Well, I might be "graduating" sooner than planned.
I work at a government facility. Contract is up "real soon now". It's supposed to be put up for bid again. This would be all routine but it takes at least 2 weeks longer to make a new contract happen than the old contract has time left in it.
Now, the way these contracts work is that the private company that wins the contract pretty much hires the people who have been doing the work and collects the money for them. They don't know their employees and pretty much don't care to. We might see them once a year at lunch for an hour. Maybe twice a year for an hour when a contract is up for renewal. We're just cogs in the great government tit milking machine to them.
(We, the employees, actually try to do good work for our client, the government. That varies, of course, from one group of employees to another, but we've got a hard-working, honest and competent crew. We actually care whether we get the job done. But I digress.)
So, pretty much no employee in this situation has any expectation of loyalty from their employer. We can't trust that we would be told ahead of time that there will be a multi-week gap in pay. That's because it might cause people to put in job applications and get hired elsewhere, which would mean that the company wouldn't collect all possible billable hours.
So, knowing that one of my fellow employees was worried about it, I asked one of the govt people about when the contract was going to be put out for bid, because I was kind of interested in knowing whether I would have a paycheck in a month and a half (or not).
They said the contract request for bid had been released and there might be a 2 week gap between the old contract expiring and the new one starting up. Didn't say anything more substantive about it. If they weren't supposed to say that much, it's on them. They are supposed to know the rules, we're just schmucks that want to know if we'll have a paycheck or not.
I mention it to my colleague.
He fires off an email 2 layers up our management chain.
Upper management run around like a bull in the china shop and piss off some other government people, who will no doubt piss on other govt people down the food chain.
My manager is now pissed at me.
My feeling is that if they hadn't all acted like keystone cops they wouldn't be in this position. It's their fault and they should own it.
All they had to do was double-check to see if the request for bid had gone out yet. "Oh, it has? I didn't receive my copy. Can you re-send it?" Or, "Oh, it hasn't? Not a problem. Just wanted to make sure, we want to give it our full attention and do the best job for you."
Local manager asked me again when I was planning to retire.
Frankly, I could use an extra 2 weeks of vacation, paid or not.
Looks like I might have to go for an extra 9 months and 2 weeks if they are that pissed.
Jeesh.
I get tired of this shit.