Thoughts of a Working Man

It's one of those mornings where I'm dopey tired. I'm not physically tired, but I sure don't feel alert and ready to tackle the world. I feel more like going back to bed, which is odd since I got at least 8 hours of sleep last night, and I sleep with a CPAP machine because I have sleep apnea. I guess that just goes to show that technology is wonderful but hardly perfect. It's a quiet week in the office, as you can well imagine. A good number of the people who work here are off for the holidays. They'll come draggin' themselves in here next Tuesday complaining about all of the emails that have piled up in their absence and wishing they were still off work. That seems to be how we human beings operate. We spend the majority of our waking hours 'at work' doing what we have to in order to be able to live as close as possible to the standard we want to the rest of the time. And we worry, rightly, about what will happen unexpectedly to end all that. The Christmas--I'm sorry--the Holiday decorations are still up. I expect they'll come down next week, too. It's a wonder season, this holiday season. It's a time of the year when we're nicer to each other than we normally are. Not that we're bad to each other the rest of the time, but this time of year we buy each other presents and even say hello to strangers in the spirit of the season. We recognize the people in our lives with little gifts and big ones. Sure, some people stress out over the holidays, but by and large we're pretty darn nice to each other. Too bad the season is so short. Not much poppin' on the job front at the moment, either. I expect that will pick up after the first of the year, though I may be out of work for a month or two. Frankly, though my wife cares, I do not. We have savings we can use; everything can't be saved till it's too late to spend anything. Another contract will rear its ugly head in the first quarter, and I'll take it, and I'll wish I wasn't tied to a work schedule and doing things I wish I wasn't doing for money I need. It's not a whole lot different from prostitution except the hours are better, the working conditions at least marginally cleaner and safer, and the clients are not so guilty about what they're doing. Still, somebody's gettin' screwed. It's a living.

Yeah, I'm on the market again. What a pain in the ass. (Obviously, I'm not using this blog to beg for work, eh?) Twenty months ago, I lost my full time job as Lead Technical Writer and Intranet Web Administrator at a financial services company. They decided that they needed to reduce their IT staff by 20%. In doing so, they decided they no longer needed the documentation function at all. Three of us were let go as part of that reduction. As far as I know, the functions we were performing have been dormant there ever since. Since then I've worked two different places on consulting contracts. What I've learned is that I'm a luxury commodity in the local workplace. I have a lot of skills that are prized, but only if they have the luxury or pressing need to bring me in for a short period of time to fill that need. So I come in, fill the need, and give the employer, by their own admissions, more than they expected. But when the money runs out or the project is finished, they don't feel the need to keep me around. I have absolute confidence that I can get another job just like the last two. I'm not sure that's what I want. Aside from the money, which is useful, I am not happy being places where I'm not valued or prized. Frankly, I'd rather work from home. Both of these jobs could have been done primarily off-site, especially after the initial relationships were established. And I'm beginning to prize my freedom more even than money. Technically, all I need is access to a client's servers to be able to do my work. Access to their people can prove useful, but often I'm left to figure out things for myself. I'm tired of dragging myself into offices, as no small expense in parking and travel, so that I can be 'watched' to ensure I'm not ripping off the organization, particularly when the so-called permanent staff are routinely doing much less than they could do or than their managers wish they would do. I'm tired of being the guy folks bring in when they want a job done and then let go so the rest of them can continue their lazy socializing ways. I'm particularly tired of managers who constantly voice concerns that I'm ripping them off when they ignore the dozens of people in their own organization who are nowhere near as productive as I am and whose behavior they condone. Even when I take the time to write this entry, it is because a key network process is down and nobody can work. The others are gossiping among themselves. I joined in for a bit, but it got old. I'm just waiting to get back to work.

I just found out that I'll be leaving my current situation at the end of January 2006. Funny, I thought I would be here at least until the end of their fiscal year in June, but there are no guarantees for contract employees. We're the fill-ins of the modern white collar work force. We're more than good enough for whatever tasks we're given, but we're not desirable enough to keep around permanently. I know, I know, there are lots of business reasons why we "consultants" exist, and why we can't find a permanent home with any employer. In my case, I have skills that are in demand on demand, but these same skills are considered a business luxury. They aren't perceived as contributing to the organization's bottom line on an on-going basis. So people like me come into organizations and are given tasks as simple as documenting systems to as complex as designing multimedia training presentations and managing online libraries, which we often have to create. But once we're done the hard work, it is determined that either it is too costly to maintain or too simple to maintain and doesn't require a fulltime body. And we're then off to the next assignment, when we can find it. But knowing all of the business reasons and ramifications completely leaves out the personal circumstances. Every time my contract is terminated, it feels like a defeat to me. It feels like a rejection. I feel "not good enough" for permanent employment. I feel not desirable enough to find a place for my in your organization. I feel less like a person than a disposable resource, like printer paper or hanging folders or writeable CD's. Any fool can write, they say. Bob Knight, the well known basketball coach is reputed to have said that he learned to write in the third grade and then he moved on to harder things. He was deliberately insulting sportswriters at the moment, but he also captured the feelings of a lot of business managers. They write memos. They expect their people to write documentation of what they do. And they think that either makes up for what I do or does it well enough for their absolute minimum needs. I suppose I should just get back into code-pushing if I want a more stable life. I suppose I'm an idiot for wanting to do work that satisfied me as much as it contributes to the institutional bottom line. I suppose I'm a fool for wanting job satisfaction.