And, Back in the Real World…

I’m still not sure about the new job. I mean, I know I love getting a decent professional salary (for Florida) and the benefits are outstanding, and all I have to do is stick it out for roughly another two and a half years until I can get full Social Security. But the work is…not fun. I’m doing it, I understand it, I can do it, it’s okay, but I don’t like it. And I don’t enjoy the new people as much as I did the old people.

The stress level is the same, the difference is the laughter and swearing about it. These people are just so earnestly polite, nobody ever complains, it’s just weird. After nearly three months, I still feel like I don’t fit in.

I am cautious about discussing my exact job or where I work for I hope obvious reasons, the internet being what it is, so you’ll have to forgive my vague description of what happened on Friday afternoon.

My boss texted me and asked if I was available to talk, at 2 on a Friday.

My instinct was “Ruh-roh!” This cannot be good. I was prepared to be told that it wasn’t working out, I wasn’t what she thought I’d be, and buh-bye. It wasn’t that.

So: THREE months after I left my former position, they still haven’t found anybody to fill the position. People who are covering it are losing their minds, because it takes the ability to absorb a lot of trivia about local and state government and carry details in your head and have a sense of humor and it helps if you drink. (At least, a medicinal quantity of wine at the end of the work day had helped me.)

And they’ve advertised and interviewed and can’t find anybody qualified to do it. (Because it’s a contractor position and upper management can’t get it into their heads that it needs to be a decently paid employee role.)

My former supervisor in that empty position, where I was an underpaid contractor, reached out to my current boss and asked if they could borrow me back half time. Insert necessary vagueness here, but it’s a serious situation and a corporate necessity and can she please come back and help us?

I of course said I was fine with that. As I told my current boss, I’m here for a paycheck and I’ll do whatever is needed wherever I’m needed. (That I’m fucking counting the days until I can retire was implied, and she got it.)

So now I’m officially employed by the company in one position, but on half time open ended assignment to my old role.

We’ll see how it works out in practice, but I’m hoping that the fact that they had to “borrow me back” to do it will convince upper management that maybe it should be an employee position? I’d be happy to go back to it, and if it’s an employee role it’d be a lot easier to fill with a qualified person when I retire, because I’m still counting down to retirement.

Life continues to be weird.