I Never Could Get the Hang of Thursdays

I got back from lunch on Thursday afternoon with a new graphic novel, a couple DVD rentals, and a gyros in my hands. I greedily sank my teeth into my lunch mocking Pete as gyros is like crack for him. I'd asked him if he wanted me to grab one for him before I left but he declined thinking that I was joking. Now, I grant you that I did tease him on Wednesday about his gyros addiction even going so far as to send him an e-mail with the subject line of "Result of Pete's Gyros Addiction" and a picture attached which was a screenshot of the dead fat guy from Se7ev. Once I had finished eating, it was near 1:30 and we had a 2:00 meeting at the DOA building. So Pete, Ed, and I shot the bull for a while preparing to head over to DOA. Then my phone rang. Answering, I found it was my manager from my contracting company. He was in the building and asked what room I was in. I told him and he showed up a minute later. Something was up but he wasn't talking. Well, other than saying that he was accompanying us to the 2:00 meeting. I had no idea what was going on. I'd received no e-mails nor any phone messages about anything. Was the state wanting to hire me? I'd heard no criticism of my performance at work. Indeed, all I'd heard was praise. I joked with Ed that I was finally being fired. Little did I know how true this was. Eventually we wander over and my client's manager begins the meeting by introducing my manager from my contracting company. They haggle briefly over who is going to talk. I'm sitting there going "What the fuck is going on?" and look at Ed, then at Pete and finally back to Cheryl, who begins, "I've got some sad news…" She proceeds to say that tomorrow (30 September) was the last day for me and my fellow contractor, Steve. Apparently our resumes and paperwork had not been submitted on time and so we had to be let go. I was stunned. I looked at Cheryl waiting for her to say that it was all a joke but that never happened.

If you don't work at the state of Wisconsin, this might be a bit confusing. Here is the situation, in brief. Our governor, Jimmy Doyle, wants to get rid of the state's deficit so he is consolidating lots resources – services, equipment, and workers. The state created a new vendor list which is a list of companies that are approved to do business with the state. I think the list was finalized in June but did go into effect until today. So managers were able to petition the DOA (Department of Administration) for 3-month extensions in June to forego abiding by the vendor list until 1 October. Steve and I were given such extensions and my contracting company made the vendor list. I received an e-mail in June or July stating the state wanted to keep us through the end of the Fiscal Year, i.e. – June 2006. It couldn't be done in one fell swoop so we had to be given the extension through September. Check. Then another one through the end of the year. Fuck up. I don't know the date of deadline for turning in the paperwork was, but I was told that it had to be submitted by 14:00 on a certain day and it got there a little over and hour later. Ergo, we were given about 24 hours notice that our jobs had ended.

This apparently pissed off a lot of people. Obviously it severely irritated the folks in my unit. Their workloads doubled and time would have to be taken away from testing the new e-mail system (another $$-saving directive from the governor) to attend to more routine chores. I heard that our section chief was infuriated. (A section is the organizational unit above a unit.) It's sad and frustrating for me but I know that it's the life of a contractor. And I don't wanna start with invectives because I really don't know what was miscommunicated by whom or who dropped what ball. At least I'm not unemployed as I report to my contracting company come Monday to either be reassigned to another client or to do benchwork. Steve, on the other hand, was a sub-contractor and is now unemployed. He had taken Friday off to attend a friend's funeral so he in essence was given two and a half hours notice. Cheryl told us that we needn't stay for the duration of the meeting but my contracting company manager said that we'd stick it out. Why, I have no idea. But we did. After the meeting, he, Steve, and I met outside the conference room where he basically reiterated the generalities from the meeting and told me to report to the office on Monday and that I might end up the DNR (Department of Natural Resources). And he told Steve that he'd try to get him another contract.

We said goodbye to my contracting company manager and headed back to our desks. I sat down and looked at the queue to see if any critical problems or outage notices had come our way. And then people streamed into our quad asking me how long I'd known about this. Everyone was shocked about the incredibly short notice that they assumed it had been in the pipe for a while and that Steve and I were told to keep it under wraps. "I found out when you did." Normally people being let go or fired are called into a manager's office and given the news but we found out at the same time and in front of the other two dozen people in our unit. And then we had to sit there for over and hour listening to a spiel about DOA's disaster recovery plan. I went out for a smoky treat and was stopped in the hall by a couple people asking how long I'd known – "I found out about an hour and a half ago." Yesterday was kind of somber. I e-mailed techs at the regional offices who call me directly for help letting them know that I was leaving. I then e-mailed various users in the building who call me for minor things like "How do I do this in Word?" and told them. At a morning section meeting (which I never attended), the news was broken and this is where the section chief got really irate. I spent the day trying to make sure I left as little work behind for my co-workers as I could and had a million people come up to me and say how sorry they were that I was leaving. Ed offered to write a recommendation and Jason said that he'd talk to the managers and the DNR that he knows if I were to interview there. And then Harry, of all people, said that he too would write a letter of recommendation. I was delighted but found it odd as the longest conversation I'd ever had with him since I started there was about 2 minutes. Pete didn't work yesterday but he came in and he and Ed took me out to lunch. Last night I met up with Charles and the Chili Princess for some farewell beers. Gary and Harry showed up later in the night. It was fun as I'd spent time with either of them in a social setting. Harry revealed that, back in June when the six of us contractors were being pared down to two, it was he that made the decision to keep Steve and me. I had no idea that he had anything to do with it or monitored our work or any such thing. It was a nice little revelation.

And so my fate hangs in the air. I was told that my managers are going to try and get me back in there. We'll see.