The Beginning of the End
So, you may be wondering why I haven’t been posting lately. Or maybe you weren’t wondering before, but you are now. Or, well, you know.
I’ll tell you.
I’ve been busy. I’ve been driving in and out of Boston a lot, and spending a huge amount of time at the dentist’s (BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP! — woops, I’m not supposed to talk about the dentist!). “But, why Boston, Diane? Why would you be driving in and out of Boston so much?” Well, voice in my head that I use for imagining what my audience is thinking, it’s because I’ve been looking for, interviewing for, and accepting a new job.
“Oooo!”
I don’t talk a lot about my job on this blog. That is on purpose, for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I’m a software engineer and my job is pretty boring to non-technical people. Let’s just go ahead and say that this is still going to be the case – I have no intention of talking about worky-work-work-work on my blog.
But changing jobs is a huge life thing. Huge. Giganto-huge. Oie.
The whole ordeal is somewhat surreal (how icky and rhymey!). I’d been doing a pretty piss-ass job of looking for a new job for a while. I think I wasn’t mentally prepared to leave a job that I didn’t fully hate. I got two offers early on that held little interest for me, and I rejected them. Obviously, I wasn’t desperate.
I am finding it difficult to write this post, really. I don’t want to accidentally insult any of my current coworkers. Really, they are awesome – great people, from whom I have learned a lot.
But one of them said something to me this morning, when I mentioned that the whole process was difficult. He told me that there’s no easy way to say, “I’m leaving.” No matter how much I emphasize that I’m thankful (because I am) for the learning I got here. No matter how much I talk vagaries about the new opportunity (as advised by various online help sites). No matter how gently I break it to people (some people were more upset than I expected, some were less). Anything I say will come across as, “I hate this place, and possibly you, and so I’m outta here.”
That isn’t even close to the case.
This was my first job out of college at the first company that gave me a real internship (because, seriously, working at the campus web office typing HTML tags around globs of text provided by my boss doesn’t really excite the brain juice). I’ve really only worked here. I really like the people I work with. Some of them, I’d truly consider friends, and I have no intention whatsoever of losing touch with them. These are good people.
I have learned so much working here. I’ve learned how not to be an idiot. I’ve learned how to communicate better. I’ve learned how to get along with a team. I’ve learned how to lead a team. I’ve learned to love the process of creating. I’ve learned how to code better. I’ve learned how to design better. I have become a better engineer and a better human being for having worked here.
But the time has come. On Friday, it was the beginning of the end. I put in my two-week’s notice with my manager (who, poor thing, had only started that Monday… his boss, who actually kind of knew me, though he started only two months ago, was taking a day off to receive a furniture delivery). I did the official thing. I listened politely while I was told that they were sad to see me go. I listened to him tell me stories about how his first two tries at working for a small startup didn’t work out.
I’ll take this opportunity to let you all know that my new company is not technically a startup. I mean, they once were, but at this point they’ve been around for a long time, nearly twenty years. They’re small because they want to be, not because they’re unfinished.
Anyway, Friday continued as a difficult day. I tracked down my group leads (having to call my current one at home, as he was home sick – I felt like such an ass!), I tracked down some guys from other departments that I’ve liked working with, I tracked down as many of my department coworkers as I could stand. I cried.
It’s really hard to say goodbye to people you liked working with.
But the dust has settled, today. I sent out my email to everyone I could think of. I talked to a couple people who I didn’t get to on Friday out of exhaustion. But today, no tears.
It’s just business.
Everyone moves on. (Okay, maybe not everyone, my dad is totally retiring from the only company he ever worked for next month. But most everyone moves on, okay?) It was my first time saying goodbye. It was my first time nervously knocking on my boss’s office. It was my first time explaining to some of my friends at work why I didn’t tell them I was looking earlier. It was my first time hearing people say, “I thought, maybe,” and my first time hearing people say, “Oh no!” It was traumatic.
But it’s over now.
Now I finish up what I’ve been doing. Now I write emails to bosses and leads with lists of things I do. Now I package up the work I’ve been doing. Now I pass out other peoples’ names for people who can do what I was doing. Now I wonder what they’ll have me do after I finish with these lists.
Next, I start looking for a new apartment closer to Boston. Next, I start planning my temporary long-ass commute. Next, I start meeting new people, making new friends, and learning new things.
Life moves on. Things change. People evolve. Breaths deepen. Nerves heighten. Things calm down. Things speed up. Things Change. Life moves on.
Today will soon be yesterday.
God that sounded stupid. This entry is getting far too ridiculous. It’s a piece of crap. But it’s what I’ve got, it’s how I feel, so I guess I better publish the fucker.
Here’s something fun to close out with. See if you can find the embarassing grammar error in this email I sent out to over 70 people:
Hi everyone,
I wanted to let you all know that I am taking a new opportunity and am leaving [company]. My last day will be Friday, March 24.
Thank you to everyone one of you who has helped me to learn and to grow during my three years here. It has been awesome, and I will miss you.
If you need or want to get in touch, my permanent email address is [email]. (That address should work for the rest of my life, if WPI wasn’t lying to me :).)
Thank you again
Good luck to all of you~diane
Email entitled “Thank you and goodbye” sent at 8:32 AM on March 13, 2006
Southborough to Back Bay.
We can be train buddies for a while.
I’m totally going to drive the extra distance to go from Framingham. There are far, far more trains going through Framingham than through the Worcester half of the line. Lucky for me, this is only until the end of May. I think I’d murder myself (isn’t that called “committing suicide?”) if I had to do the epic commute for the rest of my life.
Ugh, it’s never easy leaving a job. It feels like a betrayal in a way, and you have to keep reminding yourself over and over that it is just a job. Congratulations, and good luck!
Exactly, Stef. It’s just business.
I talked to one of my favorite former coworkers at the beginning of this process. He sensed that I was nervous about the ordeal and gave me some awesome advice. He told me that I had to think of it as business. It’s the business of Diane. Diane Inc., Co., Etc. has needs. In this case, the business requirement sends me to Boston.
It was still hell-a-hard to say goodbye, but I knew that it was just business. And that got me through the day. Let’s hope it gets me through a meeting with a former boss…
“everyone one” is my guess. Congrats on moving on and moving up.
Fine!
Don’t be my train buddy!
I’ll just look down from the heavens once i move on up to the 43rd floor.
Joe – You got it! My next-cube-neighbor pointed it out shortly after I sent out the email, and I was highly embarrassed. I blame him, however, because if he hadn’t been late to work I would have likely made him proof-read it before I sent it out. He’s nice like that. Except when he’s late!
I posed the question to another coworker (actually, he found the question on this here blog, which I made him aware of when I published an AIM conversation we had) who thought that I wasn’t allowed to use full sentences within parentheses. I proved him wrong by way of Google-search. (Thank you, Google!)
Jon – 43rd floor? EE! I am nervous about having to take an elevator to the 11th every day. I’m not an elevator person. In fact, you could say I’m claustrophobic. That would be true.
I actually just looked at the train schedule, and it turns out that the Worcester line trains almost always become express when they get to the Framingham line half, so maybe we will be train buddies. Who knows! It would be kinda neat to know someone on the train…