The Aerie
Okay, so that wasn't the outcome I expected.
As you may know, I'm an information security contractor. As a result I have to be very chary of what I post about, so forgive me if this is circumspect to the point of ambiguity.
At my present client, I followed my old supervisor as she relocated into a new department hoping to keep working for her. She's a great boss. Unfortunately my duties were changed and I was given her colleague as a new boss... interestingly, a woman I had worked with several years ago on another job.
My current task is the onerous and painstaking process of writing things. Unfortunately, I've never quite written things-like-this before. I have three other colleagues under the same boss, doing the same thing. They have all worked together on this very task at other locations - one brought the other two on boad here. As a result I've been kind of the odd-man-out, but learning to write these things could be a good skillset, so I really hoped to gain guidance from my colleagues.
Unfortunately, we are under a very tight schedule to have these things done by tomorrow, and last Friday I was getting frustrated. Because of my inexperience my written things kept getting rejected when the four of us got together to do a review, and my hopes of guidance were dashed because my colleagues were never present. Faced with the possibility of blowing my deadline, I talked to my former manager. She suggested the best thing would be to talk to my current manager, which seemed reasonable.
I approached my manager, first asking her if I could be cleared to work some extra hours over the weekend. She consented, but asked why it was necessary. I explained my frustration to her briefly: writing things under a deadline, no prior experience at this, little available assistance from rarely-present colleagues.
She suggested that she could maybe find me some work closer to my skillset. I agreed, since that sounded like a good idea, and told her I'd do my best writing the things.
So I worked extra hours and got my things written on time, and yesterday was feeling pretty good about overcoming that hump. Then suddenly my manager appeared at my cube.
"Following our discussion last week, I've decided not to renew your contract on Monday."
My brain kind of locked up. She explained that there was a fellow in a different department who might be interested in using my skills. I spoke to him, and we arranged a meeting tomorrow.
So for the next 18 hours or so, I don't know what my status is. And I might not find out tomorrow, either. He might say "Start Monday," he might hold off deciding, he might say "Well, we can use you but you're too expensive." He might just say "No."
Ah, the pleasures of the Independent Contractor.
So, best case outcome, I get picked up immediately with a little bump in pay.
Worst case outcome, I have LOTS of time to blog next week.
The best case is pretty good, actually. Contractors are required to periodically redo their contracts, so maybe this could cover that requirement and get me a little bump in pay. Then I could be working in a group more attuned to my skills, with a brand new shiny contract good for 18 months or even just 6.
Worst case isn't too bad. The market is very hot right now, so I'd probablypick something up in fairly short order. But would it be for more money? Could I ride my bike there? Maybe we won't have to find out.
Meanwhile, in the words of Inigo Montoya, "I hate waiting." But it's good that this happened in any event, because it's getting me off my complacent butt regarding my job search. In fact, I'm due to talk to a recruiter any minute, so I better save this and go...
Posted by Albatross at January 10, 2007 2:47 PM | TrackBack