Oh, hello! I didn't see you there!

Did I mention that I lost my job at the end of May? Yes, I did mention that... just not here. I am now gainlessly unemployed.

I don't have the time or energy to do much more than scratch the surface of what this has been like, but here are some lowlights:

- The company ceased operations abruptly and completely, leaving a couple of small airports in the lurch when their FBOs were shut down. Everybody (supposedly, but apparently not really) was laid off.

- After the layoff was announced, but before I had finished packing up my desk, I was asked to do a substantial amount of work (two or three weeks' worth) before going home. I said no, and I'm still flabbergasted that he had the nerve to ask. (Or I would have been, if I hadn't already known how clueless this overpaid useless jerk was.)

- I was later allowed to take my laptop from the office in order to do contract work for a couple of the company's ex-clients as well as for whatever new company might buy some of the old company's assets. I was worried that I would be swamped with work, when all I wanted to do was put that horrible place and all of its flaky people behind me.

However, I had serious trouble getting cooperation from any of these people. Several of them wanted me to give an estimate for the work but refused to give any details as to what they wanted. I told them, "Mark up the documents with the changes you want and send them to me, or just answer the questions below. That will let me scope the work and then I can give you a firm quote. Otherwise, my hourly fee is $X and I'll bill you as we go."

One of them said he had no trouble getting a flat quote from someone else. Really? Without giving them any information up front? I bet they're being grossly overcharged. I considered grossly overcharging too, but I know these people too well. They're so disorganized and indecisive that no matter how much I charged them, they'd drag it out for so long that it would average it out to $2/hour and drive me insane the whole time.

So I refused to price the work without additional details. They got all offended and said they were just trying to help me out because they thought I needed the work. LOL. I need money, but not so desperately that I'm going to commit myself to an unlimited run for a fixed price. I'd commit myself to a laughing academy first.

So I ended up with only one client, who gave me a week's worth of work but has been blowing me off for six or seven weeks since. He insists he still wants me to finish the work just as soon as he can get around to figuring out what he wants me to do. But at least he paid me.

- To complicate matters, my old work laptop committed suicide a few weeks ago. (I don't blame it.) Long story short, one of its crucial but elderly internal organs shorted out. Badly. I had to call in an electrician to restore power to half my downstairs afterwards. It was Saturday, and they always charge more on weekends. I could have waited, but I wasn't willing to spend the rest of the weekend with no power in the most important quadrant of my house. Fortunately, I was able to salvage the hard disk; but I already had backups of all my documents. What I really needed was some very expensive software that had been installed on there, but I've discovered that I can't run the software from that disk on a different computer unless I have an additional software license. Sigh. Without that software, I may not be able to finish the work at all.

Incidentally, the electrician was able to give me a price quote on some future work I'd like him to do, but only AFTER I gave him all the details of what I wanted. Funny how that works.

- ANYWAY... the new company that bought the old company contracted someone else (who is probably overcharging them, but that's not my problem) to do that work. Maybe I should be miffed and heartbroken, but I'm relieved. The person I'd be dealing with is the same one who originally wanted me to do all that stuff before I went home on our last day. He asks me the same questions repeatedly even though he already has my previous answers in writing AND I scold him for re-asking. He never ANSWERS any of my or anyone else's questions. He generally doesn't seem to know what's going on.

I could go on and on about all the things I loathed about this guy and how he's a symbol of what's wrong with America and why keeping him on makes the new company look stupid, considering the trail of destruction he's already left in his wake. But I won't do that. I'll just say I'm thrilled that we're mostly not working together any more.

- I am doing a minuscule amount of work for the other VP, but he's not an idiot. He's pretty good to work with. If he'd been in charge of the original project, we'd be done by now and they wouldn't be getting overcharged by those other people. But that's not my problem!