Monday there was seven of us. We lost two of them at the end of the day. One was the mousy idiot who somehow landed a job. (Actually, she might be the smart one; I think she knew early on that she would be gone this early, so she had interviews lined up, and apparently she got a new job. Good for her.) The other is my friend, the guy who sat next to me and was constantly swearing and slamming things at his desk. He did not have a job lined up; they just cut him loose.
I'll be honest: With the work finally winding down, there was enough work for only five people. And my bosses cut the two that have consistently done the worst. No offense to either, especially my friend, but they did the right thing.
The cuts keep on coming; two more lost their jobs today (Friday). They have been very good at their jobs; it's just that me and the two others with whom I started this project with, had priority. One of them, she came over on the second wave of hires, alongside the mousy idiot; the other, he came onboard in the third wave. Both of them have been scanning the whole week because there is nothing left to key. They actually were scheduled to be let go Wednesday, but there has been enough to scan that they have been kept on the whole week, even though I don't know if there's enough work for them the entire day.
So then there was just three. And to be honest, I don't think I should feel comfortable about surviving the others. First of all, I've been told that we could stick around till January or even February -- as long as it takes to get the job done -- but with the work that's left to do and the pace at which we go through the work that we have, I don't know if we'll even get that far. New Year's might be a more realistic bet. I remember being let go last year two weeks into December; that might be even more logical. Hell, I might get let go tomorrow.
Second of all, while not saying that my direct supervisor is a liar, I don't know if I can believe him when it comes to telling us how long our employment is. When all seven of us had a meeting with him, he stated that they'll be kept on till the end of the year. Well, for four of them at least, that turned out not to be true. (My friend, my soccer-loving friend, was told by our temp liaison that the job lasts through the middle of the month. Shit, he didn't even get that far. Not only was the company lying, the temp agency was, too!)
Third of all, I'm starting to get the feeling that not all three of us will stay to the bitter end of the project. If the work dwindles to nothing, the person who stays probably is the one that has been the most productive. And I've got to hand it to her, but she's been on top of things from the get-go, even moreso than I. Should have known the first time my boss and boss's boss asked her a question while I was just typing away listening to my satellite radio that she would usurp my position as the one with the most job security. In their eyes, I am much more expendable than she is.
That fear of being passed over and thus let go comes somewhat into conflict with my fear of running out of work and thus being let go, and so I kind of don't know what to do to balance having stuff I can work on along with being seen as productive. I don't want to be such a busy bee that I run out of work -- "Hey, you're great! Thanks for your hard work! Maybe we'll see you next year!" -- but at the same time I don't want to tease out the folders to the point where my supervisors start to wonder if I'm not as good as they thought I was -- "Um, I think she can take care of this. Maybe we'll see you next year."
So I've got a couple boxes of stuff I can work on. Could I plow through them all? Yes. Is it possible that my bosses want me to work that fast? Yes -- and that's why I'm kind of dragging my feet a little bit. It's not as if I'm making up stuff to do. There are corrections that have to be made, stuff like making sure it's being billed to the right company, or ... um ... adding the middle initial. Actually today I was working slow for a very good reason: My friend forgot to add the right backstopper for the consent forms, and I think that's important, so I took the time going through each claim form and adding it on. At the end of doing that I even thought it was a waste of time.
As long as no one comes down on me, I think that's the way to go: Slow but steady. Now I'm just afraid that my co-worker will swoop in and start "helping" with those packets, thus cutting down on all the stuff I could do, say, well into January, and thus greasing the chute on which I'm ushered out of this company and back onto the unemployment line.
Better start talking to my temp agencies again.
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