Day Job Implosion, part MOTHERFUCKING 3
I thought it was over, guys. I really did.
In March, I was contacted by a staffing/temp agency I'll call SpiffTek, looking to fill a position for company I'll call Sideline. The position was only a six-month project, and a mediocre match for me, at best. But I was still interested.
You see, by this time, I'd determined that I was motherfucking sick of the defense industry, and as a consequence, motherfucking sick of AquVille. I realized that if I stayed in AquVille, my life would just be one missile system after another, with 6-month or longer stretches of unemployment every time the DoD decided to play musical contracts. That’s not what I want my life to be. It was time to move on, and that six months would be just what I needed to get things wrapped up here.
As a bonus, the project was on the sidelines of the space program and located on AquVille's NASA facility. The possibility of working for NASA has been what made me choose AquVille over the other options, way back when, so this sort of meant I could leave with no regrets. Also, there’s a Saturn I rocket across the street from my office.
But even though it's not missiles, it is still government contracting, and as I soon found out, has all the irritating bullshit to go with it.
First day on the job finally comes. It had been delayed a week, because they had to order me a laptop. It still wasn't there when I got there, either. The head guy gives me the spiel about the food trucks and the badges and the spider traps (SPIDER TRAPS!). I go fill out all the online forms and badge requests and whatnot on my tablet. Wheels of bureaucracy turn. System and network accesses are granted. My laptop finally arrives. I finally trade my temp badge for a permanent one that can actually open the office door. Everything seems to be settling down for an easy, if slightly boring, contract.
Not even a month in, a guy comes around to all our cubicles, handing out a flyer for a meet-and-greet. 'Meet our new RockeTech overlords', he jokes. Huh? RockeTech? Wasn't this project for Sideline?
Confused, I ask some of my coworkers what's going on. It turns out that RockeTech will be taking over the contract from Sideline at the end of June. This is not news that makes me happy. Companies play musical contracts all the time in this industry, and there are always casualties. And a temp who's only been there a month? Yeah, I'm cannon fodder again.
The meet-and-greet only slightly allays my suspicions. It seems reasonably well-organized, and they claim to have enough budget to keep everyone. They just need to figure out where to put us all, and determine which of their menagerie of subcontractors will get who. They claim there won't be any real change to the day-to-day operations. We'll all be doing the same work in the same spider-infested office, just with a different company name on our badge. Looks fine on the surface, but... fuck that, I've been through this song and dance before, and I'll believe that shit when I see it.
And, more infuriatingly, Sideline knew this was coming. According to coworkers, this had been in the works since January and had already been delayed at least once. SpiffTek had not mentioned this at all! My recruiter there had told me it was a six-month project, nothing else. Why hadn't they told me about this? I feel like I was lied to.
The SpiffTek recruiter organizes a lunch meeting with all the SpiffTek people on the project. I go, fully ready to give the guy a piece of my mind. But when I get there, he's trying to pump us for information. SpiffTek was just as much in the dark as us! Sideline hadn't told them a thing! This does not change, either. Over the next couple of weeks, they contact me and the other temps on a regular basis, looking for information on what's going on, and despite RockeTech’s promises to keep everyone informed, we have nothing new to tell them.
After a couple of weeks, people start getting called in for interviews. Some with RockeTech itself, some with subcontractors. There seems to be no rhyme or reason behind who get assigned to which company. We speculate it was just done with dice rolls, because it certainly wasn't by skillset, work or hire date. Another SpiffTek temp, who was hired the same day as me and does mostly the same work, got called in by RockeTech itself, while I ended up with a subcontractor I'd never heard of (and I thought I'd interviewed with all the defense contractors in the city, by now!). The interview itself was just a formality, apparently. They just wanted to know what I did on the project and how much they'd have to pay me. The fact that I'd been there a month and had only just gotten all the necessary network access less than a week before meant I didn't have much to say. I do mention that the job isn't the best fit for my skills and that I'd rather be doing development. They say they'll look into it. I don't put any weight in that.
After the interviews are all done, the offers start coming in. And here is where it becomes apparent that RockeTech's primary criteria for picking its subcontractors was how many "woman-/minority-/veteran-/disabled-owned, etc." boxes they could check off.
