Letter Never Sent

Two more working days until I no longer work where I’ve been for almost three years. It’s funny how the time just flows by and how when you look back and enumerate the various experiences only then does it seem like a long time. It’s also funny how total strangers become close friends and a family you spend more time with than those related by blood.

Experiences in these past years related to work:

1. Three Christmas parties, three Valentine’s Day parties, Halloween parties, launch parties, congratulations parties, and many other alcohol fueled company shindigs.
2. Three or four layoffs, two studio closures, and two so-called reorgs. Needless to say I have seen many people come and go, and honestly, I’ve mostly forgotten the ones who didn’t make it. Losing someone to a layoff is like surviving a humiliating defeat. You want to put the scene of the crime behind you. The crime being that you wanted to survive even if it meant walking over the bodies of your fallen comrades. I think they call it Survivor’s Guilt.
3. A few personal crises.
4. Three different automobiles (’87 Escort aka The Offender, ’87 Crown Victoria aka Das Boot, and ’93 Saturn aka Grown-up Camouflage.
5. The violent death of a young female coworker (car accident).
6. Various personal stages of development and dress experienced by patient coworkers. Am I maturing or just changing costume?
7. Two all-expenses paid business trips (Las Vegas and San Francisco) where I did almost nothing to justify my going. Much of the corporate world is based upon appearance rather than substance. All sound and fury, signifying nothing. Did I have a good time anyway? Yeah. My hypocrisy knows no bounds.
8. Three different supervisors and two different titles.
9. One big project I’m proud of and many other countless hours spent in mindless routine. It is definitely time for a change. Maybe next time I will do the changing myself.

On the way to work today, I spent about ten minutes daydreaming about what I will write in the valedictory email to my coworkers. Saying farewell in email is a bit of a tradition around here where most communication takes place online. I thought of a few pithy phrases and work-related anecdotes, but I’m sure I’ll forget all that when I do it tomorrow. One thing I’m sure of, whatever I write will be equal parts pompously long-winded and self-consciously sentimental. I know they would expect nothing less.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2004 at 8:07 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.