I spent yesterday – my first official day of unemployment – at the office. I collected all my personal stuff on the weekend, but I didn’t like the idea of just walking away from my job without tidying up my files and leaving some basic information behind like the password for the server and the login information for the website. I don’t know who’s going to do my job from now on, but they’ll probably find it easier with the passwords. It did seem sad though that 18 years of work boiled down to two pages of typed instructions.
I got a little emotional towards the end, as I was taking the final walk down the corridor and out the door.
It wasn’t even the job I was sad about. Or the paycheque, although I will miss it. It was my morning cranberry-apple muffin from The Second Cup at Bank and Somerset. It was my Christie Lake Camp office mug. It was the tin can where we saved all the coins we found on the sidewalk for homeless Dave X. It was the warm paper coming out of the printer. It was my plant-filled ground-floor window looking out on the sidewalk. It was the people.
The people. I worked with good people. But hardly any of them even said goodbye. No goodbye lunch, no thank you for everything you’ve done over the years. It was kind of anti-climatic the way it all ended. But I will always be grateful to Angela for throwing her arms around me and crying, because I needed someone to feel sad that I was leaving.
In fairness, there’s hardly anybody left to care that we were leaving, or to organize a goodbye lunch. And maybe yesterday I didn’t look as approachable as I usually do. Besides, I’ve been on the other side of the equation, in which I was one of the ones staying, so I know how hard it is to think of something to say to the people who are leaving. I’ve been guilty of keeping my head low and trying to avoid laid-off colleagues, not because I didn’t care but because I did. So I shouldn’t take it personally.
Besides, it could have been worse. About fifteen years ago we took a laid-off colleague out for lunch to the Lone Star, where, for special occasions, all the waiters gather round and sing a song to the guest of honour. In this particularly unfortunate case, the waiters had been told it was a going-away party. At the end of the meal, they all suddenly descended on our table, surrounded our laid-off colleague, put a piece of cake in front of her, and, in unison, started singing:
We’re glad to see you go!
We’re glad to see you go!
We hope to hell you never come back!
We’re glad to see you go!
We all just stared in shock and shame. It was so, so awful.
Anyway. We’ve organized our own goodbye lunch for today, and it won’t be at the Lone Star.
So sad. I hug you. I think this will eventually lead to bigger and better things… Although it might be hard to see that right now.
Zoom,
Don’t worry about yesterday & I would be available anytime to look over what’s been offered. It’s too sad that 15 years has to end in that way.
Look at it this way Girl– You can now enjoy your own coffee in the mornings & I will be sending you a Great recipe for Cranberry-
apple muffins that you can make for yourself.
I really wish you the best. That goodbye song – what a disaster. I have to say I laughed though – it seemed too terrible to be true!
We recently experienced a “right-sizing” and the man whose staff was eliminated right out from under him organized a farewell luncheon, which we all appreciated. And not too long ago, a former group of colleagues got together for a reunion, which was fun. But it is awkward, whether you were cut or are one of the so-called survivors. Change is good, if we embrace it. And you seem to be the embracing kind, Zoom. Good luck!
You’re a better person than I am.
Company thinks they can get along better without me then they can start by doing without my help with passwords files etc.
Congratulations on taking the high road.
I’d have told them to stuff it or pay me as a consultant if they wanted any more of my time.
No lunch? No “special coffee”? Maybe they’re all so terrified at being alone to do the work…but stilll… I like Bandobras’ comment….(the consultant thing) but still, I would have done like you.
Stella, I do think it will lead to better things, and I feel better now than I did this morning. I went to see a career coach today and she’s wonderful.
Rita, thank you for the muffin recipes! I’d like to talk to you next week about some tax stuff, if you have time.
Red Fraggle, I know, it was so bad it was funny, in its own mortifying way. Kind of like when my son (aged 2) asked an obese man if he took up two seats on the bus. (And he said it with such admiration; he was truly impressed by the man’s size!)
Abby, part of me is embracing the hell out of this change! And I think I’ve gotten over the lunch thing now. They didn’t really have time to plan anything, otherwise they probably would have.
