I woke up today with the intention of writing a quick post on how the employment gods had finally smiled upon me and that I'd be returning to work on Monday for a 2-month gig that paid nearly twice my usual salary. As part of a team of 8 technicians, I'd be enrolling clinicians in a single-sign-on software solution across one of the larger hospital systems in Phoenix.
Earlier this week I'd gone through the initial orientation webinar, and just this morning I completed the online training. I was looking forward to meeting my new teammates and getting back to work after nearly six weeks of unemployment.
And then a call came this afternoon from the recruiter at the agency I was working with on this.
"Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"Just give it to me."
"I hate to deliver this news, but Cerner has convinced [name of hospital system] that they could install their own product for less money and to terminate the contract with [software provider]."
"This never happens. But…[software provider] is going to pay all of you for 72 hours work since you already started the process."
I knew this gig was too good to be true, but at the same time, 72 hours at the previously agreed-upon rate is nearly an entire month's salary at my previous job, so while it won't allow me to completely pay off my credit cards like I'd be able to do at the expected full 256 hours over the course of this gig, it will at least allow me to get caught up on everything else. All that remains is for them to determine if it will be dispersed as a simple single severance or as one or more regular paychecks. I'll know more Monday.
Curiously, I'm laughing at this. It's one of those instances when the universe it has a wicked sense of humor and I can't help feeling all this is happening for a positive reason. I can almost hear the gears turning.
In other employment news, my friend Cindy and her husband Matt—for whom I've been doing freelance Mac support over the years—have decided they need a website for Matt's business. When I first heard of this months ago I pushed this task off on Cindy's nephew because I honestly didn't have the skillset to set up a full e-commerce website, but in the interim I learned all they wanted was a basic site to advertise the business and show off Matt's work. That I could do—in WordPress, no less—so about a week ago since there'd been no progress on that front, I suggested that I take over the task since the nephew hadn't done anything beyond registering the domain, securing a host, and throwing up a basic landing page.
They agreed wholeheartedly, so I've started building the new site. They also want me to some business cards so they can hand them out to their friends…
It's the second week of school. Why are these kindergarteners not sitting down at lunch and being quiet?" – Behavioral Admin at a Phoenix public school
What could possibly go wrong?
