Colin Firth won the Oscar last night for his role in The Kings' Speech. His expectations must have been raised gradually by the flurry of awards that he'd won leading up to this moment. He could do nothing more to convince the panel of judges from The Academy, except waiting for the envelope to be opened.
His situation in many ways is like my own, apart from the obvious stand out components of money, fame and being the centre of the world's attention right now. In fact, the only similarity I probably will ever have with Colin Firth is the idea of waiting for something to happen that will greatly influence my life that is out of my hands. And like the Golden Globe that Colin won a month ago for the same role, I have had some more information that hints to a step nearer in my redundancy plans.
The much anticipated 2011/12 plan has now been drafted. In, what Bob Dylan would call a 'Simple twist of fate', I heard the Programme Director having meetings in the office next door to mine, through the walls, that indicated that the presentation had been completed.
I looked through his schedule and noticed that an hour later he would be having the same meeting with an ally of mine. A couple of moves later I found myself at the photocopier printing off a secret copy of the plans, that had not been released. It was very James Bond.
After perusing it's contents, the highlights are as follows:
- There will be a division in the project at the end of June.
- Phase 2, as it is being dubbed, is solely concerned with the delivery of the 'Local' aspect.
- My part of the project, MDM, that goes live at the end of March, is required for support purposes in Phase 2.
- The roles being identified as required from MDM look to be two analyst/SME roles. Which could be me.
- The Programme Director looks certain to be off, by the statement that Phase 2 needs a different type of Project Manager to lead it
So, given that I had this information in the hand, and the additional knowledge that this would be conveyed to Senior Management on Monday, I had to strike on Friday afternoon if I was able to influence my own destiny.
I considered it acceptable to have a discussion with the Programme Director, who I get on with anyway, to make him aware of my own personal plight to see if that would change the way he was thinking.
As a contractor, looking to leave in June, he won't have any axes to grind about me getting a redundancy or not, and he might think that he was doing me a favour by giving me a continued job.
After the discussion, I was glad that I chose that course of action. I was obviously guarded about how I came to know the information that I had, and I didn't divulge everything I knew, but he did clarify one of the aspects.
It is being discussed currently whether the two roles are deployed from IS or Finance. I work in Finance, and so if it is agreed that IS will resource the positions then this means that I will be displaced and a redundancy is possible. So this is good news but I need to wait for the decision to be made, which will be by the end of March.
If the decision is made to the contrary then my other option is to hand in my notice. I have a three month notice period which would take me to the end of June anyway, and hope to negotiate some kind of fair play with the company. This is obviously the worst case scenario but I wouldn't have a choice. The project will definitely go on until the end of March 2012, and without any promise or guarantee of redundancy still on the table, it would just delay our plans too long.
So I must wait once again for another month until the plan, and the resourcing, is decided. In the mean time I will continue to make certain people aware to not do me any favours if they're put on the spot regarding the decision.
So, like Colin Firth, I hope all of this ends in a massive wave of relief, as I finally achieve it.
Some more big news is that today will see my manuscript finally sent off to four Literary Agents. Another exercise in patience must then be observed, as I wait for their return. But a landmark none the less has been reached. More news to follow on this I'm sure.
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