Okay, I mean I already had at a job. But I was a 3rd party contractor (i.e. no benefits, no unemployment taxes, no job security). Starting January 1, 2011 I became a part time employee!
I'm still working 25-30 hours a week. But on those other 10-15 hours I can do as many risky, life-endangering things as I want because I have awesome adult health insurance. Which even includes life insurance (!). Farewell craptastic student insurance.
The ball started rolling back at the end of November after several weeks of heavy hinting on my part that I needed more from them. Boss and I had a very nice lunch where she told me that they liked my work and wanted to keep me around.
A week or so after our lunch, Boss, Associate Director (who does many things, including HR stuff), and I had a meeting regarding my transition from contractor to employee.
I pushed again on the part time employment, but they explained that they needed some grants to "firm up" before they could offer FT. In response, I told them I was going to have to get another PT job to supplement my job there, so my schedule wasn't going to be as flexible as before. This caught their attention and they pretty much begged me to keep my schedule open through January and that we would try to revisit my hours/wk in February.
In the same conversation I asked if my salary was going to increase because it was bit low. My boss did not like that comment and even when I explained that grant writers and PhD social science researchers at the nearby R-1 university make $4/hour more than me, she dismissed it with "well, we're a non-profit! You can't expect us to pay the same wages as R-1 University!"
Sigh. I mentioned my current wage to my career services counselor lately and she agreed that they were low. So at least I've begun the wage conversation and put Job on notice that I'll be bringing it up again.
But in any case, yay employee status!!!!! The last 10 hours/week are peanuts and I'll get there soon enough.
Am still very excited about this transition. I'm doing the same thing as before, but the change in status has been a big deal for me, and for at least one colleague. I feel like I can whole-heartedly participate in organizational planning conversations and think of myself as contributing in long-term ways. The one colleague I mentioned was awesome before, but now she's even awesomer and we're working together a lot to develop research projects that I'd be doing. So cool.
So there you have it. In just over 5 months I got a job and went from contractor to employee. But that issue of salary is going to keep me hunting, so this blog isn't ending any time soon.
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