Saturday, October 16, 2010

you and me could write a bad romance

It's all over. I had a lovely last day at work -- I managed to get in around 9:30 (despite staying up until almost two a.m. writing my goodbye email and taking care of some other stuff), where I slogged excessively until 2:30pm to wrap up the last bits of stuff that I wanted to finish. As I was still sending emails until about five minutes before my exit interview, I was clearly taking my productivity down to the wire.

But, my friend Sarah happened to be in town from Tokyo, and she hung out on my couch for an hour -- we had always said that we would quit together, and while we didn't hold true to that (all my fault, obviously), at least she was here on my final day. And, in a v. surprising and touching note, my parents sent me flowers, so I had a gorgeous flower arrangement to look at while dashing off all my last emails/requests/responses.

Around 2:30, I went over to my old building and hung out for an hour and a half, saying some desultory goodbyes and wrapping things up with my laptop. At four, I did my exit interview, which was a bit of a jhoke only because I'm friends with the HR person, who recently moved to Israel but was back in town and happened to end up covering for the HR person who was going to do my exit but was out sick. So, I ended up asking her as many questions about Israel as she asked me about why I was leaving, which was funny. She also didn't have the paperwork and had to scramble to find it, and I was concerned because I had deduced from my last direct deposit (this morning) that they had neglected to pay me for my accrued vacation (an issue that we didn't resolve - Imma have to follow up with someone). This kind of stuff is rather par for the course, and is a charming bookend to the start of my career, when the recruiter forgot to call me to tell me that I was hired, but when I called to check the status on a Friday, she asked if I could start Monday. Ah, memories.

The HR woman claimed that she had to take me downstairs to pick up a copy of the NDA that I signed when I joined, but then she escorted me into a final surprise party thrown for me by my friend Jenni (whom I've worked with for ages and also spent quality time with in South Africa and India - where 'quality' is sort of a pun since that's one of the many projects we've worked on) and the big boss's admin. They had decorated a conference room with an explosion of pink, brought cupcakes and champagne, and a bunch of people chipped in for giftcards to Barnes and Noble and Sephora (they know me too well). It was lovely, although true to form I called out exactly how awkward it was, since we were all sort of standing/sitting in a circle, not saying much, and then someone would ask me a question about my future. That just made it v. entertaining to me, though -- but definitely not the kind of emotional vibe that would have brought me to tears (although not much would have, unless they showed the end of a cheesy romantic dramedy).

But, a lot of my favorite people were there, and it was nice to say goodbyes in person. Then, a smaller group of us (mostly expats - Heather and Salim, Chris and Natasha, plus Meital (Alan's admin) and Will (who was on one of my old teams back in 2007)) adjourned to a nearby bar, where we spent a couple of hours telling tales over drinks. After drinks, Heather and Salim took me to Fiesta del Mar, where the server sarcastically asked "Really?" when I ordered enchiladas suizas, since I get that every time and he apparently knows it. Ha. Then, Heather let me into my old building one final time (since my badge is gone forever) to pick up the flowers from my parents and the bottle of champagne the big boss gave me, and I drove off into the night.

So while today was lovely and fairly unemotional, I think I will feel more emotional over the next few days. My goodbye email has already resulted in over seventy responses -- and not to go too far into a Sally Field "you like me, you really like me!" moment, but so many of them are so incredibly nice that I can't quite express how grateful I am for them. It's always nice to know that you'll be missed, and I'm glad that all the efforts I put into collaboration and relationships (even on the days when I would have rather stabbed myself in the face than go to another meeting and try to get monkeys to play nicely with each other) were noticed and appreciated.

But I don't feel guilty about leaving, and given my general near-Catholic levels of guilt about almost everything, I'm quite proud of myself for not feeling bad about this. It was hard to say goodbye to the big boss, and I joked that we sort of gave each other a man hug (she doesn't like touching and was holding her laptop, and my approach was awkward as usual), but she'll be fine without me (as she said, she managed to write her thank-you note to me without having me ghostwrite it, which I think demonstrates she can handle herself). But it really wasn't hard to say goodbye to anyone who showed up to the party, because I'll see them all again (and am having lunch with two of them and dinner with three more of them next week anyway).

So that's the end. I feel good about it, and I'm excited for the next phase in my life, scary as it may be. But I'm giving myself the weekend off from writing -- it's time to put my house in order, so I'm going to spend the weekend cleaning, finally getting my bedroom in livable condition, and possibly watching an endless amount of "True Blood". Goodnight!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

BEST of luck to you...success doesn't come without failures, set-backs, lessons learned. You'll be doing what you love, live life well my friend!

Will K. said...

"but she'll be fine without me (as she said, she managed to write her thank-you note to me without having me ghostwrite it, which I think demonstrates she can handle herself)."

You crack me the fuck up. :P

So good to see you yesterday. Love you!

Mahin said...

Oh true blood! What season are you on?