Career advice: Am I in job trouble?

[The LadyKiller]

I work at a large-sized, corporate company that has a few thousand employees. The job itself is fun and has its benefits. I feel I do a good job - overall evaluations I receive would agree. However, I have the feeling that The Powers That Be (whoever they are) are trying to poke holes at my contract when it expires later this year.

Each shift, we work on projects that lead up to a major production each day. I've received a long string of very good supervisory reports and my supervisors feel I do a good job overall. Last week, I had one "off-day." For whatever reason, I didn't have my usual A-game results and made some errors I usually never make. While my project turned out fine in the end (the execution wasn't great, but it wasn't awful), my supervisor for the day wrote a rather scathing report. He ended it with saying he "sincerely hopes I can regain the trust of the supervisors."

This is the problem. I've produced very good results for months on end, working with the same supervisors. This very supervisor has submitted very glowing reports of my work during this time. So one bad day and I lose the trust of everyone? My mistakes on this one day weren't so overwhelmingly awful. A lot of my peers have done far, far worse things - some of which had brought negative attention onto the company. They're still working here.

I have worked on other projects with other higher-ups that have gone very well. As mentioned earlier, I have worked on projects with these supervisors and they have gone well. But The Powers That Be (TPTB) will only ask me about the one blip, and not the many very good reports. When I started at the company, TPTB kept looking at one negative report instead of the 15 other positive ones during my "temp" stage (I was hired full-time at the end of that period).

My contract is up at the end of the year. My body of work would all-but-ensure earning the new contract (it's not a negotiation, more of a fulfilling requirements system). But does it seem like my bosses are looking to subtly out me? Compounding the internal problem is that one of TPTB hasn't responded to my e-mail I sent a few weeks ago to meet with him about a project I'd like to work on going forward.

 

[twentee]

double, sorry.

 

[twentee]

Gotta have true, realistic survival skills, gear, and investments, man. Can you open and start a car without the key? Swim a mile? Pick a lock? Got a disguise kit? know how to employ it? got a van and a small, off road motorcycle? Backpacking gear? got some non-hybrid seeds? gold coins? got a pistol and a ccw permit? skills to go with it? can you truly fight well with hands, feet, stick, knife? Do you have a couple of widely spaced, multi tenant, paid for, low cost rental places, for secure income? Until you have all this in place, you are at severe risk. All it takes is for 1-2 guys to decide that they need to screw up your job-reputation. Just look at a pos like Burroughs, and realize that scum like that CAN be in a position to mess you up.

 

[Mike32ct]

It is a sad reality that you can do 100 things right at work and one thing wrong and people will ONLY remember the ONE thing you f-ed up.

No point trying to mind-read and guess whether they will keep you or not. Just work hard and remember the LITTLE details. The seemingly small stuff gets us in more trouble than the big stuff.

In the meantime, as a worst-case backup plan, you have until year end to put some extra $ away in your emergency fund and to update your resume.

Be prepared, but don't let this shake your confidence. If the higher-ups have an attitude with you for a while, don't let that bring you down. You know you have what it takes.

 

[speed dawg]

I don't think so. This is just how it goes. Do you know what happens if you do everything right? Nothing. Sounds like they are typical bosses. What you do need to do is start finding ways to make your bosses life easier.

But in saying this....ALWAYS keep your resume updated and keep some money saved up.

 

[The LadyKiller]

Thank you for the feedback.

Looks like things are fine:
-The supervisor who wrote the report requested to work with me today and gave me one of the higher-end assignments as a show of confidence. I DOMINATED. He said afterwards that he knows my capabilities and wanted us to both leave work feeling good.
-One bigwig contacted me. He was disappointed that the assignment didn't succeed as desired because he's vouched for me before, but I owned up to it. Told him that the day just got away from me (extremely rare), I made mistakes I normally never make, and I feel my very good track record speaks of what I can do. Seemed to work.

Best thing to do is move forward and produce the high-quality work I'm used to doing. I get paranoid in situations like this because of the experience I had as a temp, but it appears I have enough "good stuff" that I have some security.

 

[twentee]

there's no security at all, ever, if working for other people. the first thing that goes wrong for the company, they start looking for people to lay off.