Going permanent

Last Monday I became a permanent employee for Citadel Investment Group in Chicago, IL. A year ago, going permanent for a company was one of the last things I expected to do. I was firmly committed to keeping my status as a contractor and consultant. I took a Perl and Sybase development contract for Citadel in June, 2004 with Citadel, expecting to work for six months. Much to my surprise I enjoyed the work enough to accept an extension, then a permanent position.

Citadel went out of their way to treat me much better as a contractor than I expected. I was given all the resources I needed from the start to do my job. I was given increasing responsibility for tasks very quickly. Their contractor offer was excellent in both pay and extras such as a corporate apartment and regular flights back to my wife and home in Colorado. When the time came to choose to go permanent, they had proven themselves to be a great company to work for and I was anxious to join them on a long-term basis.

My wife and I are very excited about this opportunity. We put a deposit on an apartment in downtown Chicago last weekend and the house in Colorado goes up for sale in a couple weeks.