Life going on

Well, after the news that all but two of us contractors were losing our jobs, the folks from the contracting company flew out, and individual meetings were scheduled with each of us for yesterday and today to discuss "your future employment with our company". Mine's at 9:00 today.

I'm thankful that we all talk to each other, as co-workers who had their meetings yesterday described them as "five minutes of nothing".

Why, you ask?

Because Congress passed the stopgap spending dealio, so the government still doesn't have a budget for this year, so the contracting company and the CDC know that the budget will be cut drastically, but can't say for sure by how much until they pass one. I just hope they don't shut down in the midst of this, because I wouldn't get paid for that time.

As it is, I'm good until the end of July, and am now looking at that as enough advance notice to find something else. I had all but dismissed the teaching jobs as viable possibilities, as it's been a month now since they closed. But I called yesterday to see if interview candidates had been chosen, and they have not! So I consider myself still in the running, and now - go figure - the starting salary offered to do these jobs doesn't seem so unreasonable after all!

If those don't pan out, my next idea is to figure out something to live off of for a year, and complete the graduate certificate in Instructional Design at UC Denver. I'll sell the van if I have to *sniff*, but am hoping I can come up with something that I can live off of and am not above taking out a loan, but I don't want to do that either.

So, I'm actually hopeful. Everyone I talked to yesterday mentioned how there's "nothing" in town in terms of jobs for what we/they do. I feel fortunate that at least I've dipped my toes into some other pools and can pursue the teaching/education thing. Who knows? Maybe getting laid off will be the kick in the pants that lands me in education (either teaching or being support staff in the form of ID) after all.