sigh
I hate bureaucracy.
Quelle suprise.
My contract here (my current consulting contract, not my stint in France) was supposed to end this Friday and I was promised that I could move on to a more technical down-n-dirty sorta position.
I only learned that this friday was targeted to be my final day yesterday, just as they prolonged the whole thing until the end of Janvier.
Before my hopes could even begin the long climb skywards, my newly hired in-house replacement metamorphosed rather eerily into my new partner.
Fast forward and rewind a thousand times and I still can't quite map the twisting tunnels of decision trees between my consulting supervisor at my parent company, the CTO here, and the current technological market in France.
They're dissatisfied with my results because they don't know how to integrate them.
This is their interpretation of "yeah we just never got around to reading your near-gig of reports and demos" despite the numerous e-mails requesting responses".
This is the sound of a tennis ball ricocheting about an empty court.
(perhaps a racketball would be a better metaphor, it seems to be the current trendy executive sport)
So they've hired a non-technical security guy to read all my results. Please tell me why this means I have to stay. Please tell me why if none of the projects you gave me have come to fruition you are intent on keeping me.
I know. Because Pascal is a brilliant salesman and would rather keep me here and keep his ties open with this company so that they can sell them more consultants, because the CTO here likes blondes and likes the fact that I respond straight-backed to his forward jokes, because politicking is a game that the rulebook is written in a non-monstre compatible typeset.
This politicking game is more dangerous than the dark spots on a frozen riverbank.
I am a cashmere-and-wool-clad hockey player barelling blindly down the river at midnight, with a geekstick sharpened at both ends.
There is something cold and romantic in this hurtling form, but nevertheless it is hurtling over dark spots in the ice, utterly oblivious to them.
All I want is to wield my geekstick as a mighty weapon. Perhaps I should skate more carefully in order to find better ice, but it is eating at my insides trying to figure out how.
For now, my teeth are gritted, my fingers tight enough to splinter wood, and my vision directed at the goalposts, not the unavoidable spots in between.
At least, that's what I tell myself when the bile becomes too sour.