On a Monday morning in early May, I got a call from my old boss. He asked if I'd be interested in filling in for a few weeks at my old job. There were a couple of people going out of the country for vacations, and he needed help. I quickly added up what I'd make in a couple of weeks (I would make about what I'd made before, but hourly as a contract worker) and figured it'd be okay. I could do that. I agreed to go in that Friday for a few hours of "transition talks" with the analyst who would be gone for the first week.

I was fired after six plus years on the job in early January 2006. Friday the 13th, to be exact. Officially I was laid off, which made it easy for me to get unemployment without having to go into the details. Of course, I never really got the details of why I was laid off. It could have been my plans for leaving. And there were hard feelings, apparently, with at least one person I worked with on a daily basis. Plus the continual disrespect for my work by the people who owned and ran the company (this famously manifested itself in cutting my year end bonus for 2005--because I was planning to leave in 2006). I was also rather burned out, but I took a while to figure this out.

Between the Monday phone call and Friday morning, I kept expecting my boss (who did not want me to leave when I did, and defended me more than he probably should have) to call me back and cancel the deal. He didn't.

After a purging earlier this year, my boss's team was reduced to the most inexperienced analysts and project manager. All of his experienced personnel were moved to other teams. And because you have to add insult to injury, they took his cell phone away. Which, I guess, left an opening for me to come back for a few weeks. This way, you see, he'd have someone who had done this type of work before. I also had the feeling he was bringing me back for a bit of passive/aggressive spite. When I asked how the news I'd be back for a few weeks went over with the troops, he said I was a polarizing figure.

The first week I was there, I was put in a corner. Downstairs in a windowless cubicle (with seven foot walls) where interns usually work. There was, apparently, a concern I'd be a distraction. Since my thoughts about working there again were iffy at best, I had no intention of being more than a mouse in a mansion. The interns who worked around me commented near the end of the first week that I was very quiet.

I did the work and kept out of sight. Tuesday (the second full day) was the worst. I was tired from not sleeping much the night before. And the massive amount of computer screen time and data entry made me realize I had been wrong about something I'd denied when I was working there before: it really was the work I was tired of--that and not getting paid enough. Something about Tuesdays just makes it hard. It's not the first day of the week, and you aren't halfway done with the week either. The finish line is not in sight. I was so beat at the end of that day, I had doubts I would make it. The rest of the week got easier.

A guitarist in my band summed up my description of work like this: most people bitch about only getting a week of vacation during a year of work. I was bitching about working one week out of an entire year of "vacation." It was a good perspective to hear.

I got most of the next week and a half off. I was a little pissed because while I'd been working, I hadn't been paying attention to the stock market. Figuring I was making money at a regular job, I didn't have to keep a real close eye on my other "job." There is work involved in stock trading, and I didn't have the time to do it. I'll just say I missed a few opportunities.

When I went back in on the Wednesday after Memorial Day, I found I'd be working on a completely different project (which was a mess) and training a new girl.

Nevermind that my firing back in January 2006 was timed so I wouldn't be training my replacement (I left on a Friday, she started the Monday after), here I was trying to help someone figure out how to be an analyst. And I was merely a contract worker.

This second stint made me feel a little more welcome. I was working among the analysts (upstairs), mostly because I was training one of them. No longer was I sent into time out in the corner. And, for the most part, I kept my thoughts about how the company is run to myself. The project, which seems to have been a cluster from the very beginning, has been moved along but not finished. The guy I was filling in for will probably be disappointed that he'll have another week to week and a half of this mess. All the data came in very late (about a week), and the client requested updated reports daily.

As the week closed, I was tired but happy. I was done. I made it. I go in for a few hours on Monday, but it's pretty much over.

I found all of my reasons for wanting to leave were very warranted (in other words, nothing really changed). That I don't want the job I used to do. And money doesn't make people happy.

But if I ever have to do this substitute work again, I need a freakin' raise.

Matt Worley is relishing going back to being responsible to no one but himself in a few days.