Re: transition from contract to full-time

["Elna Tymes" <etymes -at- lts -dot- com>]

Bruce Byfield wrote:

> In the past, contract work has paid more while being just as
> available and as secure as full-time work (that is to say, not at
> all secure). However, with the collapse of the dot-com mania and the
> resulting widespread layoffs, this situation may no longer be true.

I have a real problem with your statement that the dot-com industry has
collapsed, and that layoffs are widespread.  First off, in Silicon Valley there
are still a large number of companies based largely around using the Internet.
Granted, the flashy little businesses that had no believable business plans and
no earnings to speak of went belly up with the first business challenge - and
well they should have.  It is my belief that they weren't real businesses in
the first place. But to use their example as an indictment of all the youngish
Internet business is unfair and unrealistic - there are still a lot more who
have survived the soft market and are pretty much on their projected numbers.
Doing technical writing for them is no more or less risky than working for big
companies like Hewlett Packard, 3Com, Compaq, and a host of others who have
been around for quite a while and have also announced layoffs.

Secondly, I have a problem with your sky-is-falling statement about "resulting
widespread layoffs."  There have been some layoffs.  I wouldn't characterize
them as "widespread," although the publicity has certainly been widespread.
What has happened, and is happening about now, are SOME layoffs, which in the
context of NO layoffs and the extremely active recruiting environment of the
last several years, certainly qualifies as news.  But let's be fair - this
isn't anything like the "widespread layoffs" of the last recession (if anyone
can remember that one), and what layoffs have happened haven't been
"widespread."  If anything, the whole situation has been blown out of
proportion simply because we've had good news for so long that any little thing
going wrong is news.  People are still hiring like crazy in Silicon Valley, in
those companies who have had the foresight to put away some money for R&D
during a less active market.

Elna Tymes
Los Trancos Systems


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