Contract Endings

Working as a government contractor is an interesting thing. It’s stressful, yet rewarding in some cases. With my current team (which is now down to 2 including me) was probably one of the only shots I’ve had at a working team since I started government work. Obviously there was always that 1 person that seemed to try to undermine everything, but it all worked itself out.

The difference between private sector and government contracting is the longevity of your job. While some contracts can be 4-5 years, some aren’t that lucky. The one I was pushed on to was a 1 year extended to a 2. That means I had to uproot myself from wherever I was at and only guaranteed to work for 2 years if I performed well. Pressure? A little. The last contract I was on, I got cut from a certain company that I won’t mention for, per their words, being “overly proactive”. That taught me that there’s a small area between working well and working too well. Crazy, right? Welcome to government, where a lot of contractors work their asses off just to sit on it as a gov employee. Obviously that’s not everybody, but that can be extended to anything, really. “Not all cookies are too hard”, “not all pizzas are burnt”, etc. It’s a stupid saying really.

With those ${contractlength} years now cemented if you perform well, you do what any other employee would do. You work. You work early mornings and late nights, dictated only by the fact that you might get locked in the building if you stay too late, or that the base’s network might shut itself down again for the 5th time this week. That cements friendships, partnerships, and a work family. The only issue with that is that if you’re like me where your company is about 1800 miles away, then you start to see your coworkers as family and your company as just the awkward middle man. Because of that, what do you do when the contract is up? Do you wait for your company to re-bid and hopefully win? Do you let other bidders know you’re willing to hop on board with them? Do you tell the government office that you’d willingly take a GS job? Or do you just cut all ties and move on to the next company? There’s so many factors to take into account that it’s almost not predictable. If the government doesn’t have a spot open for you 6 months before the contract ends, they probably won’t have one period. If your company hasn’t informed you that the contract is being renewed, it probably isn’t. Nobody is going to come to you before the contract is over, so you better have money to save up for a while if you plan on the “other company, same contract” route.

In the end, this whole thing is just a rant about what I find most frustrating about government contracting (we’re ignoring needless micromanaging for the sake of argument here). If the end is in the foreseeable future, do yourself a favor and plan.

 
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