people. Let's call them H and J. I think that H may be the owner or partner in the company. I talked with him first.

As that kind of guy can be, he was very slick at talking on the phone and easing whatever fears that I may have had. He asked me to email my resume and also put me into contact with J.

Now, J has this contract that he has to fill RIGHT NOW in order for his company to get the business. He is very eager to hire me. He seems okay but the pressure is kind of on me. I've been procrastinating updating my resume but this is the stimulus that makes me finally do it. I also fill out (to the best of my ability) the job application and the "skills sheet" that J had emailed to me.

Now the skills sheet was interesting. It gave a subject and asked for how many years experience you had, what year you last used it, and also a skill rating from 1 to 5. I may have fudged on this a bit -- I know a little about a lot of things technological and I do a lot of self-study. Practical application? Not so much.

So anyway, I'm pretty stoked about this opportunity but things start moving very fast. First, J calls me and asks me when I can come in for an interview since this contract is very hot and they need to close it. I tell them the next day at 10:30 AM should be fine. He agrees but not long afterwards J calls back and asks if I can meet with them the same day at noon. I agree, even though I didn't shave that day.

I meet with both H and J, and they seem like good people. H especially wants to put me at my ease.  Like he had told me on the phone, he also tells me in person that I don't have to jump at the contract that J needs to fill. I should only commit to that if I'm willing to commit to the contracting company "150%". He then goes on to tell an anecdote about a software guy who had committed to one of the contracting firm's projects only to have his manager and coworkers really put him on the spot and put a lot of pressure on him not to leave. So he didn't leave his current employer which left the contract guys in kind of a bind -- they had already committed this guy to the contract.

Well I guess that things worked out, according to H, because this software guy did eventually come and do some jobs for the contracting firm, and it was implied that no prejudice was held against him for his prior decision.

Another thing that gets me very interested, is that H talks a bit about what the contracting firm is about and how they are structured. They are mostly software engineers but they also have hardware guys -- about 2/3rds / 1/3rd is my impression. Then he says the magic words, "Our specialty is embedded systems."

Gah! Ask others who know me online but I mentioned getting into embedded design months ago when I first thought about leaving my current employer! I have a serious (metaphorical) woody here!

So anyway, back to me and my interview.

It's pretty obvious that they want me. I'm not used to being in that situation.

Oh, and another thing -- I think that I asked more questions than did the interviewers. I've never worked contracting before. I had a lot of questions.

So H thanks me and leaves me with J. Things are a little uncomfortable -- he wants me to commit but I'm still not sure. I feel like the girl whose guy wants her to go all the way on the first date.

J and I make a little small talk about the contract but no real information is forthcoming. I'm still stoked but I'm not ready to leave my employer of eight years for this yet. For various reasons.

The kicker came when J asked me how long I needed to make a decision about the contract. I asked if I could have until Monday. He didn't like that too much so he wanted me to make a decision by Friday. I agreed.

I went home and talked to my wife and during the day she had checked out the benefits (medical, dental, etc.) provided by the contract firm. They cost almost 3X per month out of pocket than does my current employer! ($285/mo vs. $796/mo). Plus no time and a half for overtime (since it is a contract job).

Unfortunately, I had only skimmed over the details of that. And then I realized that I had asked for too little compensation.

See, I'm kinda naive. They asked about what compensation I wanted and even though I knew that I shouldn't I gave an answer between about 20% below my current up to about 4% above. Well, my research has found that I am paid at the high end of the scale.

But with the disparity in benefit costs, I definitely should have gone 20% above or more!

Anyway so here I have an opportunity to advance in my career but yet I'm still nervous because of the nature of the work and the fact that even with the upheavals at my current employer I still feel relatively stable.

And a thought that crossed my mind was the fact that my friends who are being laid off will be receiving a severance package equaling at least four months pay (which is actually quite a lot!). Even though I don't have severance package the offer wasn't good enough to give up the possibility of getting one in the future, nor of giving up unemployment benefits if for some reason the contract didn't work out.

I've got four other people in my household depending on me. Stability is the most important factor to me.

I also bounced the idea off of several of my coworkers, and many of them had heard of the firm before. There wasn't much positive response. A couple of my coworkers told me that the contracting firm had a two-year noncompete agreement. That is, if a contracted employee really liked where he was at, he couldn't hire on permanently to that company before two years was up.

Again, I think that I may seek out future employment with this firm, just not on such short notice. I need to work harder on my resume, my contacts, and on researching how the contract business actually works.