That was a vacation?

I just returned from Florida and what was purportedly a vacation. I guess it was one, and it was the first time off I've taken voluntarily in about four years, which timeframe meshes closely with when the market turned to shit and never returned to what we now think of as the good old days. Temps always used to tell me that they like this kind of work because of the flexibility -- they could take time off whenever they wanted. I guess that used to be true, but it isn't any longer. In the "good old days," you could schedule vacation time well ahead, go on vacation when the time came, and find a new project quickly when you got back. The first two elements are still true; the third, not so much. On the other hand, as Meatloaf said, two out of three ain't bad. Unless the third one is the one that makes the first two possible, which is of course where we are. No work, no pay. And leaving a project means coming back to massive uncertainty as to whether there will be another project soon.

It's a tough gamble. Fortunately, I left for only four days, and when I got back, the project was still going. I continue to click for the foreseeable future. Beyond the next few weeks, who knows?

Boom goes the dynamite!

We just hit 10,000 visitors. Thank you all for your support, and someone in the last hour or so was Number 10,000 and is in line for major gifts and prizes. Not from me, of course, but maybe later in your life. Personally, I have no way of identifying Visitor No. 10,000. Anyway, I'm sure you'll win a door prize or something sometime in your life. In any event, thank you all for visiting, please keep it up. Now that I am back from my ever-so-brief vacation (more like a long weekend), I'll be posting again. Thanks for your patience, and keep on clicking.

Doom Lite

So, today wound up being Doom Lite -- just one calorie, just no hours. The project has been winding to some sort of conclusion, and Wednesday we got told not to come in. Fortunately, I didn't check that email account before I left home, and I got put to work and got in 8 hours. Several other people did the same thing. Today, we were supposed to start a new phase of the same project, but got told to say home until tomorow. Not out of work yet, so it isn't Doom, but no hours, so I guess that makes it Doom Lite.

It's all about the clicking

Traffic has been good this month, and we're on track to have our second-best month ever (the best month was when I was on a 200-person project and everybody was trying to figure out who was doing the blog. It was only the second month of the blog. Important to remember, this ain't a high-traffic blog -- the numbers that excite me would drive the HuffPo folks to suicide, which would be a good thing. But I digress. In any event, keep coming back, y'all.

Giving new meaning to Doom

OK, like things weren't bad enough. What with jobs going to India, the Philippines, Charlotte and Dayton, with predictive coding making inroads, now we have what I have always feared most. Somebody did a study that determined that FUCKING MONKEYS could code documents better than temps.

OK, so they were high school students, not monkeys. Still, does this strike anyone as encouraging? Show of hands, please? Bueller? Bueller?

Now THIS is Doom

If you don't read the Tax Prof, you should. He's a tax guy, but he always has great commentary on the law and the legal profession. Well, he's out there confirming that our industry is changing in ways that do not bode well for temps or any other lawyers. This is really depressing.

Doom so soon?

Just 10 days into the new project and already rumors are flying. First, they scared the crap out of us last Friday by bringing in the Pizza of Doom That Wasn't. Kind of like the dog that didn't bark, I guess. Anyway, sometimes a pizza is just a pizza. Today, one of the project managers was coming around doing a head count (there are two parts to this project, in two different rooms, so the need to actually count is understandable) and the word "caterer" was heard passing between the two project managers. Naturally, this raised yet again the specter of Food of Doom. Maybe not. Maybe they just like us and enjoy giving us free food -- hey, it could happen! OK, more likely it's doom around the corner. I guess we'll see, but I hope not. I've got a pretty good seat, after all.