Contract negotiations step one have been undertaken and the words that fell from my mouth were less submissive than I expected.
I learn things the hard way, I am learning business the hard way.
I've been losing sleep over the renewal of this contract, what to do, what's ethical pitted against what's best for me.
I've asked the advice of a lot of people, all whose opinions I respect more than I could ever convey to them.
To some of them, this comes down to a dollar sign, and an extra fourteen dollars an hour is more than double what my salary once was, now it's just a number.
Some people understand my "discomfort", understand why I have difficulty leaving the company that found me this job, just because they found me this job when I had all but given up. Yes, that both my resume and the contract landed on their desk on the same day was a total fluke, and yes I did most of the work, from writing up a response to the RFR, to surviving the interviews, but...
They got me here, and now I'm considering leaving them in the dust for a $, because if I bring the position to another company, they'll take less of a cut.
And yes, my current company is taking a rather "unfair"ly large cut.
But I don't feel good about this, I don't feel good about it at all. I am rationalizing this with "but they've been bastards to me" and "business is business and I'll have to learn that one day", but all this talk of money is leaving me with a hole in my gut shaped like the word "yuppie" in neat type-written letters.
Yes, there are other factors at play here, and yes, sometimes this is just about survival, it's just that...
...I want that to be as rare an occurance as possible, which it has been these last five years.
On the upside of all this corporate whoring, I got to take a delightful young lady to lunch today, fill up on sushi and have one of those conversations.
The kind that involves a lot of nodding, rather than funny looks.
The kind that involves miles-per-minute babbling, inspired and excited and strange and important, rather than "gosh but this weather..."
I don't know why I put so much importance in conversation, except that every once in a while when you meet someone with the creativity, brilliance, and especially freedom of spirit that allows you to have the penultimate hour just spinning words--
it feels good. Really really good.
Good enough to inspire, even.