Bandobras, maybe the difference is because it’s a non-profit organization, not a company. Its decisions are not motivated by profit, but by survival. At one point yesterday my manager said “All the computers are probably going to fall to pieces the moment you leave the building,” and I admitted out loud that part of me hoped she was right. But I don’t really. I want the organization to finally get back to a place where it can focus its energy on its mission instead of on its own survival. (Still, I do hope they miss me from time to time.)
Carmen, I know. I’m trying to be professional about the transition, for my own sake as well as theirs. The door swings both ways…
Ugh! What a terrible “going away” song! I would have had a word with them about that!
I find goodbyes awkward even under good circumstances, so I can only imagine how bad I’d be with what you’re going through. And good on you for helping out the person taking over your job. I know lots of people who wouldn’t be anywhere near as considerate as you were.
It does feel strange leaving under those circumstances but thank goodness for people like Angela. For me it was Carol who hugged me and sobbed her little heart out. It felt good even though I knew the tears were more about her fear of being the next to go.
I can totally feel some of the things you’re going through there.
When I gave notice and left Cognos many moons ago for California, they took me out to lunch and gave me taxi-chits to ensure I could get around later on for my other going away parties (you were there). It was very thoughtful and on many occassions I wish I had never left that position.
When I left the company in California to return to Ottawa (even though I was to continue consulting for them for a few months after) I was kind of shocked and sad that people actually forgot I was leaving. Internet World was on at the time, so everyone was quite busy. However I was the founding employee of that company, and I felt that I was at least owed a nice goodbye. Of course, management was trying to avoid certain duties they had to me (stock registration), so I can kind of see why they wanted to not make too much of it. I had only been there 4 years, so I can really understand where your feelings would be at with 18 years service.
I suspect as you mentioned that people didn’t want to say too much seeing as it’s a hard topic to speak of when a person is staying and someone else is leaving. Layoff or resignation, we all like to leave with friendly goodbyes and acknowledgment for our time there. Though I must say, I’d have liked to be at the Lone Star that day you mentioned…lol, I was in tears reading that. Did you tell their staff that it wasn’t the person of honour’s choice to leave?
Everytime your ears burn, you’ll know someone there is having digital-age troubles and thinking “I wish Zoom was here!”.
Cheers and Hugz!
TW
An uncomfortable lunch would have been just that … uncomfortable. Better to commiserate and celebrate your newfound freedom to choose your next step with fellow non-survivors. But yes … I think I too would have felt empty until a friend acknowledged the personal and professional loss. And they WILL miss you, all of them. In a place with that few employees everyone matters; everyone is part of the dynamic.
The goodbye song must have been horrible but the way you wrote it, it was kind of funny to the reader!
I am glad you are still feeling okay about this. If your career coach continues to be wonderful, I may ask for a referral because I have yet to meet one who was. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
Who was the life coach? How do you find one? Are they expensive? I’m perpetually trying to figure out what I’m good at and think that consulting a coach might be a great idea.
Em, me too, I find goodbyes awkward at the best of times!
Bonnie – awww! I’m glad you kept your perspective and sense of humour.
TW, thanks for that. God, it seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it, that you went to California? I think the fact that you remember both the good goodbye at Cognos and the missing goodbye at the other place, illustrates just how important goodbyes are.
Oma, you’re right, everyone is part of the dynamic in a small organization. But lunch wouldn’t have had to be uncomfortable. I’ve attended so many goodbye lunches over the years for laid-off employees, and few of them could be described as uncomfortable. (But maybe that’s because the people who thought they’d feel uncomfortable declined the offer of a goodbye lunch.)
Julia, I know, that song is absolutely stuck in my head these days! The career coach is in the process of retiring, but she’s sorta kinda taking new clients. I think you’d like her. She strikes me as down to earth, with a sense of humour, and she looks for connections and combinations you might not see yourself.
Red fraggle – a good friend of mine told me about her, and put us in touch. To be honest, I don’t know if they’re expensive – she’s insisting on not charging me. I don’t know why. I asked her if I could refer the other people who got laid off with me, and she said she was sort of in the process of retiring but she was accepting SOME new clients (and added that she’d probably have to charge my friends). I’d want to make sure it’s ok with her before handing out her contact info. Do you want me to ask her?
Maybe that’s why she’s so good, because in retiring, the pressure is off.