Last night was my last day with the Census. It turns out that my volunteering for 3rd shift was "a bad career move" there, as I ended up working on other stuff (while essential to the functioning of the QA team) that was not what everybody else was doing, and as the shifts started to get pulled back, I was the most expendable body.
Of course, our team (or "boat" as they call it there) was set to expire sometime around the 27th, so I'm realistically only missing a couple of weeks worth of pay, but I was the first out of "the QA boat" to have to walk the plank, and that sort of bugs me. Both our group head and my specific manager were visibly bummed about having to let me go, but they were moving towards dropping 2nd shift (or weekends) next week and we had too many bodies. Frankly, if I had to make the decision, I probably would have dropped me as well, as I was in a position of having to be trained on the project that everybody else was in the middle of, with what I had been handling now no longer a factor in what QA was doing.
Fortunately, it looks like I'm picking up a freelance project that will pay me as much as the next two weeks of the Census would have, which is both going to be a lot more interesting and not require me to leave the house (thus saving me nearly 2 hours a day). It also should provide me with another "portfolio piece" if it ends up being as cool as I'm hoping it is going to be.
Of course, with the Census gig going away that "gives me back my time", so hopefully I'll end up being more caught up on stuff like these notes in here. The blog post over there ===> is a week old at this point (not that I wouldn't appreciate your clicking through to it!), and I have others stacked up behind it to blither about. As one might have gathered by my breast-beating and ash-and-sackcloth attitude over the past few months, it really bothers me when I slip behind on stuff like this.
Speaking of The Job Stalker, the blog is starting to "get some attention", with other "job site" accounts re-Tweeting my announcements, and my being invited to do "guest posts" on other job boards. I'm even being featured in something about "the top 100 best job resources", which has me puffed up a bit. Too bad I've never aspired to be a "job authority" ... I got into that because I thought it would help me GET A JOB!