"It's a Job"

That's what I told Ben Monday evening when he asked how my first day at the new place went.

It's probably too early to make a definitive judgment, but I can say that after four days, while I haven't gotten any major heebie jeebies to send me screaming into the night, I haven't exactly gotten any warm fuzzies either. It's not kismet, but it is a paycheck.

I guess some of my…disappointment?…comes from the fact I'm just not seeing any passion arise—either in myself or in any of my coworkers. Feeling that spark ignite again within me was something I was sorely hoping for, and it just ain't happening.

I'm almost starting to believe that what I need isn't just a change in jobs, but rather a change in careers.

There are twelve other people in the department, but the only person I've really bonded with is one of the two other contractors. We quickly discovered that not only had we both interviewed at many of the same places prior to coming here, but our interactions with the interviewers were almost identical. It was reassuring to learn that it wasn't just me.

This is by far the largest company I have worked for—so large in fact that there isn't a single I.T. Department; there are I.T. departments. Talk about a walled-off environment! And of course even though my particular department knew we were coming on for over a week, because no one talks to anyone else (What else is new, corporate America?), nothing was ready on our first day. No access cards, no network logins, no real plan to get us productive from the beginning in spite of the urgency of this project. Four days later, we finally got network access, but our swipe cards still don't allow us to get into the areas we need to in order to do our work. Whenever we need to go into the tech room (which is often since this is where all the PC imaging for this Win7 rollout is occurring), we need to drag one of the permanent techs down the hall and away from whatever he's doing to let us in. Our supervisor is aware of the situation and has tasked someone with getting this resolved, but the sense of urgency apparently just isn't there.

Whatever.

While the department supervisor is a woman, all the other techs are guys. Very straight, and with only a couple exceptions, very Christian and very conservative. And if the choice of department decor is any indication, they're all into WWE and UFC. The desktop support area and the tech room are both covered wall to wall and floor to ceiling in huge posters of very serious looking men grimacing at each other. And while I personally don't mind spending my day looking at sweaty, half-nekkid menz, it does raise the interesting question of why do heterosexual men so love the sight of these same sweaty half-nekkid mens beating on each other? I can imagine them doing much more interesting things together. As an outsider to this "entertainment," I can only surmise there are some deep-seated psychological issues at play.

There are cameras and security everywhere at the new place. The employee elevators, which can't even be reached without first passing through card-controlled turnstiles—turnstiles that require you to swipe out as well as in—at the building entrances, won't move even a single floor up or down without first swiping your card. And unlike some of the places I've worked that claimed to monitor employee's computer usage and internet access, I'm convinced this place actually does. (And while we finally got internet access, the placement agency website where we have to report our time is blocked. Go figger.)

So yeah, as much as I was hoping (because of the size of the organization) this would be a very similar environment to my last job in Phoenix—where, ironically, I also started as a contractor for a rollout project and ended up staying for the next seven years—it's proving to be something very different. Even if I'm invited to come on permanently at the end of my contract, based on what I've seen this first week, I seriously doubt I'm going to want to stick around.

Then again, after contracting at that job in Phoenix for a year and seeing how that place was run, I also had very strong second thoughts about going perm, but accepting their offer at the end of that contract ended up being one of the best things that ever happened to me. (Just the other night I dreamt I had reunited with my team from there and was overwhelmed with nothing less than a sense of absolute joy at seeing them all again.)

That being said, I am learning new processes and new techniques that will look good on my resume and will ultimately make me more employable in the future—should I decide to stay in this profession.