Opening the door, I went out in the normal fashion, taking the keys with me. Leaving the computer on had to be done. I was nearest the door anyway. I went to the car and drove away. My mobile phone rang about an hour later, but I didn’t answer it. It didn’t persist. A short email arrived later from one of my colleagues; he said I could have let you back in. Next day, two notes came in the post to me, along with a voucher. I decided not to reply back, except to reply the email from my colleagues, saying my access card had a problem and I couldn’t get back it.
Just over a year before that, my manager took me to what would be our new office and explained that another colleague had requested the desk that I earlier requested when we all would move in. The colleague explained it was due to personal reasons, my manager relayed that to me. It was an awkward situation since what would happen if I also had personal reason to choose that desk rather than the desk next to the entrance door to the office? Not much point in pursuing that line of conversation, and I knew my line manager would have not carried out that line of conversation if I raised my ‘personal reason’ – he would say again I’m sorry he wanted that seat.
We can be so possessive about what we have and want. Since I am telling the story, I can say I wasn’t possessive and/or childish (!). It was true that I could have a shorter stay in the office compared to other colleagues since I was applying for other jobs and most likely to leave that area anyway.
What did turn out though was that the colleague joined another team about 6 months after we started using that office, and moved to another building altogether. Making my point, I said no, I am not moving to that desk, which was facing my own desk. It’s kind of bizarre to move 3 steps away, just to “claim it back”? I really did not want to bother. I can pretend I was happy where I am, it’s management having to continue to deal with the situation. They can imagine and second guess if the desk situation was solved. I guess if I moved to where I originally wanted, management would feel a sense of relief. Not taking it (back), I left a half burning coal on their court.
That situation remained for probably 9 months until I got a new job in another town. At the best of time, I would not choose to have a leaving party, or any party with me in the spotlight. No one informed me in advance of any arrangement, not even on the morning of my last day. Even today, I thought that was strange. I don’t think there was any ill intention, it’s probably that they really didn’t know what they could do. Not so much about “me”, but they couldn’t put their act together. OK, maybe both.
Without raising the topic at all, from me or from them, I thought I would act as normal as possible on the last day.
I arrived in the morning all the same as usual, except I did not have any bag, or coat, or any belonging with me. I would find a way to leave as unnoticed as possible sometime in the day, not too early, but not too late as somebody might do an impromptu sending off speech.
Whatever did happen, there might have been some moments of confusion with my colleagues. One of my colleagues called me on my mobile phone. It might be some 10-20 minutes of soul searching on why it turned out that way – did he simply leave without saying good bye? Or it could be some short conversation among my colleagues to say oh he does not seem to be here anymore, I better send a note to him to say good bye. My colleague later sent me an email. I did not reply till the next week to say I had problem getting back on to the site and he then replied saying I could have called him to let me back in.
That could have been really strange experience for my colleagues. It would have been far more uneasy for me to face up to a sort of farewell situation. I knew it could have been receiving a farewell card and they might want to wish me well in the new town and new job. There would be no doubt in their sincerity and I respect a good number of them.
In a way, that was how I ended my last day in that job.
It had been a good place of work in that I and my colleagues faced a range of challenges carrying out our work responsibilities, and there was a lot of camaraderie between us. Looking back, given its benefit, I think we had not been trained to face organisational changes in such a way we can verbalise it in a meaningful way to us individually and collectively. There was certainly a good degree of team identity (or identity within the two teams which then joined) which was a positive thing, but we were probably relying (hoping) that the team and our culture will bring us closer together. I don’t think that was the case, and it was not clear if other colleagues thought about that at all, or in that similar kind of way. Some of my colleagues would have thought the team had not been working together, and to some extent I can agree with that as each of us had our own disciplines and in some cases there was no convergent with discipline from another team member. It’s just the way our experience had come together, or not.
I met up with my colleague several times since then; he probably had not remembered much of the detail of my last day, and certainly we had not talked about that, nor the specific detail of him offering to let me back in to the site when I said my access card had failed.
The way the last day of work had ended would not have been the most dramatic or unusual. I had been in another job where I realised this was the last 10 minutes I am in this office. But that’s a different blog to write. Common thing is that I felt more comfortable this way, perhaps others would perceive as awkward and unfriendly, and certainly unsociable. Inside this shell, major turmoils would have boiled over that I could not be myself – it’s not as simple as words convey with respect to self identity, it would felt more like a pinch of salt snubbed, melted, dissolved for its good purpose. However, I am not salt. I needed a way forward so the most basic of me gets through it. Getting out of the door was a tinge of relief to be out of the environment, the further away the more unease it became because I would not know what my colleagues would do. I will never know because I was not there. But getting out the door with certainty of my impromptu plan was somewhat an adventure.
