"Well at least you are paying your bills." - Well Meaning Coworker
Contracting is a weird business. Especially in my current industry. Everyone lives and dies based on funding. This is the land of hurry up and wait, where you can be told that your funding is gone and you need to stop work over night or you can sit for weeks waiting. These situations are also not mutually exclusive.
At the end of 2017 I learned that funding for my position was being eliminated. In fact it was actually never there so I would have a few weeks for my company to find me a new contract. No problem. I do a few interviews, get a few offers and I am back in the game with no break. So that was a fast action, now for a slow one.
I started on my new project but there are several things that need to happen before I can start working. Some things are within my control and others are not. I put in requests for things outside of my control and work on the stuff I CAN do. I finished my tasks in the first few days and so now I am playing the waiting game.
- Week passes
- Weeks pass
- Weeks pass
Full disclosure I had to resubmit one request, which everyone on my team thinks is unusual, that is still pending as we roll into me being on this project for 1 month. For those keeping score that means that I have been unable to do meaningful work for 4 weeks.
Now I am pretty patient guy. I am not prone to losing my temper, even though I have one, however I am reaching my limit. I had to step outside yesterday when one of my co-workers said the aforementioned quote. While I do not disagree with him it was not what I needed to hear at that moment.
It is important to be grateful and to look for the positive in difficult situations, sometimes however, it is best to just say nothing. Sometimes a person might just need to vent. Sometimes venting is the best use of the persons time as it allows them to get their frustrations out so they can move forward.
However, since he wanted me to be grateful and I never want to leave a post on a negative point here are some things I am grateful for:
- Black Panther is ALMOST HERE
- The Baby is trying to crawl
- We have had very little snow so far this winter (#endWintersTyranny)
Be grateful for what you have and stop complaining - it bores everybody else, does you no good, and doesn't solve any problems. - Zig Ziglar
Cover Image Credit: http://gretahillwellness.com