Dangerously Close to Being Laid Off!

As a consultant in I B M's consulting services division, I have a duty to perform project work for clients who have contracted I B M for whatever technical service they need. And as such, much like attorneys, I have a billable goal. When I joined I B M, I was pretty happy with a billable target of mid 60%. But when the new year rang in, I was given the shocker: Upper 80% billable target. And my time spent traveling to client sites doesn't count.

With my previous "local" project here in the Chicago suburbs, I was almost 100% billable month over month from February till the end of July. My manager didn't care about my continuing education, as I was making our group look good by the numbers. But after that "local" project ended, I had been on the bench week after week after week. In fact, my billable time for the month of August is currently set at 0%. In a flash, my year to date billable number was crashing harder than the stocks did that jumpstarted the Depression Era.

It wasn't as if I wasn't looking through the signed contracts database to find myself a new project, nor was I not being diligent in talking to sales leads on potential contracts. Sometimes, the stars just don't align. A great opportunity is there, and I'm the perfect candidate, but the client wants a local resource, or will only pay X percent of travel and lodging. Or the client wanted me, but the client was not ready to start the project even with the contract signed. You know, the little things that are normal to a constantly fluctuating business environment. Business school professors call it change, and change is good. I call it a pain in the ass.

I thought I had found a great project in San Francisco, but something happened that was out of the client's and my control. Without going into details of internal bureaucracy, my candidacy was rejected not by the client or my resource deployment manager, but some other individual in the food chain. So with that promising and desirable project out of reach, I only had another promising gig I could potentially hit.

Unfortunately, everything was going against me. I was the fourth person to submit myself as a candidate in this one particular contract, and my resource deployment manager could only submit candidates to the client in that order. Then finally it was down to two candidates, which I was one of the finalists. My competitor? Supposedly, he was nearly identical to me in terms of skill and knowledge. Worse yet, he was a local resource, whereas I would have been half a country away.

So on Tuesday, both of us had phone interviews with the client. I was the first at 12:00, with the other guy calling in a half hour later at 12:30. Of course, the important technical people were busy and didn't get into the interview till 20 minutes after we started. And to make matters worse, the other candidate dialed into the conference call five minutes early at 12:25. If there was an awkward moment in my life, that would've been it. I actually had to coax him into dropping off the call and have him dial in later, because it just wasn't right for him to listen in on me while I was in the hot seat. And, as if the stars' misalignment wasn't enough, I had to tempt fate by eating my lunch and mumbling during the entire interview!

I'm telling you, when this boy is hungry, there ain't nothing stopping him from doing what's right. Besides, Hyatt Center cafeteria had a special showcase in the ethnic food section: stuffed cabbage and Pierogies. Who can turn them down? And who would even want to eat them when they had gotten cold? This is Chicago, man, and I like my Polish foods the way they were meant to be served. I'll just pretend that they weren't made in an assembly lined cafeteria kitchen, sat under heat lamps, and served by people who may have questionable immigration status from the south of the border who incidentally probably never saw a Pierogie till that day.

When I hung up the phone, it finally dawned on me that I might have bombed my own interview! I didn't prepare myself in remembering my previous projects. I sent them an outdated resume that excluded my recent "local" project, which was huge and brag-worthy. I forgot to read up on this potential client's contract, as I got confused with the hundreds of other contracts I had been reading everyday. And I chewed with my mouth open while answering their questions. With a realization as big as this, who could ever fault me for drowning my sorrows later that evening over happy hour? I was getting sick and tired of my manager hounding me day after day, "Found yourself a project yet?" Whenever I hear our internal instant messaging chat pop up, my heart would skip a beat, and dreaded seeing if it was my manager. The last thing I wanted to read in an instant message was: "You're no longer profitable to I B M. Get a box and gather your belongings."

Although I do wonder at times how effective that would have been, considering I don't have a physical office space or cube that I could claim as my own, and I work from home.

Anyway, come Wednesday evening, just as I was getting ready for my eight mile run around 18:15, I heard the dreaded instant message sound: "Bing!" My manager has been known to instant message me at odd hours of the day as long as my laptop is still on. I looked at the name, and it wasn't my manager. It was somebody else.

"Congratulations! Welcome to Seattle!"