job update

My resume is up to date.

Two weeks ago Wednesday, our company president corralled us for a meeting at the end of the day. He informed us that, as usual, the company is tight on cash and needs to make more from sales of the year's new products. To help alleviate the financial problem, he is again attempting a restructuring, although this time a little more gung-ho than previous attempts.

For starters, he fired our shipping guy -- not just because of this situation, but also a problem with a major shipment that was sent to the wrong state for a trade show. Our receptionist was promoted to shipping. A production person had quit the day prior, so there's another savings.

Then he said our editor will now work from home full time as an independent contractor, and will be paid per-page just as other freelance engravers are. He claimed she would be making the same as she is now, but "we'll save on payroll taxes." Well, no, actually, she'll have to pay 100% of Social Security, Medicare, et al., plus self-employment taxes and filing quarterly... so she'll effectively be earning less. Plus, if the company prints less music or contracts out to other engravers, she'll have less work to do.

He assured us that "no one in this room is getting fired." He asked if we had any questions; no one did. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, "We should probably think about making Bryan an independent contractor too... {pause} Well, we'll talk about it in the morning."

At first, I saw the positives: I could work from home -- I already use my own laptop at work anyway -- and have flexible hours, so I could work on my other freelance projects during the day as well; I would save money on gas; I could deduct home office expenses on my tax return; for financial-stability reasons, I should be looking for a new job, and as a full-time freelancer, it would be easier to schedule job interviews. As the prez and I briefly discussed, part of the problem with my job currently is that tasks without deadlines get set aside because other things take priority. There is always something "more important," so those get pushed to the front while other things that just need to be some "sometime" fall behind (and any time I attempt to work on said projects, I have another do-this-rrrrrright-now in my face). His thinking was that if I were freelancing, they could just assign me a project and I'd work on it and finish it. I don't know that it would actually happen that way in practice, but it's a nice ideal.

But as I walked out the door, my first thought was............. *drum roll plz*.......... HEALTH INSURANCE. I'm still getting CAT Scans every four months for the next year and a half, and a few more beyond that. If I had to go find my own insurance, the coverage may be limited and/or the premiums would be astronomical. The way to avoid that is with "group insurance," but such plans require an employer who offers it (such as my current one).

My second thought was, will I be paid "the same as I am now," like our editor? When I'm freelancing, I charge more than double the wage I make at my full-time job (partly because of taxes and partly because I'm on the very low end of what graphic designers of my level earn in such positions anyway, so "double" still isn't unrealistic). If I were an independent contractor, would he be willing to pay my rate?

I started reading up on COBRA and checking the job ads just to see what was out there. I saw this as my "out" -- this will force me to find a higher-paying job so I can at last snip the apron strings and live on my own.

The next day, he called me into his office. I was ready, notepad in hand, and pulled up a chair. He said he realized that if I were an independent contractor, I would lose my health insurance, and would probably run into all that "pre-existing" malarkey, and he didn't want to screw me over like that. So they're going to keep me as a regular employee, but might reduce my hours. That was it. Sixty seconds and we were done. Cancer saved my job.

I'm officially on the market now, though. Last Friday was my third year anniversary. It's time to leave this company. It was a great place to start after college, but I've grown as a designer about as much as I can there. There is no room for advancement; pay raises are very few and far between (over two years for my last one). There is no retirement benefit. And now, I may be facing reduced hours. I don't want to live with my parents forever -- even if it does mean I can afford to take trips to New York and whatnot. It's time to move on and put the for now in "only for now."