Well, I had my meeting on Friday, and when I say "It could've been worse", what I actually mean is that if everything went as perfectly as possible, it would've been worse than how things actually went down.

Seriously, it was BEYOND perfect.

At 8:45 I had finished scribbling down my notes of what I wanted to say to New VP. I wanted to explain our rare opportunity and then ease into the idea of possibly doing contract work... but before I could even get that far, New VP threw me off track. He started asking me all kinds of questions that I wasn't prepared for. Answers that I hadn't jotted down in my notes... and yet, answers that I was more than happy to provide.

New VP started asking about our script, how long it took us to write it, how we learned to write a screenplay, etc. He was genuinely interested!

Of course, a few people around the office say it's because he's only a temporary contract worker himself. (It's his job to eventually hire a permanent VP to take his place once he gets most of the kinks ironed out in this dysfunctional romper room.) People have suggested that if he had real ties to the company, I would've got a much different reaction.... which is probably true. When DMC gave her notice a few months ago (but then later changed her mind), our old VP (who normally is a pretty nice guy) *slammed* a thick book on the desk out of frustration. So yeah... I guess you could say I totally lucked out.

New VP was absolutely wonderful! He was SOOO supportive and happy for us. Then, before I could even propose the idea, he asked about the possibility of me doing contract work in a few months. I told him I would be happy to start doing contract as soon as possible. He was very pleased to hear that and instructed me to speak with Payroll right away. And so I did.

Now, if New VP was amazingly supportive, then Payroll was bouncing off the walls. I mean, I kept telling her that this doesn't mean our movie will get made, and that this funding is just giving us time to work on our script... but that didn't stop her. She was just SO excited for us.

Another interesting thing was she kept saying how completely generous it was of J n' I to offer to stay on for 10 hours a week. I mean, yeah, we certainly don't want to leave our co-workers high n' dry... but really, we're mainly staying on for selfish reasons -- to subsidize our income, and keep a foot in the door. So it's funny that from her perspective we're doing the company this HUGE favour. I guess like I was saying before, this mass exodus has really hurt the company, and so it seems that they're willing to bend over backwards to keep people on in any capacity. Payroll kept telling us that we could ask for anything we wanted (wage wise) and she'd push for it and make sure we got it. While I imagine that she must be exaggerating to some extent, (I mean we're not going to make executive wages), the truth is neither of us have any intention to ask for more than what we think is reasonable. We just want to make what the other contract workers make. That's more than enough. After all, we might be selfish... but we're not greedy.

So yeah, it's all been very surreal, and oh-so-smooth. It doesn't quite feel real yet. It doesn't feel like we're leaving, even though I've been having all these conversations about my work flow and what stuff I want to keep doing. (I'm asking to keep the more creative stuff like marketing campaigns, customer newsletters, and advertising.) Also, I have to admit that I was fully expecting to get some grief about giving only two weeks instead of a month's notice, (if we were actually leaving-leaving we probably would've given more time), but everyone seems more than accommodating for August 4th (which is actually a holiday) to be our last day before we switch to contract work.

Unreal....

Actually, I don't think any of this will feel real until Tuesday, August 5th rolls around, and we hit the snooze button for another half hour before deciding to get up, put on a pot of coffee, and begin to outline what scenes we want to tackle that day.

No... for as much as we've fantasized about this day coming (and we've been dreaming about it for about two years), it's hard to believe that it's just around the corner....