A real job at last

This has been a good day for me because I was offered a permanent job at Nokia, after 2.5 years of working there as a contractor.

I don't know how many of you know about Life as a Contractor but I find you need nerves of steel to do it. You can have periods where you are changing jobs frequently, are out of work for longer than you planned and think that the phone will never ring again with the friendly voice of an agent with work. You never get to go on a training course, so you have to acquire the skills you need for each gig yourself in a very short time. You get paid more than permanent staff but you have no job security so get anxious each time a contract deadline approaches.

And Nokia is a great company to work for, especially with the Finnish saunas on site!
Nokia has been named to Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For in America" list, the culmination of an employee-focused assessment of work-life issues and human resources programs and policies in companies throughout the United States.

Anyway, I decided to take the plunge and feel so relieved because I was very worried about the recession and how I would ride it out. So I accepted the offer and later in the day saw this headline and felt like maybe I'd made the right decision:

The Government has suffered a double dose of grim economic news when unemployment jumped by 60,000 and the head of the Bank of England warned the economy could suffer negative growth.