When The Smoke Clears

My company hired me to do...... What? No one can answer that anymore. I thought they hired me to become a contractor. I thought they liked that I had experience running an office in the Navy, so I could help get the new branch office up and running while learning the ropes of the contracting world. But I have yet to see any kind of contracting work in the six months that I have been working here. I have been under the impression that this has been due to the fact that there has not been any contract work for me to do. The contract that I was supposed to become a team member of has been in a budget head-lock for the entire six months I've been here. So I've turned into something less than a secretary. A business degree from a top five school, three years work experience, and I make travel arrangements and email my friends all day to fill in the time gaps.

Then, a week and a half ago, a contract was brought to my attention and I could hear the angels singing. It had my name written all over it - database management. A huge chunk of my degree in college was dedicated to database management. If there is a person at my company who is anywhere close to a subject matter expert in this field that can get my company into this arena to compete, it's me. I may not have the work experience, but I have the knowledge. But I was not even considered for this team. So I emailed my boss and asked why, and promptly told him that my degree gave me a hell of a lot more knowledge and skill than anyone who learned Microsoft Access by "fooling around with it" on their home computer. He immediately put me on the team and we put in the bid. We've been waiting for the last week and a half to find out whether or not we were going to win this contract. This is fast in the contracting world, but the client wanted to get it in before the fiscal year ended. I had a great feeling about this. I knew this was going to work out. I have my resume together to send to other companies, because I can't sit around here anymore and do nothing. But I haven't sent it out, because I knew this was going to work out. This was my chance to do real work - work that I love to do. Programming. My gut was telling me that we were going to win this contract, and I was going to be the go-to person and prove to the people in San Diego that I am not a secretary.

I think the only thing my gut was telling me was that I must have had indigestion. We didn't win the contract. In fact, the entire contract was pulled for budgetary reasons. So I have no work to do. I'm writing this blog while I'm at work. In fact, I write all of my blogs while I'm at work. So when I finish this, I'm going to finish updating my cover letter to go with my resume and send it out. I like the people I've met at this company, but I like my sanity better, and right now, the latter is in question.