Easy Come, Easy Go

Edit from the future:  This has been in my drafts for moths and I decide to just publish it as is.  It's too painful to try and proofread and see if I omitted anything of importance.  


A few Mondays back, I alluded to "some other news to share this week."  I am was employed again!  Alas, it didn't last and while I wrote up a draft about the adventure before my contract ended, I'm gonna whittle it done to the essentials.

It got off to a rough start because this hire didn't happen in the linear way most jobs do.  

I saw an ad for a help desk position in my industry.  I am hilariously overqualified for that position, but it was part-time nights covering the Pacific Coast Time Zone.  I figured they might give me a chance and whatever the pay scale, it would help pay for that bathroom remodel.  

My short-lived New Office

Instead, the recruiter at the consulting company (which I have interviewed with on two separate occasions since separation from Big Audit) reached out on Sept 18th about a position that is a little more within my wheelhouse.

It's a remote position, a W2 contract for at least 3 weeks, possibly longer. "This is a medical family matter, taking my senior person out of town to help with care. The situation is still developing, and it's difficult to determine the exact timeframe."

at face value, a 3 week gig at the standard rate would have knocked off about 25% of the bathroom remodel cost so I was open.  We talked on the 19th and I honestly cannot remember the exact details, but I told her my standard availability for interviews is 9-12 CST M-F with a day's notice.  I do this because, since most go nowhere, it's a waste of a shower and shave for an interview in the middle of the day.

She called back a bit later and said they would like to speak to me in 20 minutes.  I'm like, NO.  Then her boss BRAD called and said I was overthinking it, just have a conversation with their client.

I honestly cannot remember a thing from that call other than it was very pleasant and the client said he liked what he heard.  In fact, he mentioned that there was a permanent position and that the contract could lead to it.  The consulting agency immediately jumped in to protect their finder's fee and we left it at Boss and Client would work out specifics.

This seemed like a good situation.  Short term I can earn money to pay off bathroom renovation.  Long term this would be a path back to Chicago because they have an office there and I would have to move to a state they had an office for those good old tax compliance issues.

Unfortunately, what was supposed to be an immediate hire got delayed because Consulting Agency is very fly-by-night and they use a terrible background checking service.  It also took client a long  time to send me equipment and instead of a laptop (like everyone else sends) they sent me 2 sweet monitors, two sets of keyboards and mouses, and a very small desktop.  

I'm not sure what exactly happened.  I was onboarded by Consulting Agency but they wouldn't pay me for that time (realistically about 2 hours of my time).  Then they only wanted me to bill for the time I actually had something to do with the client, which was an average of 2 hours per day.  I objected and said my time is valuable and if I'm tethered to a computer, I deserve compensation for that.

Last Tuesday BRAD wanted to have a Teams meeting.  Here-to-fore, all our conversations were simply on the phone.  I asked if I should be concerned and he said "I do all calls on Teams, I like to see people".  Glaring Red Flag that I missed.  We had trouble connecting but once we did, he mentioned that he looked at my timesheets that I had saved but didn't submit and asked if I now had work.  I said there was still idle time but it had improved.

He said something about getting in front of something to course correct but he didn't elaborate.  I told him that the people I was working with are aware that I had idle time and were okay with my charging my time although obviously it was a Client decision so I told him to see if Big Client was okay with it.

That night I had sent a LinkedIn connection request to the people I'm working with.  The person who was out on Medical Leave accepted.  

Next day I get a call from Consulting Agency that Client reached out and said that things weren't working out for them so they were terminating my contract.  

The person who accepted my LinkedIn connection apparently has severed it.

And what sucks is I have to put this on my resume and LinkedIn profile to show that I have been hireable, yet at the same time I have to explain it IF I get an interview.

Because we live in a world where people are supposed to work from almost Cradle to Grave.  Gaps in your resume signal to employers that you are either a problem employee or, worse, that you don't actually need a job.  Employers hate an employee who could just walk away from a job.