Please note I am only posting this out of curiosity to see what you’ll all say. I’m not relying on STW for an actual decision 🙂

I was a contractor for a fair few years, and when I finished in August I didn’t do a good job finding a new contract so I took a permie job in October. In those few months out of work I ran up some pretty big bills that need paying, but not urgently. The permie salary is ok and things are comfortable, and in theory it should allow me to learn some great new skills but more importantly it should allow me to progress my career up the food chain, allowing me to really coin it in should I return to contracting in the future.

However someone just called me with a contract I could do now and that could possibly make double my permie money which would get me right out of the financial hole immediately. BUT it’s only for six months initially…

Is this engineering?

Go for it. You say initially for 6 months so it could in theory last longer. Pay your bills off, clean slate, one less worry and cross the next bridge when you come to it.

But the decision is yours like you say. But I’d go for it, you never know with the current climate you may find your permie job is not as permie as you thought.

As a fellow suby I’d say stick with what you now got. You now these short term jobs will come up over and over again, double the dollar for half the time but they always dry up

Learn the skills for future, can’t hurt to have more strings to your bow. If you were unhappy in the perm job go, if your not stay.

Stay put. I seem to recall you liked your manager and the company, had good prospects for training (opportunity cost would be how much…?). I get recruiters calling me weekly “working on an opportunity”. They won’t stop calling when you have more experience and better qualifications. It is however good professional practice to culture the attentions of at least one recruiter to keep an eye on future prospects.

Multitasking …

Get your doctor to write you a 6 month sick note 🙂

Reccesion looms, companies are jittery about taking on full time employess but things are not as bad as everyone says. Many companies are looking to take on contractors in stead of FTEs because it is a fixed cost. Contract market is looking great. Tempted to make the jump myself.