I have been a contractor for the majority of my 8 year IT career. I have been a "perm" contractor and a freelance contractor. I have seen some horrible contractors in my day. Total BS artist that would say anything to get a contract. I have seen employees do the same. I focus on Network infrastructure and security. In the valley the need for this is great but most companies can not afford a full time security/router guy. Most don't see the need. About a year and a half ago I went perm for a company. I built up the entire infrastructure from stratch, automated almost everything, then sat there and watched it run. I then proceeded to go insane. The most excitement was a user forgetting his/her password.
Well enough ranting. If I where building a company I would try to hire perm staff ASAP. This is realy hard in the valley. If you can't get full time staff and must go with contractors make sure your contract is well written, wuth clear project goals and make sure documentation is a requirement.
I am an independant consultant and have been for about 4 years now. I have had a Blue Cross PPO plan for about 6 months now and I am pretty happy with it. I agree with slag, you must access your situation. I started out with some pretty plain coverage. Then I started spending a lot more free time playing soccer and snowboarding. I got a few bumps and bruises along the way so I decided to get a plan that covered doctor visits better than my previous plan. Right now I have the cadillac PPO plan that has a $10 co-pay and some other crazy stuff. I pay about $120 a month if memory serves me correctly. This is about $30 a month cheaper than I paid in COBRA from a former employee. Have you looked a online Insurance services like www.insweb.com? They might be worth a look as well.
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I have been a contractor for the majority of my 8 year IT career. I have been a "perm" contractor and a freelance contractor. I have seen some horrible contractors in my day. Total BS artist that would say anything to get a contract. I have seen employees do the same. I focus on Network infrastructure and security. In the valley the need for this is great but most companies can not afford a full time security/router guy. Most don't see the need. About a year and a half ago I went perm for a company. I built up the entire infrastructure from stratch, automated almost everything, then sat there and watched it run. I then proceeded to go insane. The most excitement was a user forgetting his/her password.
Well enough ranting. If I where building a company I would try to hire perm staff ASAP. This is realy hard in the valley. If you can't get full time staff and must go with contractors make sure your contract is well written, wuth clear project goals and make sure documentation is a requirement.
bpennington@lucidnetworks.com
I am an independant consultant and have been for about 4 years now. I have had a Blue Cross PPO plan for about 6 months now and I am pretty happy with it. I agree with slag, you must access your situation. I started out with some pretty plain coverage. Then I started spending a lot more free time playing soccer and snowboarding. I got a few bumps and bruises along the way so I decided to get a plan that covered doctor visits better than my previous plan. Right now I have the cadillac PPO plan that has a $10 co-pay and some other crazy stuff. I pay about $120 a month if memory serves me correctly. This is about $30 a month cheaper than I paid in COBRA from a former employee. Have you looked a online Insurance services like www.insweb.com? They might be worth a look as well.