7Degrees

Since my blunder last week, a question has been hanging over my head. Do they know?

I was concerned at first because it seemed as if suddenly everyone stopped talking to me. I had failed to take into account, of course, that this was just before a three day weekend. This is not an uncommon mistake for me, aside for the dreadful end-of-the-year holidays, I forget any of the others exist. Everyone wasn't avoiding me, they were just hurrying to finish work before the long weekend. By Friday afternoon, those few that were left were relaxed and jovial.

Nothing really changed today. I was plugging away at one of my favorite consulting activities -- building enterprise dashboards. I spent nearly 5 months creating dashboards the previous year, and throughly enjoyed the assignment. I was more than happen to "take a break" and work one something enjoyable. My immediate project manager walked by and mentioned to me that he was going to be in a staff meeting for the next hour. I nodded and continued on my displays, buttons, and animated indicators.

Just over an hour later -- and far closer to completing the second of my dashboards -- the senior project manager stopped by. To be frank, his clam and quiet demeanor makes me nervous. I put on my best professional smile and gave him my full attention.

"Well, it sounds like Friday will be your last day here," he began in that unnervingly passive tone. He explained that the department I had been working with had just about caught up with their backlog of work. I wasn't terribly surprised. I had been expecting more than they had given me. For the most part, I've been planning the update of their monitoring system. There are some outstanding tasks on the Service Of Work agreement, but the systems team in the company may be performing those tasks.

The day continued uneventfully. I finished my dashboards, tracked down a few issues, and put the final pieces in place for tomorrow's update. It hasn't been that bad of an assignment aside from my blunder. I debated whether or not my secret had gotten out. If they do, they were certainly being cordial about it. If they don't, there isn't a problem. I gave the two possibilities as 25%/75% chance of probability. The final blow came when I checked my email.

It was from the client's sales manager: "Thanks for all your hard work out there -- you received rave reviews from the customer!!"

Another job well done, I suppose. Next time I should do well to remember to keep my mouth shut.