Ron sat silent for another moment. "Well, I may know something worse. I'm not supposed to tell you, but I think you need to be prepared. Friday afternoon I had to go down to the HR department to straighten out what I thought was an over payment on my payroll check. Do you remember me telling you about Rosie from HR? She's my friend down there. I dated her sister Sharon for almost a year. Rosie and I stayed friends even after I broke up with her sister. Anyway, I had an excess amount of money in my check. The excess amount on my check was because of you. I never knew that we had a finder's fee for bringing on new employees. It was nine hundred dollars, thank you for that."
"Yeah, well you at least owe me lunch for that my friend. So why is that bad for me?"
"That's not bad for you, but what Rosie told me was. First off, I'm not supposed to tell you, you have to promise not to say anything to anyone or they'll know Rosie said something. Do you promise?"
"Of course Ron absolutely."
"Well do you remember when I told you to be careful with this whole situation because they may not need you after you fixed the bug in the CASTER Project? Well, I was right. Rosie said your employment since day one was listed as temporary, as per Michael. Michael told Rosie just before you left for Italy that he would give you two more weeks after you returned from Italy and sign the termination papers to release you."
John sat there stunned for a moment then nodded his head. "That figures, the asshole. I knew he agreed to my salary request to easily, he didn't try to negotiate it lower either. He never had any intention of keeping me, yeah that makes sense. Unfortunately, that's kind of the nature of our business. Wouldn't be the first time I was used and then tossed away, won't be the last time either I'm sure."
"So anyway John, remember not a word to anyone and hang in there till they let you go, Rosie says there is going to be a sizeable severance package and she said it was very, very sizeable. You need the money my friend."
"Actually, in my hiring contract I get the same severance package no matter why, when or who terminates my employment. I promise I will not say anything, but thanks for the heads up. That definitely changes things a lot now. You've always been a good friend to me. And thanks again for suggesting me for this job in the first place. Hey, look at it this way I got to go to Italy on the company's credit card, no matter what else has happened you can't beat that. Maybe I should have bought that Ferrari on the company credit card." They talked for a couple more minutes and then John told Ron to go back to sleep and promised him he would not be calling again until he was back home.