Two Months Later
My seasonal run at the IRS ended middle of last week, in typical IRS fashion; that is, it felt like they were making it up as they went along.
For a place with such a rigid, rule-bound corporate culture, I was continually surprised when these seemingly improvised management strategies were implemented. I guess I shouldn't be.
So here's what happened: Back in early-to-mid May, they gathered us all together to tell us our fates. The people who were new this year, hired as temps, were going to be gone in a week. Everybody else would get a ranking number, the lower the better. Anyone ranked higher than around 350 would be gone towards the end of the month, more or less.
I got a 431.
Then, things changed. The incoming paperwork kept coming, well beyond projections. I don't know if they regretted letting the temps go, but they sure weren't getting rid of another big chunk of us right away. So they told us everybody, regardless of ranking, would be staying through the end of May.
Still not quite there. But not to worry -- the paperwork kept coming. So they told us we were good through June 3. That meant they had to pay all of us on Memorial Day, which I'm pretty sure they were trying to avoid.
Then they pushed the deadline back another week.
Then they changed the score requirements. You could avoid the next round of furloughs if your rank was 412 or less. I felt like Maxwell Smart, "missed it by that much."
Then, they simply told us to stop worrying about it, because the situation was still flexible. Come to work today. Do your work. If you don't get furloughed, come back tomorrow. Repeat as necessary.
That lasted a week-and-a-half. Finally, on June 15, we got the boot.
It was a weird experience. I still consider the season to be a success -- counting the teacher training I got late last year, I got a little more than 5 months' worth of employment out of them.
And I still hope to get more work there between now and the end of the year. I particularly have my eye on a project involving revising the training materials, which my near-30 years of gaming experience should be good for. As I told one of the high-muckety mucks there, "I've spent my entire career explaining complicated rules in simple terms . . . though they mostly involved cutting goblins in half with a battle-axe."
It got a laugh. We'll see if it gets me anything else.
For a place with such a rigid, rule-bound corporate culture, I was continually surprised when these seemingly improvised management strategies were implemented. I guess I shouldn't be.
So here's what happened: Back in early-to-mid May, they gathered us all together to tell us our fates. The people who were new this year, hired as temps, were going to be gone in a week. Everybody else would get a ranking number, the lower the better. Anyone ranked higher than around 350 would be gone towards the end of the month, more or less.
I got a 431.
Then, things changed. The incoming paperwork kept coming, well beyond projections. I don't know if they regretted letting the temps go, but they sure weren't getting rid of another big chunk of us right away. So they told us everybody, regardless of ranking, would be staying through the end of May.
Still not quite there. But not to worry -- the paperwork kept coming. So they told us we were good through June 3. That meant they had to pay all of us on Memorial Day, which I'm pretty sure they were trying to avoid.
Then they pushed the deadline back another week.
Then they changed the score requirements. You could avoid the next round of furloughs if your rank was 412 or less. I felt like Maxwell Smart, "missed it by that much."
Then, they simply told us to stop worrying about it, because the situation was still flexible. Come to work today. Do your work. If you don't get furloughed, come back tomorrow. Repeat as necessary.
That lasted a week-and-a-half. Finally, on June 15, we got the boot.
It was a weird experience. I still consider the season to be a success -- counting the teacher training I got late last year, I got a little more than 5 months' worth of employment out of them.
And I still hope to get more work there between now and the end of the year. I particularly have my eye on a project involving revising the training materials, which my near-30 years of gaming experience should be good for. As I told one of the high-muckety mucks there, "I've spent my entire career explaining complicated rules in simple terms . . . though they mostly involved cutting goblins in half with a battle-axe."
It got a laugh. We'll see if it gets me anything else.