Do you ever feel you've made wrong choices?

[gingerjedi]

My plan:

Contract until mortgage is paid off> Take easy peasy public sector job > Retire on nice public sector pension.

As long as you're sensible your public sector salary will more than cover beer and holiday money.

[cailin maith]

Maybe downscale our house. Not spend as much on Virgin wines. Be a slave to "the man".

....who cares? We'd have our life back!!!

Maybe downscale our house. Sell all the furniture, not eat perhaps... but we'd still have to spend as much on Virgin wines (can't give up everything!!).

[NotAllThere]

You've made the right choice - you're just implementing it incorrectly. As a contractor I take time off as and when I feel like it - the nature of my contracts allows for this. So I took yesterday a.m. off to be with Mrs NaT. And occassionally I've called the office explaining I'm stuck at the pub and won't be in in the afternoon...

[stingman123]

As good as it is to talk, just remember.......at least you have a job.

There's a lot of unfortunate people out of work at the moment and would like to have the choice!

Sorry to sound harsh, but I'm doing the weekly trek fromthe north east to the midlands, and as much as I'm hating it,having to leave my wife and kids for the week, I appreciate the fact that at least I have a job and I just get on with it.

[suityou01]

As good as it is to talk, just remember.......at least you have a job.

There's a lot of unfortunate people out of work at the moment and would like to have the choice!

Sorry to sound harsh, but I'm doing the weekly trek fromthe north east to the midlands, and as much as I'm hating it,having to leave my wife and kids for the week, I appreciate the fact that at least I have a job and I just get on with it.

I agree, and regularly take time to count my blessings. But as you say, it is good to talk.

[minestrone]

I only work now 6 months of the year. That is the best of both worlds for me, I get a wage equal to a good permie wage and my pretty decent savings stay the same.

If the jobs are ever decent I stay on for longer but they never are, working on crap code with permie halfwits, 6 months is enough.

[SallyAnne]

How do you, as a contractor, not have the freedom to take an afternoon off if you feel like it? You can have as many afternoons off as you fancy, as long as the work's being done. Unless you work on a help desk or something, I suppose?

The client just has so much work for me at the minute that sudden days off to go on the lash would look very unfavourable.
My contract is for a certain amount of days, between 2 dates...so I just can't justify doing one unfortunately.

Whereas, when I was a permie, noone would care if I just booked a half day. The work I did was never this important.

[SallyAnne]

Why not just call in sick anyway?

I'm not sure how I'd ring in sick for this afternoon when I'm actually in the office now.

[SallyAnne]

How is it possible to get this homesick when you are only away for 4 nights?

I'd get that homesick if I was only away for 1 night!!

It's this kind of scenario I'm talking about - is it really worth it? is it worth being away and missing out on your family life for that extra cash?

We're doing 13 hours days and our weeks are a right off - for extra cash to pay the house off early. Is that really worth it?

[SallyAnne]

but we'd still have to spend as much on Virgin wines (can't give up everything!!).

I must admit, that bit hurt the most when I was typing it