Yes, apparently government contracts sometimes give bonus points for this. I'd wondered why some contractors made a point of mentioning they were woman-owned, or what have you, since employees are more likely to care about how much they'll pay them and whether or not the office is infested with spiders than who owns the company, and now I know why.
But that's not the point. The point is that the quality of the offers varied bizarrely widely. The offers from RockeTech itself were decently good, and the one I got from my sub was rather average, but offers from one sub in particular (who I think checked off three of the boxes) were so shit-tastic that people were quitting the project early rather than take them.
And what really makes me shake my head is that this contract transition is, according to coworkers, better-organized that the last one! I heard horror stories about how the previous lead company had simply swooped in an started rearranging things, without telling anyone what or why. People were laid off seemingly at random, or given intentionally crappy offers to get them to quit.
But at least I still have a job, so this doesn't really count as an implosion, yet. In fact, the sub made good on their word and started shopping me around for more development-y positions. A week of so after my offer came in, I get an email from another RockeTech recruiter about a position on the same project. I think it's a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, and tell them I'm already on their radar. But then I get an email from my sub, saying "No really, you should answer this guy". It was, in fact, the right hand not knowing what the left was doing, just not the way I'd thought. The poor guy had gotten my resume from three different sources- an internal recruiter, the sub, and an external staffing firm. I interview for this, and it looks interesting. I'm still waiting to hear back.
I didn't title this story Day Job Implosion for nothing, though. The next week- on my birthday, of all days- I get an email from the sub, saying that RockeTech is not keeping my position, and they're rescinding their offer. This doesn't surprise me. I already figured I was cannon fodder, and the scuttlebutt I'd heard at the previous interview was that this project had massively overhired. I still don't know if this affects the job I just interviewed for, though.
I immediately call SpiffTek, and they're as surprised as I was. The recruiter wants to know if it's just me or the other temps, too, but I don't know (and still don't). Neither my tech lead at Sideline, nor the woman acting as my manager were informed of this, either, until I told them. At the meet-and-greet, the person in charge of organizing the transition had emphasized that they were all about communication and keeping people informed. I guess they have a different definition of this than I do.
So SpiffTek starts looking for another assignment for me. It turns out, they have one. Who is it with?
Missiles-R-Us.
By what may or may not be coincidence, I am contacted by a Missiles-R-Us recruiter- while I'm on the phone with my SpiffTek one. The SpiffTek recruiter says it's not the same project. I don't remember applying for anything at Missile-R-Us recently, but they move at such a glacial pace that they could be responding to something I sent in last winter. Coincidence or not, I have an interview on Monday.
Why even consider going back to Missiles-R-Us? Two reasons: 1. Money, 2. I no longer give a shit. For all their other faults, they did pay well. I am still planning to leave AquVille, but they don't need to know that. There's something weirdly poetic about the company that was the final nail in the coffin financing my escape. Yes, it is unprofessional to take a job knowing you may only keep it a few months, but... see #2 up there. I guess I'm having an Arrogant Git moment.
Hey, speaking of…
In order to submit me for the Missiles-R-Us position, the SpiffTek recruiter wanted references that can verify my technical expertise, especially in regards to missile programs. I gave him the phone numbers of my managers at Missiles-R-Us and the project I worked before that, as well as my contact at ConsultCo.
He told me later that he actually did call ConsultCo, but since he was specifically looking for info on my technical expertise, my contact there pointed him at the project's "tech lead". I hoped he meant the project lead, but no- he meant Arrogant Git!
I quickly told the recruiter that contacting him wasn't the best idea, as we hadn't parted on the best of terms. To my surprise, he agreed. Apparently, SpiffTek had tried to work with Arrogant Git at some time in the past, but it hadn't worked out, and there were still notes in their system regarding his "attitude" and "professionalism". That did not surprise me a bit. Alas, he did not tell me just how it didn't work out or what the notes were. I admit I'm curious now.
I actually wanted to work in this industry, at one point. If I could go back in time, I'd kick younger me in the shins so hard.