[IUHoosiergirl88]

Defense contracting is a lot of 'contingent' hiring, so I've started reaching out to recruiters that I've had good relationships with in the past, they just didn't win the contract I was contingently hired for. I'm in the pipeline for a contract due to be awarded in June, but again, they don't know if they'll win it.

The contract I'm on is in place through at least early 2014, with the possibility of extensions. We're implementing a huge set of financial management packages and payroll packages, so there's a big staff for both development and then support once it's actually in place.

In terms of my immediate supervisor, I think he's just as confused as we are. Me and my teammates have gone to him and said look, do we need to remove the instant message software, do we need to start documenting every interaction we have with the client, etc. etc. and he doesn't even know what to tell us. At my internship agency, I was on the government side and we didn't treat contractors any differently, nor were they subject to anything that seemed remotely draconian, so I was really surprised to be treated poorly at this client site. It's a complete 180 from the defense-related experience I'd had in the past. We joke now that the next thing they're going to take away is our parking and give us a porta potty in the parking lot to use instead of the real bathrooms