Contracting...Contracting...

"Please display your identification card". Thats the board which welcomes anyone entering the plant-cum-innovative center of KEMET Electronics Corporation. Everyday the security personnel stand at that board and greet everyone with a warm smile.Surprisingly today nobody was there. Not worrying too much about the absense of te security folks, I just walked further to see a lady who religously reads a book with a coffee mug in one hand and a book in the other.I did not see her either. Not paying much attention to these abnormalities, I entered the building to solve the maze ahead, the pathway to my cabin. I need to walk a considerable distance inside the office before I reach my cabin and it involves a lot of left, right and U-turns for me to solve the maze. While on this maze, I usually see lot of peoplewalking, some smiling, some discussing the serious issues of today's world such as gas prices, some giving me a scournful look, may be because of all this fuss about outsourcing, some whispering 'oh..these contractors..' to each other and some others sometimes commenting about my stout personality. But today, there were not many people on the pathway. Even the people who are walking, they just seemed they were not interested even in greeting me. Some even looked like they were not interested even in life anymore. I just started wondering what could be the reason behind the gloominess of all the people at KEMET. Suddenly a thought struck my mind. A thought that could threaten any guy like me, underachieved and unsettled. Layoffs... As a good practice, every morning when I start for the office,I check the share price of the client that I am currenty working for. Today I did not do because I justwoke up late because of weekend hangover. I was sure that its stocks have gone much lower, which could lead to jobcuts. Unknowingly I just started to feel as if the burden ofthe whole universe is on my head. 'No.It's not gonna be me',I just said to myself and continued walking.After this self-motivation, I reached my work station, docked my laptop,turned it on and opened Lotus Notes. There was a mail from a guy who happens to be a little more than just a colleague to me. We both pooled a car for quite sometime and thats how we developed a decent level of friendship. By the way, the mail was about his last day in the office. Shocked, I went to him and asked as to why was he sacked. He replied 'They said it doesn't have to do anything with myperformance and the only reason is the poor performance of the company in this quarter. They promised me to call me back when the situation gets better'. After a some pat-on-backs to my colleague, I just returned to my desk and saw an email from the client manager asking me to meet him immediately. I just had set my mind that this is gonna be a bad day. After a half-hour serious meeting with the manager, I just came to know that I just saved my ass off the jobcut just because I know a technology that none of their employees know. But they also informed methat they are planning to train one of their employees on it and then get rid of me. They did not give the last statement but thats what it means.They are not gonna retain me anyways. If not this time, they will definitely sack me the next time. You can't be lucky everytime. But this is the true nature of the contract jobs. They are lucrative but fluctuating in terms of job safety. They can give you everything.A merc, a Condo house in the costliest area of the town, ipods, iphone, backberries, WIIs,PS3s, Mac Books and what not. Oh yeah, peace. They can give you anything except peace. Yet, people like me just dive into the contracting field, for the reasons known to them...