neverwhere

The past 36 hours have left me feeling lonely and guilty.

This temporary job I’ve been working has been slowly winding down. The three of us figured we had maybe another week or so left with the researching and updating and filing the files. Then yesterday around 930AM our boss called K, the woman who’d been sort of covering for another woman that went on maternity leave, into his office. R and I assumed he was offering her a job. Then she came out and I was called in.

Uh oh.

I sat down in his office while he took a phone call. When he got off the phone, he started with “Yesterday I received word from HR to stop the temps. We’re going to let everyone finish out the day… “

Oh great. I was hoping to at least finish the week, but whatever.

“…but we can keep one of you, and we would like you to stay…”

What? Me? Why?

“Don’t get me wrong, we have no problem with anyone’s work, and would recommend any and all of you, and would request each of you to come back to work here; however, you have demonstrated—”

Are you ready?

“—the ‘team player’ attitude that we look for around here.”

Yay corporate speak! Wtf does that mean? How the hell did I do that?

And then:

“But, to make it more comfortable for everyone, we’d like you to pretend that today is your last day along with K and R. We don’t want them to feel bad or resent you or to think there is a favorite.” How this translated in my head: “We don’t want them to ask questions.”

He continued: “I could have waited until 4pm to break the news, but I just didn’t think that would be fair…”

He also implied that they would like to hire me permanently, but no promises.

So I had to spend the rest of the day pretending I wasn’t coming back today, from turning in a time sheet to packing up my stuff (which wasn’t anything… I never left anything of mine there overnight anyway… agency rules.) I felt really terrible perpetuating the charade, but was pretty sure they’d be pissed if I didn’t. Farce participation didn’t seem optional…

Today was strange. I am now the only outsider left. I am an outsider frog stuck in the middle of an unhappy bowl of fish. I am the one that was on time, and didn’t make waves, the apparent downfalls of the other two.

K called today. She wanted to commiserate, and offer a recommendation to other agencies… I haven’t called her back yet, but I need to…

PS: “Team Player” is corp-speak for “one who does what he/she is asked without questioning it, one who does not try to show any individuality whatsoever but acts solely for the good of the unit; one who does not act on his or her sole discretion alone. Ever.”

Beautiful, no? My self-esteem has skyrocketed.