Like a rolling stone

I jumped projects today, and, frankly, I feel pretty good about it. The awful project had actually added 10 hours of overtime, which made it at least financially tolerable. The freak show was still a little tough to live with (Stevie Nicks to my left, Jabba the Hutt behind me, and the child of Jabba and Stevie also behind me) but at least there was overtime. I've moved on to a project where I can get 20 hours of overtime, which makes a lot of shortcomings easier to bear. It is, for instance, a no-internet project. This could be tough. But it might last two years, and it has lots of overtime, so I guess it's a wash. Money, not love, conquers all. At least in Temp Town.

A sign of the times

The project I am on really sucks, and I let the agency know I would be gone at the first opportunity. The first opportunity, by definition, would be something with a higher rate, more hours and/or a longer projected duration. While I am not normally a big fan of jumping -- I had been in this business for years before I first jumped from a project -- I told the agency straight up that, because I was lied to about the hours, I had no intention of staying with this project. Much to my chagrin, despite numerous projects being posted in the last couple weeks, not a single one has met the criteria for me to jump. All have had a lower rate (just by a dollar, but that's 40 bucks a week, kids). All have also been only 40 hours. And all have had a shorter projected duration.

This causes two separate reactions in me. First, I am stunned that the market is active enough that I have seen so many projects starting up in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This usually is a really bad time of year to be looking for work, even shitty work. Second, I cannot believe I am so well and truly fucked as to be entering my third full week on this project with no prospect of getting out until after New Year's. Lord, how have I offended thee? OK, never mind that -- neither one of us really has the time to get into it.