Diary of an Ex-Employee - Day 3.0

Today was the day of:

1. Last journey into the office
   
2. Clearing the desk
   
3. Farewell lunch with colleagues
   
4. Final handover with boss

Last journey into the office

The journey into work was a little surreal.

First, there was a car in front of me that had been parked under a cherry blossom last night. There were fallen petals all over it that kept flying off towards me. It was like a parade of confetti celebrating my final return to this workplace.

Second, the Gods of radio were sending me messges with every song that was played. Isn't it funny how, in times of high emotion, all songs seem to be about you?

• It's the end of the world as we know (and I feel fine) - R.E.M.
  
• Pale Shelter (what they gave me - I thought my job was safe) - Tears for Fears
  
• One way or Another (I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha) - Blondie

Third, when I arrived at the garage to park, my first Nemesis at this job was in front of me. She is a really difficult woman, always poker faced - actually, always sour faced - and any meeting with her was an ordeal.

Thank God I changed roles and didn't have to deal with her anymore but, whenever I did see her, I would kill with kindness. I'd raise my voice three octaves and give her my best Californian Happy Girl greeting, with a Hollywood smile. She'd usually ignore me. Today, though - on my last day - she smiled at me as I got out of the elevator. I was a small, tortured upturn of the corners of the mouth but, what the hell, it counts.

Clearing the desk

Clearing the desk went pretty quickly, not least because I was running late and only had twenty minutes to do it before I had to be at the lunch. I ended up with a carry on luggage case full of crap - damn, I need to learn to keep my life at home!

I thought long and hard about what to do with my cube. Here are some of the ideas I had:

• Cover the cube in fake spiderwebs
  
• Buy a bunch of red roses and leave them on my desk to die, black petals dropping off onto the desk


• Cover the cube with those awful inspirational posters like this


• Cover the cube with mock inspirational pictures like this


• Leave everything the way it was with plans, diagrams, to do lists all over the place, with a blow up doll in my seat

This is all FANTASY, you understand. I didn't do anything on my way out.

The Farewell lunch

There were about 20 people, which was very flattering. I've worked with some really cool people and there are a few that I genuinely will keep in contact with.

I found it interesting that no-one from my new team came - it was all people from my previous team, and even my first manager, who has moved on to a totally different group.

Some people had genuinely good advice to share, and others made offers to connect me to people they knew in other companies.

Still others had to get an explanation of the subject line of my goodbye email "So long, and thanks for all the fish." You have to take a deep breath and remember to respect cultural differences at moments like that.

But, really, they're a good bunch.

I had to leave to go to my handover meeting with my boss, but it looked like they were in the bar for the long haul. I got a text at 5:30pm to tell me they were still going. It makes me feel a little happy that my leaving can drive my ex-colleagues to drink.

Final Handover with Boss

The Gods of radio were on form again. The last song I heard before arriving at my boss' building was Harden my Heart:

I'm gonna harden my heart

I'm gonna swallow my tears

I'm gonna turn and lea-heave you-hoo here....

My boss is a very nice man, and I genuinely don't think that he wanted things to turn out this way. On the other hand, a nagging voice in my head tells me he didn't fight hard enough for me. There are other sub-departments in our group where no-one has left so their manager obviously found a way to keep them.

Anyway, I handed over the PC, the company credit card, the parking pass, etc.

I started to go through my work and who needed to do what, but he really didn't seem to give a crap about that, telling me I needed to concentrate on my next steps, bla bla bla. Isn't it nice when you're leaving nobody cares that the work you're doing is going to stop?

Life lesson: Make sure you get on projects which are high visibility and you have knowledge that everyone needs to keep.

He said that I'd handled the exit meeting the other day very well and he was proud of me. I guess that's a compliment although it felt a little fatherly.

And so we said goodbye and that was that.

I wasn't particularly sad leaving and driving home for the final time. I guess if I had thought ahead I'd have loaded up my iPod with "I will Survive" and sung it at the top of my voice, probably intermittently out of tune.

It was pissing with rain and there was a lot of traffic, which was a pity, because what I would have liked to have done was to drive fast and loose and stupid, singing to 80s hits, wee wee wee wee all the way home.