fox: my left eye.  "ceci n'est pas une fox." (Default)
fox ([personal profile] fox) wrote2025-07-17 12:34 pm
Entry tags:

keeping in mind the nearest exit may be behind you

So in the fun time that is my life, remember how this new job fell in my lap around Christmas time and I moved over to it on February 11? And then also remember how a lot of unelected teenagers and crypto bros and so forth did a hatchet job on the entire federal government in the spring? Yeah so my new workplace lost millions of dollars in grants, and three people in areas other than mine have been laid off, and yesterday the big boss sat down with me and said he's just not sure they're going to keep having enough work for me to do, and another month from now when my probationary period is over he might not be able to keep me. This is a heads up, not a genuine notice, because it's conceivable they might find a way for it to work out - for one thing, I'm the only one who does what I do and they don't want to go back to having nobody do it. I proposed a couple of solutions, one being to bill most or all of my work to overhead rather than making people put me in as a line item in their project budgets as they're doing now, because the latter has them (a) putting me down for as little work as they can as they're suuuper carefully husbanding their resources and (b) not giving me work until the very end of their process, so I'm sitting around waiting a lot of the time, whereas if I were overhead I could work with people collaboratively and iteratively and not burn up their budgets, so I'd be busier and the products I work on would be better. (Seems like a slam dunk to me, but the overhead money has to come from somewhere, I guess, so maybe that's not as much of a solution as I think.) Another is to bust me back to 60%, which would free up two days a week and still pay more than I was making at my old job.

My old job, by the way, was not allowed to backfill my position - they made someone an offer, which she accepted, and then they had to pull it, and also cut a part-timer and one of two people in the other role they had two of, so they're down to bare bones and no matter what happens to or with this job I can't go back.

So that bites! I had a little cry about it and then activated the bat-signal (emailed my former grandboss and other references), updated my resume, googled some shit, and today I have applied for one (1) job. It's easier to get into a lifeboat from the deck of the ship than from the sea. Maybe I'll aim to apply for one job a week as long as I still have this one and bump it up if it gets where I need to. Also updated my LinkedIn, which I haven't actually even looked at in many many years, but I guess people are still using it?

UGH.

watersword: Keira Knightley, in Pride and Prejudice (2007), turning her head away from the viewer, the word "elizabeth" written near (Default)

[personal profile] watersword 2025-07-17 04:57 pm (UTC)(link)

MANY UGH.

kass: Siberian cat on a cat tree with one paw dangling (Default)

[personal profile] kass 2025-07-17 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Auuuuuuuuuugh.
princessofgeeks: (Default)

[personal profile] princessofgeeks 2025-07-17 07:39 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm so sorry!
meara: (Default)

[personal profile] meara 2025-07-18 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
Very ugh. Though 60% and still making more than before sounds pretty sweet if it’s possible!
musesfool: only if you promise to punch a guy into the ocean and say at the buffet water is on the house (at the chinese buffet)

[personal profile] musesfool 2025-07-18 12:22 am (UTC)(link)
Ugh! I hope it works out in your favor!