career decision

[Chris Hani]

It has been so long to visit job discussion forum but I need you guy's advice.

Here is my situation.
I am a contractor with H1. My salary is reasonable and it will go up on Oct. again. I am living with my family and my husband are still working on PhD. He plan to graduate Spring 2007 and will start to find a job world-wide sometimes soon.

My contract was renewed twice in the company I am working now.
So the position is quite stable. I expect it to be renewed on Jan. 2007. I am quite positvie about that. I really would like stay this company till my husband get a job so that I can follow him without any career disconnection.

What is wrong with it?
I don't have things to work in the company.

Till June, I did work on something. I would say the work load was moderate. And then my former manager left the company.
The team itself has too many requirements to handle it.
So my manager try to cut the user's requirement.
And then all the development jobs went to some other developers.
I am currently assigned to some project which doesn't have any work for me till end of year.

So you see, I haven't work for 3 months and pretty sure it will last for 3 more month. I am working on some certification and my personal project during work but I am sick of it.

My dilemma is

Shall I change the company or stay it?

If I change my company, it is quite possible to live seperatedly with my husband and kids. It would be definitely painfull not only we would be apart but also it cause money problem(for two different apartment etc.) or kids have to live one of their parents. They are too young to understand it.
After all, we are not seperated or divorced or something like this.

But if I stay here, I am worried about my skill be out-dated. It is OK to work on some certification or even open source project but I am not really entry level developer. You know it is different between working on some project and just sitting on the desk and learing.

So please give me advice and your thougt. I have been thought for 3 months about it and still doesn't get any decision.

My contract ends on Dec.

Thanks

[Deepak Bala]

Hi ! I know how you feel. I was once in a project that didnt have challenging work. I concentrated on certifications and time flew by. Eventually i am now working on something that is challenging and my learning curve is steep too.

If i were in your position i wouldnt move to another company just because they dont have challenging work at the moment. Especially when you have your husband and kids to think about. Your skills will not get outdated. I know that it can be a drag. Stick to your certification plans and find something worth while to do. Open source is also a good idea. This is just my opinion anyway. Ask your kids if they are ok with this and ask your husband too. I think they would be sad if they dont have you around. Give this a thought for atleast 2 or 4 weeks before coming to a decision. Ask yourself " What do i want most " and then find out how the answer to that question will affect your husband and kids. Good luck

[Joy Mookerji]

John you are 200% right about your suggestion......
Same thing happened to me in 2002 I was just having no work for 10 months....
I just sharpened up my skills building small small prototype application which I consider my aces later I plug in to my work as and when needed this is a good time to go for certifications advanced technologies coming up go to JUG meetings once a month......

After 10 months when I started development one again I didnt find any problem....

So best way to utilize the time is increase the bandwidth of your knowledge and enjoy time with friends and family

[Pete Joseph]

It depends... Can you find work where your husband is going?

If you are bored now and dont have that much work but in a couple of months or so things might pick up and propose challenges for you, then stay.

But if you've been there for a few years and it's mostly "no challenges" then in the end, you should start looking elsewhere..

Because in the long run if you aren't doing things on a consistent basis, you will forget things.. Yeah open source is nice, certifications are nice, side projects are nice, but they aren't building something that has real deadlines, has a make or break agenda, has expectations and so on..

The fact is, if it gets boring sometimes, but exciting other times, then I'd stay. But I worked for a company once where you'd get 10 months to do a project that took 2 weeks. Too much paperwork, meetings, more paperwork, and approvals.. In the long run, it did nothing for my career.

If you move on in the future and it's like the company I work for, it's hard to explain things when the fact was, you didn't work on challenging projects..

[Chris Hani]

Thank you guys..

I have been working for a year in this company.
The work itself is not that chanllenging most time besides the team atmosphere is strange for me..

But my attitude is that I want to do my best and work hard in any kinds of environment. To do so, I can learn things whatever it is technical or just domain knowldege.

Yesterday I talked with my supervisor and he let me in the design spec meeting that had held already for couple of days.. I didn't know...

I hope it will work