It started when I got to my desk Tuesday morning. There are eight of us. Well, there were eight of us; when I came in one of them, the newest of us, was not there. A short time later our supervisor called our attention and said that he was ... well, fired because he didn't make production.
That sucks. That makes him the fifth consecutive person who either got cut or left this project. But even though we didn't talk much, like the guy working next to me said, he seemed to be a pretty solid dude. I don't know his numbers, but he wasn't incessantly asking questions, therefore he didn't appear to be struggling. Best of all for me, he was quiet. That's why I liked having him around. But I guess he just didn't do enough.
And that suddenness, that jolt out of complacency that I did not think this company did, is what worries me most of all. After announcing the removal of this poor kid, my boss reiterated the need to hit 300. That immediately set off my friend next to me. He did what the rest of us didn't have the balls to do: He openly questioned this constant pounding of 300 into the backs of our minds. His body language sometimes reveal that he's struggles to reach that, yet he seems to clear 300 with no trouble. Whether any of his claims are good enough not to recheck, well, that's another story. But if what my supervisor said is any indication, we all feel the pressure to just get to 300, and if that means cutting corners or doing shitty work, well, if it saves him from losing his job, I understand why he would do it.
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That meeting set off this tension that hasn't really abated. Adding to that is the workload, namely the lack of it. Even though this guy apparently didn't reach 300, it looked like the rest of us did. By doing so we have been going through packet after packet with some speed. So much so, in fact, that the annoying, mousy girl who asks questions (though to her credit she has asked far fewer questions this week, even though that may be because she's either realized she's being annoying when she asks us questions or she's just as freaked out about not reaching the goal and thinks it's faster just to plow ahead, mistakes be damned) turned to me later this day to ask me how many boxes are left.
You know, I don't know, I told her. And that is a very good question.
My boss convened a meeting a few weeks ago saying that the projected end date for data entry of this project was the end of the year. That is much different than last year, when all the temps were done by Thanksgiving. (Me and this other guy stuck around two or three more weeks.) But this mousy girl and I, along with this nice but loud and talkative dude surmised we had, at most, a dozen boxes left. Later, the girl who's put together said that all remaining packets left to be done were moved from a big records room to the smaller supply room. Oh, she also said she was scared.
Me too. I should never have taken that end-of-year drop-dead date as gospel. I understood that we all had to shift towards punching these consent forms in because they were getting old, and at some point, I think it's 30 days, insurance companies don't have to pay for shots taken so long ago. What I failed to remember from last year is that the clinics where flu shots are given drop off rapidly around mid-October, which is where we are now. We did not have to catch up because the packets were piling up; we had to catch up because the packets we did have were getting old. And it looks like that as soon as we're caught up, we're done.
Or they're done. Or maybe we're all done. Man, all this uncertainty about people being let go and what work is left to do is making me fucking nervous. We're temps, after all; no matter what promises are made, they could fire me for not reaching production, or they could cut all of us after our lunch Friday. I want to trust these guys, but at the end of the day, I have to look out for myself. And that's why I'm kicking myself into lulling myself into this seemingly false belief that me and every one of us we'll be OK until the New Year. Logic dictates that that can't happen. The number of boxes we have left indicate we all should be done -- well, by around Thanksgiving, around the same time as the temps last year.
Man, that would suck if I lost my job a month earlier than I thought I would.
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After work I texted *e**, the host of Monday's party. She has yet to text me back. In fact, I have not had any contact from her since the party. That's not unusual, however I ... you know, I promised I'll blog about it, and I will, so I'll refrain from talking about it here. Let's just say that I think I made her mad after our dance and, despite my apologies through text and voicemail, she seems to be really upset with me. And that makes me really, really sad.
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With my parents being gone soon, I started moving on setting up a time for surgery to get this boil off of my ass. But when the person who was helping me started to drill down to the surgery schedule of the guy who put a device up my asshole, things got very complicated.
First of all, there are not two but four visits that comprise this operation, which, by the way, I forgot was going to be a full-fledged surgery, with sedation and a person needing to take you home and all that. I thought there was one pre-operation meeting and then the surgery. Oh, no-no-no-no-no ... there is another consultation because the one I had, which led to the diagnosis of surgery, took place in the summer, and then there's the pre-op, then there's the day of surgery, and finally there's a post-operation follow-up visit to make sure everything's in its right place. That's a lot of days to miss from working a job that's only hourly. Moreover, there is no time convenient to my schedule; all of them fall smack dab in the morning, right when I'm getting into my work day. I don't want and I cannot afford to miss four full days of work. Things are still very, very tight with me.
But I don't know what to do. After thinking about it, my next recourse is to find another surgeon (hopefully within the same hospital system) who can see me in the late afternoon. Now all I have to do is call around. And if there is no one, I have a choice to make: Either take all those days off for the operation or roll the dice and do when I don't have a job, but my parents are home. I have to try to make the best out of a bad situation.
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The nadir of my night came, as it often does, by a passing comment made by My Fucking Father during dinner. He was packing up the propane ticket they use to cook dinner. While I was eating, and after we had talked for a bit about their cruises, and while he was going outside to retrieve some stuff, My Father noted one task I no longer had to do for them while they were out of town:
"You don't have to go to The Store no more. All done."
I had heard the past couple weeks that they were very close to selling The Store. Despite repeated delays, they were given Tuesday as the day that the contract would be signed and sealed. And I guess it finally came through.
That news broke me inside, but I still had to act like I was interested in eating dinner.
I still don't quite know how to process it. I'll write about it as soon as I can find the words.
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Finally I had to spend even more time helping my parents when I could have used that time to write, or something. This time it wasn't spent on me printing out maps or e-mails sent from my sister. This time Mother wanted help paying off her credit cards -- and she went through five of them, even though she has so many she needs to keep a goddamn book to keep track of all the different usernames and passwords. I spent two hours helping her through that shit, just because Mother wanted to both pay in advance for things that weren't due until the next billing statement, and to figure out which European trip-related expense was charged to each of the cards.
Sometimes I wish she wasn't so fucking needy.
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When she got done I was so tired I wanted to immediately go to bed. But then I had to upload some pictures to Facebook. I did that, but what should have been a 20-minute task took about two fucking hours because our fucking DSL wi-fi was not working this night, just like it hadn't the previous two or three. I know, I know, #firstworldproblems, but it's so fucking frustrating when something you rely on heavily, and something that is for the most part reliable, doesn't work for days. It's barely working as I type this.
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No wonder why I hit the hay by 10. I needed to forget Tuesday.
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