Your tax dollars at work

Get this noise...


I'm a contractor working on a government gig testing software. I've often felt a little sense of envy or been treated as second class by the government staff I work with, but I've always treated them as equals on the teams I've been on. It comes with the territory and I always get a bitter chuckle once a year at the Diversity and Inclusiveness mandatory training classes I have to go to. Nothing like feeling like the minority...

While I was away last week, word came down that resources were tight and wouldn't the contractors please minimize the amount of time they're spending in the nicer lab; the one with the machines I don't have at my desk but fit the requirements for tests I've been assigned as part of the team. I get home and there's four messages waiting with that very request. Whatever. I can bend. I adapt and immediately negotiate some adjustments to my current test to cope with the limitations of the machinery I do have. Coincidentally, the feature I'd been needing in the nice lab machines isn't required on this test. Great. No problem.

But then I get word that my name has been dropped in complaint about not enough resources to go around. I get a little pissed off and decide it's been long enough; me holding my tongue over some seriously unethical crap I've witnessed but not let get to me. That wouldd be government people using the lab machines for hours at a time to play videogames. Not just solitaire or minesweeper. Chess, Mah-Jong, some paintball looking thing that came with Vista, multiple iterations of video pinball, and the queen mother, Unreal Tournament. One of these screwoffs built a server to play from IN THE LAB. I start writing an email to finally blow the whistle.

Now it is true that resources are short. Our former lab chief moved up to office chief but hasn't truly taken off the lab chief's cap. This is disrespectful and not really helping the newly hired replacement lab chief but that's their rapport, not mine to criticize. This is the same office guy was the one who gave away half the lab to a research project thus causing the current shortage. When the new lab chief called a meeting and repeated the request to maximize what we had left and document it, I towed the line. When he asked if any of us had issues, I piped up that I felt it was the office guy's fault for causing the problem. This is without regard to knowing I've been named as using too many of the resources that are left. My email was still unfinished back at my desk.

We agree to disagree, but it was in a forum where the lab team had been asked and I felt no regret in letting the team hear my opinion. Frankly, many of them feel the same way but chose to sit there like sheep. And one of them had already pegged me as part of the problem... no mention of the farting off that a big chunk of the team do every day.

I get taken aside shortly after by the office chief (who wasn't there, the new lab chief had tattled to him) and asked why I felt it neccessary to make these remarks. I stood my ground. I told him to his face I felt he'd been a larger part of causing the crisis and had left us holding the bag. As a contractor, why did I have to say this on front of govvies? I responded it had nothing to do with where I got my paycheck and I was standing up for my team. Well, on and on and forth and so as a contractor I should just keep quiet. :stunned: I reiterated that I am trying to act professionally in the better interests of my team, regardless of how any of them may feel about me getting a paycheck from somewhere else. This despite knowing that at least one of them has mouthed off that I'm taking up his/her space as I get my work done.

Why is it that I need to sit in their lab? Their lab??? I thought we were a team here, office guy? But to answer your question, the last half dozen tests I've run, since Christmas, have all specifically required machines with features I first found in "your" lab. The lab you told me to tap into. The lab that's supposed to be an asset of the team of which half the people are contractors. If someone up there has a problem with that, they picked a helluva way to express it... especially with the amount of screwing off that's done up there.

What do you mean? You know what I mean. No, what? You've seen it yourself just on Monday, dude. There's videogames being played on your machines, often for hours at a time.

At this point office guy turns fire engine red. He's obviously angry. He starts out the door at which point I'm feeling disrespected because we're in a fricking conversation here. He turns around and grabs lab puppet and heads off for the lab sending me back to my desk. I had work to do anyway. I finished my email and called my contract and company section bosses before hitting send. Whatever storm was set off, I now care less. My metrics are amongst the best in the entire lab regardless of who pays us. I will jump off a bridge before I tolerate being blamed for a lack of resources while half the government people waste time playing games at work.