Breaking up is hard to do (but only if you’re the one doing the breaking)
Posted on September 9, 2006No, no, Patrick and I are not breaking up. We recently celebrated an important birthday for Patrick out at Disney’s Fort Wilderness, and apart from some rain on Saturday evening, a good time was had by all (that let themselves). For this post, I’m going to open up just a bit about my recent work-related struggles. I’m compelled to stay murky about some things, but I’ll try to give you at least a high level idea of why the last few weeks have been scary/sad/confusing/exciting/and quite mad.
As some of you may or may not know, I work as a contractor for government-related training activities. Nothing dangerous or remotely connected with any of the contractor nastiness you’ve undoubtedly heard about on the news, but government contractor none-the-less. A contracted employee works for a company that has had a task or series of taskings contracted to them from the government. Thus as contracted employees, we work from contract to contract without much of a guarantee of permanence. Having said that, I have worked for the same company with much of the same people on the same general tasking for the last almost 6 years. Quite a pleasant oddity.
Several weeks back, we were told by our company that our current contract was running out, and that the government had not yet announced the new contract award. As such, our company would be forced to lay us off as of a week from this past Friday. Then, true to their word, we all turned in our badges and other necessary items and were laid off as promised.
Almost an entire week passed by without any word, many of us just hanging out waiting to find out when we’d be returning to work. This was fine for me since I returned from camping that Sunday before with quite a nasty sore throat/fever that is still plaguing me somewhat as I write this. I pretty much spent the whole week in and around my bed (with a break for teaching at SCC), anxiously awaiting the official award. Finally, on Thursday, we got word that a different company won the contract but would be hiring us all on immediately to begin work that next day!
This afternoon, we met with some reps from that company, and what an awesome feeling. None of us were exactly pleased with our previous employers, but I can honestly say that all of us are thrilled with pretty much everything about our new ones. We start back on Monday, picking up exactly where we left off two weeks before.
I’m excited by the raw potential that now exists where once murky sameness pervaded. I’ve never really been dumped before by an employer, but this break-up is probably one of the best I could have ever hoped for. For now, that is all.
Categories: Public
Wonderful news about the new contract! Too bad the contract wasn’t for working on a TARDIS.
18.09.2006 10:35
Congrats on the new start! Nothing like a new start to jump start your life!
18.09.2006 15:34
Sounds like great news! I must admit when I read the title of your post I was alarmed at first…
18.09.2006 17:53