Just before 5 PM this evening, my supervisor came into my cube to let me know what's up.

First of all, H has been upstairs helping out at her old job because the in-house person who transferred to her old job has been on medical leave, and is likely to be out until September. (At least, that's the plan as of right now, but it's not certain when she'll be returning.) So H's progress at learning her new position in my department has been on hold.

Second of all, someone else in my department will be going on maternity leave in the not-too-distant future (October). So when H comes back to this department, she's still going to be in the process of being trained. Heck, for that matter, when her REPLACEMENT returns to the company from medical leave, SHE is still going to be in the process of being trained.

All this adds up to the reason why my supervisor was able to successfully prolong my stay at the company for the immediate future. I also found out today that I'll have two weeks' notice once my services are no longer required.

I'm rather hoping that in the intervening time, someone in a decision-making position grows a few more brain cells and realizes that the job I'm doing needs to be filled permanently, regardless of whether I personally find employment elsewhere. I'm not sure what dialect of English my supervisor has to use to convince HER boss that THERE IS MORE THAN ENOUGH WORK TO KEEP ME BUSY at all times. I'd hate to see them find out the hard way by having chaos ensue after I vacate the position. What's worse is that my supervisor's boss won't be the one feeling the pinch if my work doesn't get done on a timely basis. The OTHER people in my department will be the ones tearing their hair out, not him.

Isn't that how it goes with companies, anway? The ones making the decisions are rarely the ones who get impacted if the people under them are understaffed and overburdened. I learned that from my experience with downsizing three years ago. Between the people whose jobs ended at the same time mine did, and the people who left in the next round of downsizing four months later, I cringe to think about what my former workplace was like for the people who remained. And of course, the high muck-a-mucks who ordered THOSE job cuts have absolutely no clue what kind of human-power it takes to get the work done, so what did THEY care if their personnel decisions left chaos in their wake?

At least I have a marginal amount of job security... marginal enough to know that I won't be rendered superfluous until at least sometime in September. And that's provided that H's replacement comes BACK then. Then once H finishes training her replacement, and finishes being trained on her new job in OUR department, here's hoping that it's time for that other person in my department to go on maternity leave. BTW, it appears that H has to learn her new job in my department from scratch... which leaves me wondering what exactly the benefit was of hiring someone from within instead of me? It seems that she's on at least as much of a learning curve as I would have been, if I'd been chosen for the job. SIGH...