Still and all, it's temporary, and I can't forget that for much longer. I meant to ramp up into a sort of permanent networking and skill-building life after Burning Man, but I didn't go to Burning Man, and here it is mid-September and I'm not doing that yet. My life and its demands, not to mention my active imagination and relentless curiosity, make it really easy to let time pass taking care of things or ideas that have nothing to do with my job. Also, it's really hard to envision "networking and skill-building." What the hell is that anyway? Whatever I make it, you might say, but other than cold-calling people in mid-level positions and creating side-projects to develop skills I might never need, I don't really know.
Oh, the skill of cold-call networking. I guess I'll always need that.
Well, anyway. My hope is that they will decide to take one of us on as permanent once the new year is under way, and that that person will be me. It's a nice hope, but.
* * *
I finally met WB the other day. WB is a Burner and a highly-thought of host for what I guess you'd call sex parties. Evidently he's quit that, but his parties were epic. He had a big house and would hire caterers and invite the right people and so on. I heard about him in connection with people who hold to the high standards he always met. He came over to help with an art project and we wound up in a poolside conversation. We turned out to have a lot in common.
Like me, he got his engineering degree later in life (i.e. not in his early twenties). Unlike me, he rose quickly in the corporate world and got bored with management and designed a new gizmo and started his own company and ran that successfully for twenty years. He sold it recently and is apparently well fixed. The car he came over with suggests as much. I think it was an Audi R4 but that seems to be some sort of high-falutin' concept sports car and, well, I dunno, could be. It looked a lot like the racier ones at the link. We shared similar interests both technically and out in the world, lots of shared friends, etc.
In our conversation, he made a point that I already sort of knew but that was much more clear coming from him. There are no temporary jobs. When they call it a temporary job, what it really is is an extended interview. He's absolutely right about that. They hired us as temps because the justification was in a heavy work cycle that needs more heads to work through. But they also have an attrition problem with their contractors, and an issue (we have recently figured out) with their contracted workers lacking sufficient depth in design experience. So I imagine the managerial conversation has been, let's take on some of these guys who were just let go, train them up, see who floats to the top, and hire him permanently at the new year.
This gives me a clear set of tasks. Learn this job really well, dive into the programming aspect (an advantage I can have over my temp peers), cultivate a high-level perspective, and speak up smartly to that in meetings.
Indeed, with the hiring manager away on vacation, now would be the time for me to add to my stated job some of the thought-work he was doing. I can readily imagine him coming back after two weeks to confer with the project manager about how the team did in his absence. A word or two that Don really stepped up would probably be key to me feeling as though I will still be employed next year.
* * *
H'rumph. Yes, I am using this forum and the fact of a known audience to process my situation. I'm not adding in all the other many factors in my life that make this project seem difficult. It has been observed, probably correctly, that this here blog is used for what amounts to a lot of whining. Suffice it to say I'm thinking out loud, and appreciating new friends ... and I really would like to tell stories about what else is filling my interesting life, but I can only make time for that (and this) by stealing it from work, and I just described why that's not a good idea.
That, of course, will never really stop me. One must always strive for balance!
3 comments:
Extended interview. Yes. My stint on the East Coast last fall was one. It got me this position, which I adore having.
One of my team is a knowledgeable network engineer (system level, not IT, and no real hands on experience) who we hired on a contract basis. That makes him unhappy.
But he's not stepping up. He's doing the bare minimum, in part because he's got that attitude that he should have been hired direct, with higher salary.
His extended interview isn't going so well.
Trouble is, I know him personally. I went out on a coffee date with him four years ago. He runs the local poly meetup. So when I have to fire him, is probably not going to go well.
Extended interview. Yes. My stint on the East Coast last fall was one. It got me this position, which I adore having.
One of my team is a knowledgeable network engineer (system level, not IT, and no real hands on experience) who we hired on a contract basis. That makes him unhappy.
But he's not stepping up. He's doing the bare minimum, in part because he's got that attitude that he should have been hired direct, with higher salary.
His extended interview isn't going so well.
Trouble is, I know him personally. I went out on a coffee date with him four years ago. He runs the local poly meetup. So when I have to fire him, is probably not going to go well.
I would be so sad to get fired by N!
I know nothing about the whole job interviewing thingie. I was lucky to get my job back when there was a bit of a glut and I had skillz they needed. I'm lucky to have kept it. It's a good fit all around and hopefully will keep going until retirement. If I had to look for a new one, idk what.
You sound like you've got a good handle on the situation, Don.
Party dood sounds like he would have some great stories. :)
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