Just signed and sent off the Contractor Agreement and an NDA.

It made me a little anxious as I don't think I've ever signed an NDA before, and I definitely have never signed what is essentially an independent contractor agreement.

Is this normal when being employed by an overseas company? You're basically self-employed?

I've sent off an email asking her if there's scope to become a permanent staff member. Perhaps there's some sort of international red tape that makes this difficult. Perhaps this is just easier for all involved. Perhaps I'm just worrying slightly because this way is alien to me.

Just finished up some work for the US firm. Over the last two nights, I've been doing QA on blogs and publishing them.

It's a lot of fun. I mean, I started getting onboarded on Wednesday evening, and pretty much immediately, I jumped into their community, on Slack - like Microsoft teams, but way more modern and trendy.

It's just so very appealing and interesting than literally any job I've done before. It's pretty much a cert that I'll be dropping my resignation to my current employer within a fortnight, most likely the 7th of June.

The director of operations of this US company, and my new boss, has been introducing me to the team (through the online communities we engage through) like "welcome Danny, he's joining us part-time helping out with QA this week, moving on to Account Management next week and transitioning to full time in July"

I mean, she already has me positioned and at least the short term future mapped out. I like this a lot.

Very excited, and I'm looking forward to dropping that resignation.

So I handed my notice today, and it was taken quite respectfully, to be fair.

The head of operations and the operations manager sat me down. They would much prefer to keep me and are open to negotiating a new position and to try and match the salary the US company are offering.

It's interesting to have this unexpected ace up my sleeve.

I've just been counter offered with an in house credit control job and twice the salary increase the US company is planning to give me.

This negotiating carry-on is quite fun, but now I have a spanner in the works.

I really want to US job, but I'm being offered more money here.

Damn.

Actually, I think I've maneuvered myself into a rather strong position.

I have an exciting and fun job on the cards, that I've been engaged with for a number of weeks. I'm technically getting to benefit from a trial period of said job since I'm doing it in my spare time for the next four weeks. This job nets me a 15% increase on top of my current salary, after three months.

If for whatever reason, that doesn't work out over the next couple of weeks and I either hate it or decide I don't like it (unlikely, but still a possibility), I have a 30% salary increase with my current employer to fall back on. That's pretty much a win-win.

You might think "Wait, why is 30% a fallback over 15%? You mad bro?"

Well, it's like this; I either take a 15% increase and do a fun, flexible job or take a 30% increase for a job chasing people for money, that I wouldn't enjoy as much.

It's a dilemma, but an interesting dilemma.

Fuck sake, I'm in turmoil.

I'm starting to slightly get cold feet about the US job.

Whilst it's fun and all that, there's quite a lot of risk in that it's unsecure, I can be dismissed at any point, and having to do taxes and all that shit (and probably a few other things). But I could take the new role and 30% increase with my current employer.

Seriously, 30%? It's not a bad deal at all.

I've never been in this position but I'm going to have to make a decision by Monday. I don't want it hanging over me.

Thanks for all the words of wisdom from my long time compadres

Alright, nobhead. I got shit going on in my world too.

Start negotiating, Dan. Sounds like you are a passive party. Others are offering you things and you are choosing between them. That's not negotiating.

Design your ideal product, see if they will accommodate it and move from there. This is negotiating.

I don't know what you want out of this. Reading between the lines, you might like to tell your safe job that "time and flexibility is more important than money. So I'll take the 30%, thank you kindly, and I'll be reducing my hours by 1/3, working exclusively from home and at the times and days detailed in the spreadsheet I just emailed you". So you can work both jobs for now, no need to tell them that though. Or whatever it is you want. Then the negotiations will have begun.

Happy now?


Peace,

kowalski

Yes, thanks.

With the new company, I'm not an employee, I'm being paid for services. However, my contract does state that after probation (3 months) "the contractor would then be eligible for salary re-evaluation", and we have already agreed on what this amount will be.

My home is a registered Ltd company (active but not trading). So I'm aware I could maybe pay myself through that, with certain benefits.

Whilst the CEO sat me down yesterday to talk me into staying, the operations manager wants a decision by close of business today. So the pressure is on. Today's not gunna be an easy day.

Part of me wants to take a leap of faith on the new job but part of me is now apprehensive.

What's the worst that can happen?

This is mental, I floated the idea of staying on with the US company part-time, and she said she was going to ask me that anyway (because I said I might be staying with my main employer).

I'm getting the best of both worlds - I get to keep my secure and safe job, at least for now (with a new role and salary increase) whilst trying out this contractor stuff indefinitely.

It's been a stressful week but everything seems to have worked out better than expected.