Thumb Twiddling

Sooooooo.... the project I was on is done and is being bid on by contractors. That left this Monday as my first non-Cotswold day in awhile. I went into my boss' office in the morning to tell him I was out of work and I got...... the grimace. In Civil Engineering here is what the grimace means, it's four fold really->

a) You aren't the first person out of work
b) We don't have anything for you to do
c) We don't know when the city is going to give us the go ahead on the stuff we do have for you to do....probably a long time
d) You still need to be job chargeable though so get ready for a string of 1 hour- 2 day busy work activities that will have to be made up every time you complete a different one.

This is not my first time with "the grimace". Having been in this industry for almost 3 years now, I know that it is very cyclical with high volume times where finding the time to breathe can be hard and low volume times when anyone without a PE after their name goes scrounging. I did manage to make it about 2 weeks longer with work than at least 3 of my co-workers who have been project-less for awhile now. I can also see two more of my colleagues who are about to run out as well. It's going to get VERY interesting around here in another week or so. :P

So for now I do a mix of busy work, ipod solitaire, and constant checking of email to try to keep myself entertained. The other aspect of "the grimace"? They always give you twice as long as you need to complete something since they have no idea what they will give you after that. If you come back early with it done then you get "the sigh". Anyhoo, the good news is that CE companies don't fire anyone in the low times because they know that the high times will come more quickly than anticipated and the number of CE's needed in Houston exceeds the supply by at least 20-30%.