Clever Survival Man

It’s Friday afternoon. I am just finishing a bit of documentation for a software module that I just completed, under forced draft. I get the summons that I knew was coming. I had hoped for another week or two but what will be will be. Fortunately, I have prepared.
I follow the Personnel clerk, down to Personnel. I get ushered into the office of the head of Personnel.
The Personnel lady looks at me and then she delivers the bad news, “James Dial, we have no contract for you to charge your time to.” (Translation: Upper management failed to do their job, so you get your paycheck amputated.) The lady pauses.
I am expected to say something and I need to be very careful here. I say, “No charge number, no job.”
The Personnel lady grimaces, “You have done good work and we would like to keep you on, however, there is no contract money to pay you.”
(The best thing that I can do here is to remain silent.) I just look at the lady.
The lady says, “You have some paper work to fill out. If we have future work, we will be in touch.”
I say, “I will wait for your call. In the meantime, I will try to find another full time job. Your recommendation will help me.”
The lady says, “Your termination will read, ‘Layoff, lack of contract work.’ You may have your interviewers contact me.”
I say, “I have turned in all classified documents, to the Software Librarian. I have an in process document, on my desk. I have a dollar or so of vending machine change that I would like back. Oh, and here is my company badge.”
The lady takes my company badge and then says, “I have a clerk clearing your desk and she will return with any personal items.”
I say, “Then I had better get with the termination paper work.” (There is a large rent a guard waiting in the Personnel office, in case I don’t want to be co-operative.)
The lady hands me the forms and says, “You can use the counter over there.”
I go over to the counter and start to fill out the forms. (I have a government security clearance and thus there are a lot of forms to fill out.) I think that I have finished the forms and I turn them in to the Personnel lady.
The Personnel lady scans the forms and says, “You didn’t fill in the Project ID, I can do that.”
I say, “I just got assigned to my current project and I didn’t know the Project ID.”
The Personnel lady then hands me a pay form and we go over the items. The items are what I expected except that Misc is $0.77 more then I expected. I mention the matter and the Personnel lady says, “Yes, we are doing contract wrap up and there are a few, very small items that changed.” She then gives me the pay form, my final check, my vending machine change and my little hand calculator.
I stuff the items into my pockets and tell the lady, “It’s off to job search for me.”
The lady gives me a false hearted smile and says, “Well good luck.” (The lady knows that there are no local companies that are hiring computer programmers. However, there are a number of relevant things that she doesn’t know.)
I exit out ‘the door of no return’ and walk to my little gas saving four cylinder pick up truck. I drive to a nearby military base. I still have in the Visit Request that allows me business access to the base. I manage to talk to the officer who handles the military (not commercial) computer related business.
I tell the officer, “I have recent experience with a lot of the military computers that you use here on your base. I know the computer languages and the operating systems. I just got my head chopped off at one of your contractor companies. If you have a contractor company that needs senior computer programmer help, even for just four hours, unless I’m already working another gig, I’m Jimmy on the spot, even at 3AM, and I’ll work for any company that’ll pay me.”
The officer says, “Well, you know we’re really not allowed to operate that way. However, deadlines gotta be met. As long as you can keep your mouth shut, we just may call.”