Working

There are some things I avoid discussing on any of the Internets, and my job is generally one of them. There are good reasons for this - after all, I don't want to get dooced. But I thought I would mention that this week marked the end of my time as a contractor at my company, and I've accepted the offer I got to stay on as a full time employee. I'm aware that it's becoming more and more common (especially at IT companies) to hire new people only as contractors at first or to have some sort of three-month probation - but that doesn't mean I didn't get nervous as the end of my three months started to draw near. Now that stress is gone, and in its place I have the prospect of benefits and a raise. Let's hear it for the new economy!

A few of you have asked, so here are a few sort of general tidbits about what it is I do, exactly: at my full time job, I'm a web developer, so I do a little of everything that's involved in producing a site. Generally that means things like XHTML, CSS, PHP, Perl, JSP, Java, MySQL, and Oracle. I don't do a lot of graphic design these days, which is a first for me, but I don't actually miss it that much.

I also do freelance and contract jobs on the side - mostly small web projects for friends, and more recently the occasional bit of technical writing or reviewing for a couple of publishers you've probably heard of. I don't really do it for the money anymore; it's more that I like to have other things going on. And given the kind of jobs I had when I was younger, I'm very happy with where I am professionally right now.