Mine is a quick project, and then out. With a hard Jan 11 deadline.
But that's one more house payment, so I can't complain.

And in one way, it's better than permanent. In Feb or early March, my seriously depressive daughter will be in the dangerous post-partum situation. That's been known to knock down strong women, and she's delicate. She needs to not be alone during that time.

The politics in this company look a bit toxic to me, and the boss seems to have problems with the local culture. He's French, I got the impression he feels like he's running an outpost of civilization. About my being downsized, he said "we don't do that in France."

It appears I'm writing a manual for one guy, who will probably not be there long. The situation is that the operation - the US branch of a French skin-care product company - is moving to a third world country (Waukeegan, Illinois) and the logistics person is not moving with it. The logistics processes are in her mind and three cryptic pages of notes - no sentences, few complete words. A common situation in small companies - seat-of-the-pants operation. This kid's been hired to replace her, but he doesn't get it. My task is to get it and make it understandable to him or his replacement.

The boss mentioned being frustrated by the lack of ages on resumes. Didn't realize he was hiring someone so immature. Complained about the kid's sloppy reading, and then showed me the resume that impressed him enough to get him to hire the kid, and how he hadn't noticed that the kid's degree is a 2001 vintage, or that the number of years experience claimed for certain technologies means he was a little kid playing with the machine for several of those years. And then he hired me because my resume said I'm qualified, without giving me a word in edgewise to show that I could back up my claims. I wonder if lying on a resume is a felony in France? As it happens, my resume is %100 clean. Obviously, it is designed to accentuate the positive.

I suspect if the kid get's fired, it will be in large part for no-showing the office Christmas party. Boss said that (particularly in an age of cell phones) showed a lack of several important characteristics. Particularly the kind of flexibility, detail-orientation, and reliability that are vital in a small organization but probably no big deal in the big company where the kid used to work. Sounds like the kid isn't real happy either.

Anyway, it looks to me like doing the job and getting out of there is probably the way to go. I could be wrong. Boss kind of forelornly asked if I'd be interested in doing the job I'm documenting. My answer was vague. Waukeegan is about an hour's drive from my house, not an insurmountable commute, I have a cousin there and we make the trip pretty often. I have a couple of weeks to scope the place out, and probably an inside track if I want to stay.

iwethey.employed++