Bummed
3/29/26 This past Friday was my last day working at a good job. I'd been there for nearly 14 months and I really liked it there. My contract didn't get renewed but I know work will be picking up again.
When I started I had no real role outside of helping my coworkers when needed. At first I was just an extra set of hands when needed but then I started some assembly, even though I had no idea what I was building. There were big white steel boxes with several components inside. I stayed over several afternoons and got to know the lead well. He liked me and gave me more responsibility.
In between all of that there were times where I had to build a storage rack, unload a truck in the parking lot or move huge equipment from one part of the building to another. Usually I was working with someone, which made it fun. One of my coworkers I'll call "N" was an easy guy to work with. He was quite a bit younger than me but we usually had something to talk about.
I learned how to do purchasing for our department. Mostly tools and parts we needed for builds. One of my proudest achievements came when my boss needed a certain type of breaker. Our usual suppliers were all looking at three weeks to get one to us. I got on the internet and found a company on the east coast who could have one to us with in a week. Yeah I paid a bit more for it but we got it when my boss wanted it.
As the year progressed and that build ended there were two that were starting up. I was actually on a dedicated build from last August until just as couple of weeks ago. There were two of us and we assembled connectors and housings around large cables. We were the B build. The C build was going to be done at another facility. All of our builds were sent to different groups and locations for abuse and extreme condition testing in climate controlled chambers and real world weather conditions. We sometimes had failures but for the most part things worked like they were designed to.
The engineers made improvements on the parts that wouldn't pass tests and new versions were designed and built. The second build required a bit less prep time and went together better.
I knew from the very beginning that my contract would eventually end. I started writing things down to describe what I did. In January a woman I would pick up from or bring things to asked if I was permanent yet. I said I wasn't. She said to apply for a job that was posted and that would get me into their system. The job that was posted was looking for a more senior role and involved things I didn't know how to do. I did talk to her supervisor and he said the req had been created just not approved yet. He had my resume and contact information so in case my contract ended he'd still be able to get a hold of me. After January my contract was scheduled to end on February 28th. The project manager on the cables said the build would require another month so I got extended to March 28th. We finished our build a couple of weeks ago and focused on shipping the parts to where the C build would be done. N was out sick for a week so I had to step in and take over some of his jobs. I had done these things before but it had been a while so I was a little rusty but I got it done. Last Monday I asked my boss if my contract was going to be extended. He said he'd get back to me. During the week I'd been talking to other people and managers in other departments and dropping off resumes left and right in effort to get hired permanent. My boss got back to me Thursday and said they weren't going to renew my contract. He did say that one of the departments he oversees has my resume and there would be an interview coming. The manager from that department is one of his friends and my boss gave him a glowing review. On my way home I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. They left a voicemail and it was a recruiter for the company I worked for. When I got home I called them back. That manager who is my old boss' friend forwarded my resume to them and he was ready to schedule an interview. I filed out the application for the job on my phone and he scheduled the interview for this coming Tuesday at 10am. He said the interview would take about three hours and I would be before a panel. At first I thought of people in suits firing questions off and me struggling to answer them. When I got the email from the recruiter most of the panel was from people I knew at the company so maybe it won't be as intense. The role I'm applying for is a technician. I don't have a technical background and everything I learned was from helping actual technicians. My concern is that I really don't know the basics but if this department is as nurturing as my old one was then I might be ok. If I don't get this job I might go back to working in construction again. Either way I have enough savings to live on for a few months.