Here is the situation, please bear with me it's complicated. I am a sysadmin, a *nix sysadmin at that. Work is scarce right now especially since I prefer to telecommute. I have a gig at the moment, this job was a blessing when it rolled around. I had just quit my prior job at literally the world's largest dedicated server provider due to stress and politics. I quit in total faith, I had to get out of there for many reasons, one of being pornography that I saw daily when troubleshooting servers, others being surrounded by pagans, being backstabbed on a regular basis. I couldn't stay integrous and work there so I prayed about and walked away. Less than a week later I was offered a job telecommuting for a webhosting company in England. I took it at low rate of pay and decided to tighten the belts arounf the house.
Within a month I found that the lead admin was embezling scads of cash. The owner fired him and gave me his job. I didn't want it at the time as I would then be on call 24/7. I took it anyway as it involved a raise. The other admin had worked for me at the prior company and had my back so I didn't have to deal with everything all the time. Well long story short I was soon making good money and happy with the job. I had laid down some rules and had a decent schedule when everything went right. The company had some money problems, but they were not bad management. We ended up being targeted as an easy host to use stolen credit cards and get accounts from. I put in place a standard set of checks and got 90% of the fraud stopped, but it was too little too late, our credit card processing account was frozen for 90 days. We could not go 90 days without any capital.
The wonderful person who owns our outsourcing for the level 1 techs offered to go in with me and buy the company, but I was still catching up from the lower pay so we couldn't do it. He turned to another client of his and they ended up buying the company. The deal almost fel through because the owner was less than honest about some things with the buyer. I called them up and told them the flat out truth and they respected that so they went through with the deal. This is very recent. The new owners have taken away all control from the admins and put it in the hands of a middle manager which means nothing gets done with any resembelence of on time.
I got them to promote the part time admin to full time and we had a good thing going and were getting caught up. Last week they called me and told me to let him go. They said it was budget reasons but I know better. This puts me on call 24/7 and they want me to step down from my youth group to be able to be on call on Sundays. I told them they were daft for even asking and that I had stipulated that provision in my original interview and they could either take it or leave it.
Here is the meat of the problem. We are moving all of our sites from one datacenter to another. This involves making backups and moving about 5 terrabytes of data. Not a big deal really when you get down to it. The problem is they originally gave Jan 15 as a deadline and didn't get any hardware online until Jan 10. This was not possible so they extended it to Feb 15. The hardware they gave me for the migration is total **** and won't do what we need and they are debating replacing it at this time, but the dealine still stands. I might even be able to accomplish it if they get me hardware up by Monday.
I am totally afraid that once I migrate all this data suddenly the budget won't have room for me, and they have demonstrated that they are not going to give any notice when they do decide to let me go. I just had another offer tabled for another sysadmin position that would be challenging and allow me to work with some wonderful people I have worked with in the past. It is slightly less money but that would mean less spur of the moment trips to go eat out, it still more than covers the bills. I am considering it very highly. There is security in it and having talked to others that are working for them they have never even been late with a check!
I feel loyal to my current customers but not my management. I need to have some security and they are willing to sign at least a 90 day contract that gaurantees me pay unless I mess up something fierce. I am always scared of change though. I have been praying about this and just got the call with the new offer right before I posted this. So I am asking for both advice and prayer. I need wisdom to make the right decision. Thank you all in advance.
Within a month I found that the lead admin was embezling scads of cash. The owner fired him and gave me his job. I didn't want it at the time as I would then be on call 24/7. I took it anyway as it involved a raise. The other admin had worked for me at the prior company and had my back so I didn't have to deal with everything all the time. Well long story short I was soon making good money and happy with the job. I had laid down some rules and had a decent schedule when everything went right. The company had some money problems, but they were not bad management. We ended up being targeted as an easy host to use stolen credit cards and get accounts from. I put in place a standard set of checks and got 90% of the fraud stopped, but it was too little too late, our credit card processing account was frozen for 90 days. We could not go 90 days without any capital.
The wonderful person who owns our outsourcing for the level 1 techs offered to go in with me and buy the company, but I was still catching up from the lower pay so we couldn't do it. He turned to another client of his and they ended up buying the company. The deal almost fel through because the owner was less than honest about some things with the buyer. I called them up and told them the flat out truth and they respected that so they went through with the deal. This is very recent. The new owners have taken away all control from the admins and put it in the hands of a middle manager which means nothing gets done with any resembelence of on time.
I got them to promote the part time admin to full time and we had a good thing going and were getting caught up. Last week they called me and told me to let him go. They said it was budget reasons but I know better. This puts me on call 24/7 and they want me to step down from my youth group to be able to be on call on Sundays. I told them they were daft for even asking and that I had stipulated that provision in my original interview and they could either take it or leave it.
Here is the meat of the problem. We are moving all of our sites from one datacenter to another. This involves making backups and moving about 5 terrabytes of data. Not a big deal really when you get down to it. The problem is they originally gave Jan 15 as a deadline and didn't get any hardware online until Jan 10. This was not possible so they extended it to Feb 15. The hardware they gave me for the migration is total **** and won't do what we need and they are debating replacing it at this time, but the dealine still stands. I might even be able to accomplish it if they get me hardware up by Monday.
I am totally afraid that once I migrate all this data suddenly the budget won't have room for me, and they have demonstrated that they are not going to give any notice when they do decide to let me go. I just had another offer tabled for another sysadmin position that would be challenging and allow me to work with some wonderful people I have worked with in the past. It is slightly less money but that would mean less spur of the moment trips to go eat out, it still more than covers the bills. I am considering it very highly. There is security in it and having talked to others that are working for them they have never even been late with a check!
I feel loyal to my current customers but not my management. I need to have some security and they are willing to sign at least a 90 day contract that gaurantees me pay unless I mess up something fierce. I am always scared of change though. I have been praying about this and just got the call with the new offer right before I posted this. So I am asking for both advice and prayer. I need wisdom to make the right decision. Thank you all in advance.
