So this is good bye

I have to say that my last day at work yesterday went pretty well. I was positive I was going to cry, but not once did I shed a tear, even though others did. Perhaps I had cried enough earlier in the week. I think it also helped that I said my piece (and by piece, I mean peace) to my bosses at the end of the day before. I said things that I needed to, and I was pretty darn proud of myself, if I do say so myself. Even one of the bosses told me the next day he was proud of me for saying what I did, and he said he knew it was hard for me (it was).

Following is the farewell email I sent to the staff. I wrote most of it sometime between 2 and 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, although not everything made it into the final version I sent just before I walked out for the final time. I did cut out some things that although I thought were pretty good, they may have been too much for some. Some might argue that a few things I left in were probably a little much, but I am leaving true to myself, someone who said it like it was, with no false pretenses. As I said in an earlier post, I am who I am.

So long

Over the years, when an employee sent a farewell email, I would stop and think about what I would say when my time came. Would my note be funny? Serious? My usual tome? Would I not even bother to send one? But here I am, almost 13 years after I started, and I have to say something. AMS/TF and I have been together longer than most marriages in Hollywood have lasted. And this has been like a marriage in a lot of ways. There have been tears and laughter. Joy and sorrows. Great adventures and rough patches. But through it all we stayed together.

For years, family and friends said I would never leave. I would always protest, insisting someday I would move on. But not even the demise of bagel and donut days did it. Then, a year or so ago, I finally admitted that the only way I was going to leave was if I went kicking and screaming. I just appreciated a lot of things too much to let go. I will try not to kick and scream, but I cannot promise there won't be tears.

****
A few weeks ago, Don came to my desk and had this worried look on his face. He said that Boeing had just laid off a bunch of people, which I knew because I had been obsessively following the economy. I had an idea what he was thinking, so I tried to make a joke, and said if I were laid off, I would be fine. I had my 42" HD flat-screen TV and DVR to keep me busy. He laughed.

My advice to all of you? Don't say anything like that to Reed and Don. Instead, try throwing around phases like "food stamps," "homelessness," and "living in a cardboard box" whenever one of them is in earshot. ;-)

****
Come Monday, for me there will be no more lunches in the square with friends. No more walks with Sam and my work husbands. No more nagging "people" to do their time sheets. No more offering someone a dollar if he would do a quick assignment. No more budget update emails. No more working on a budget, having people tell me to reduce it, and then watching everyone go over the original budget anyway. No more proofreading proposals or other documents and having half my comments ignored. No more fighting with the templates. No more weekly shows. No more running down the hall. No more raiding the candy dish (and by candy dish, I mean the container full of candy in the pantry). No more potluck lunches. No more hanging around the kitchen waiting for leftover client food to come back. No more holiday parties. No more spending hours getting ready in the morning. No more singing at my desk. No more rambling.

No more all of you. Sigh.

I am not sure where I will go from here or what I will do (although I fear cooking will be part of my immediate future), but I like to think onward and upward. It has been quite a ride, but it has finally stopped. So I am getting off. A little weary and a little queasy from all the motion. But a little excited too. After all, there are other rides to ride...

XXOO
Faith