BerthaBlog

Since January, there has been less and less work to do. I’ve seen my fellow contractors disappear one by one. So I suspected my contract might be ended soon, and I’ve been sending out resumes in preparation. I had hoped the contract might become a permanent position, but “hope for the best, prepare for the worst” as Ms. Anjelou said.

A week ago Thursday, I got the word—my contract was up. The recruiting agency’s on-site manager called me down to her office, had me sign the paperwork, and followed me back up to collect the company laptop. One bonus: I was only there for a few hours but got credit for a full eight-hour day.

This week I had two interviews with other companies, and they both seem pretty interested. So I’m not too worried yet.

I also came down with a monster cold on Tuesday, so those interviews were about the only thing I did this week. Man, I hate being sick.

When we all moved in to the new building, some of us contractors didn’t get assigned offices. Fair enough, we’re technically not employees. I’ve been working with the A/R team with another lady since shortly after we all started; for the first week, the two of us were working in a conference room. Needless to say this wasn’t ideal, sometimes the conference room was needed for actual conferencing, and we had to go sit in the break room or something.

The second week, all the regular employees had settled in to their offices and we started prowling the halls looking for unused space. We found an empty office and moved in. It’s near the rest of the contractor team, and has a nice big window. We let everyone know we were in there. Nobody ever came around saying it was their office, so we set up with our photos and calendars and other homey touches.

Monday morning, someone from facilities came by. He poked his head in, looked surprised, and said “Oh, my list said this office was empty.”

“Nope, we’re in here,” said my office mate.

He went away again without further objections. I have the idea that somewhere there’s a master facilities list that just got updated, and our office is now officially occupied.