Contract Negotiations / BWE

In which our Hero whines about the protracted inanity of his employment state

Back in May or June, my client expressed an interest in hiring me on as a full-time employee instead of as a contractor. They wanted to emphasize strongly that they saw strategic value in me, so they were very definitely trying to get *me* and not a resource like me. (Which is truthfully how they got me to quit my job and contract for them).

Of course, being the classy folks that they are, they have also expressed that in general the desire to convert contractors is being driven by cost-cutting pressures. And, being those classy folks, we had one official meeting in July, and then dead silence. In September, I got an “update” that they had made a mistake with their paperwork so it wouldn’t be that week.

And now it’s the end of October. This week, the managers are all off at a special series of meetings, so nothing will happen. Next week, I and my managers will be busy with what I can only call a farce, but it will be a time-consuming one, so nothing will happen. Which takes me to November. Two weeks of which the director who’s approval is required will be on vacation.

But aside from the conversation about converting me to a full-time employee, November is also that special time where they renew my contract anyway. Because there’s a 30-day notice on the contract which creates an automatic implied notice 30 days before the end of the contract. And that means that I’m going to be nominally in job-hunting mode by mid-November, before the conversion “dust” has settled.

The irony is that they need me for another six months. I don’t mean they care about me, I’m sure they’re grieve my getting hit by a truck about as long as it took for them to hire another warm body, but I’m good at what I do and I give emotional security to my leadership team as a result. And given the roadmap for next year and beyond, there’s work for me for as long as they care to pay me for it, and there’s equally the political support from my local management so it’s really just a matter of process.

But 6 months to make a job offer? That’s not treating me like a valued employee, that’s treating me like a commodity. And, Gentle Reader, I am most certainly not a commodity. Nor would I elect to become one here.

Nocturne asked me what I wanted. I told her that I wanted another 6 months of status quo, solely because it would give me the maximum flexibility to annoy her. And after that, I’m happy to be done here. Hell, I have been done here for years, and was only available to be hired here because I was unhappy with my employer for not getting me *out* of here.

So one more year here, and then comes a list of contingency plans for me to work through. Right now, though, everything boils down to the next six weeks. After that, a whole lot of unknowns will become knowns.

One more contract. That’s all I need. One more contract.

To make things a little more interesting, let me tell you about the farce that is playing out. Since the middle of last year, I’ve been working on a program that’s been priority number one. It’s a nice change to have that kind of driver because it means that people actually have been responsive, and we get things done.

But in the last few weeks, a new emergency has developed, so now it is priority number one. Which is a problem because it pulls away half of my core team. With the approximate effect of pulling the left wheels off a car before going for a drive. And we’re at the end of the driveway, in this metaphor, about to pull out.

We’re a week or two from getting approval to start actual work on the project. We’ve done the planning, we’ve figure out the design, just pull the trigger and away we go. Pulling the trigger means passing a review process that verifies that our plans are complete and accurate and reasonable. So, the executives have *graciously* said, okay, we won’t pull your people till you complete the approval.

And that’s where I start laughing. We are going to ask for approval of our plan, despite the fact that we know it is wrong. But, it won’t be wrong until we *get* the approval. Heisenberg would approve (Werner, not Walter).

And I just know someone is going to say, we can just park your project for now and pick it up after. And really, I *want* that because it’s more reason for them to want to keep me around a while. But it doesn’t work that way. Right now, everybody has been doing nothing but prepare for this work for months. Idle us and that knowledge fades, and coming back to it has a cost.

It goes back to the misconceptions around project management. Because the executives seem to persist in a dim view of the work:

• It takes 9 months for 1 woman to make 1 baby
• It takes 9 months for 9 women to make 9 babies
• Therefore it takes 1 month for 9 women to make 1 baby
• Or, in this case, wait till 3 months, then abort the baby, and that way when we decide to make a kid next year, it’ll just take 6 months

Fantastic!! They just booked an HOUR to talk about the project schedule for the rest of the year. I’m sorry, my “vacation” plans depend heavily on resolving my employment state.

God, now I remember why I’m so grumpy about work these days.