Two months into my job at TAO and my boss decided to see if I was worth my salary. They put me on a lame-duck project – I was doing some work for a major contractor, we’ll call them MH. It was actually a fairly large programming project for the Navy, the guy at our company that was working on it up and quit about a month before it was due.

He did nothing.

TAO believed our involvement in the project will come to an end shortly, since we spent a chunk of money to do jack shit, so they put me as the main guy on it in order to get me used to heading a project.

I had to write code – something I’ve never done in the past. But I looked at all the shit we had, read some books, and after a month I put something together that was thoroughly incomplete but looked decent. I also put together a balls-to-the-wall presentation that was 80% marketing, 20% progress report.

One of my bosses (Bob) and ADEA (pronounced ah-dea and stood for A.D. Eats Ass, A.D. being ADEA’s real name – he’ll be in the peanut gallery eventually), and I flew down to Long Island to meet with MH. We rent a car, drive down to MH and check in with security. Roger, the prime on the project, shakes our hands and shows us to the conference room. We all sit down, get comfortable, and Roger starts the meeting off by saying:

“I want to get this straight. TAO will no longer be working on this project. This meeting is solely so you can transition the software to us. We will only release enough funds to transition the software.”

Bob, ADEA and I were, well, speechless. Bob gathers his composure and gives his little update about where we are, money-wise, and then introduces me.

Here I am with this marketing presentation when just ten minutes ago Roger tells us we’re done working on this project. I figure, “what the fuck,” and I just go for it.

I spend an hour up there, giving my presentation and answering questions. Honestly. If any of the MH guys asked if we can do something and we couldn’t do it – I’d tell them “no” but say what we can do. I was just on the ball – commanding the room.

When I was done we decided to take a fifteen minute break. I was in the bathroom taking a leak when Roger asked me if I wanted to work for them. I politely told him “no”, said I was happy with TAO, and if he wanted to keep me on the project he’d need to send us some more funds.

When we reconvened for the remainder of the meeting, the tone was much different.

We had 60k left on our contract. They upped it to 250k and added more work for us to do. Our transition meeting turned into a planning meeting. Afterwards we shook hands, Roger offered me a job one last time, within earshot of my boss, and we were on our way.

The plus side? I got a ten-percent raise and a ten-percent bonus. I also got to hire my friend James to work on the project which got me a 5k referral bonus and a buddy at work. Between bonuses, raises and referrals that little trip netted me an extra 15k that year and job security for as long as I wanted to stay there. 22 year-old kid not only rescues a project but quadruples the budget.

The downside, in an effort to get me to work for them, Roger put a clause in the contract that stated I needed to spend two weeks out of every month working onsite at MH. For about eight months I spent half my time in Long Island. And there’s no amount of money in the world that’s worth that.