Today, I am well and truly low.

Today, I am well and truly low. I was able to end a long period of unemployment, closing a desperate period in my life, or so I thought. Since starting the contract role I was plagued by hideous luck but, further the place had some terribly unrealistic expectations and I admittedly had close to a year of rust on me which isn't great in IT or likely any field.

I will, of course, refrain from naming the company who runs specialty care facilities in my state. I will also note that I did say that I could ramp up quickly but I also specified the need for support in such circumstance. I interviewed Wednesday and was asked to start the next day in the field engineer. I'd mentioned during the interview my car was in the shop and assumed (my mistake) they took that into account and yet to my surprise, they deployed me to a distant site that first day in the later part of the afternoon. My car went belly up, I didn't panic or fold, I called for roadside assistance, and had it towed and caught a Lyft to the site. I arrived having had no real training to speak of only some urls for their resources and when things didn't work as expected I tried as any tech would, to figure things out on my own. After a short time, I deferred to my teammates though it was a shade after 5pm by then. Dead silence in Teams. Same for director, then VP of IT, I started calling and finally one responded and tried to help but it was 7pm by this point and the help had not been able to resolve things for me and I didn't much of anything about the usual items being there even a few weeks would have provided. I ended up getting an Lyft home (The facility director was an angel who expensed this for me for which I still feel guilty). I got home around 9pm and found my vehicle to be a wash with a crazy repair amount facing me. I found a way by working with a neighbor to rent with the intent to purchase/take over payments which helped us both out. Made it to next day after and then after the weekend it turned out my insurance coverage had lapsed and the neighbor so kindly put me on hers and subsequently I had a small fender bender mainly because I was exhausted. All the while the company acted as thought I should be performing in ways that would be indicative of a solid time in role there which I just didn't have and was striving for as best I could while beset by issues on my own end. I tried to take a day to remedy them and was denied and told they NEEDED me which shunning those needs resulted in further issues. The second week on Friday had a projects meeting. The person who I replaced had simply gone home one weekend then not returned and I think I understand why now. That person had been there at least enough time to have been assigned to projects and I was pounded on in that meeting like I had committed some kind of crime. At first I thought of it like inclusion where I was being called upon so I could get up to speed but more and more there was an ugly air to it and I simply did my best to acknowledge and accept and make notes and try to get on board and up to speed. Things began to mount as I could not do that because I had to fix my early mistakes but I didn't know enough organizationally to do so yet, I was upbraided for my lack of progress and finally started doing things that I would not normally have done and unsurprisingly I goofed some. As one might guess, I was a bit stressed. But, I returned and made clear I would continue to do so. Then today one of the projects had an install I was told would be after the 15 but it turned out despite that knowledge they put it on the 11 and I had screwed up the purchase process as one phase had the purchaser stand by for the approval and then transmit data again to the vendor. I mistakenly thought my part to be done and screwed the pooch,

By this time, I felt what was coming and out of simple decency and professionalism, I chose to do all I could to fix the issue and the vendor kindly ate the fee to overnight the UPS. At first I thought it may have saved me but then I got the please come here in teams and was without even a "we appreciate your efforts" was walked out the lobby and my contract manager and asked to collect my things. I am heartbroken. I did my best and it would have been better had they been in any way reasonable in their expectations but even though they were not I still smiled and gave it my all and committed to coming back day in and day out. They told me they had a hard time find a tech for the Dallas market and I think I know all too well why. Nobody can come into an IT shop and catch all the contributing minutiae without at least a modest amount of time invested. Did I make some mistakes? Yes. Did I have some external issues? Yes. In all cases though I adapted and fixed or overcame by significant effort and no small expense to serve them and to be shown the door in such leaves me so very low. Two of three previous techs simply never returned. One did this after ONE DAY. I may have been slower to adapt than they wished but I was honest and committed and they thanked me for that with the boot. I feel awful for all the sites and users I promised to help. I meant every word but am now unable to keep those promises and I hate that it hurts me so much.