The Gang is Breaking Up

Well, this has been an okay week I suppose.  Some stress, of course, at work.  Debbie and Carolyn have made it fun all week with lots of little games and competitions and prizes.  But yesterday T let us know that she had been offered a position with another company (one of our chief rivals) and the 22nd would be her last day.  And it hit me suddenly, that the group I've gotten to know well and learned how to work well with is going to be changing.  I'm one of the ones who is not planning on even interviewing until after the first of the year.  I'm determined to stay where I am doing what I'm doing until my Bonus is secured Jan. 1.  But if it stops being fun?  What if it stops feeling rewarding?  What if the things I do are no longer fullfilling?

Well, anyway when T let us know that I thought, wow, I'm really going to miss her!  She's a bright part of our team!  And I realized that I may have to periodically have this feeling as different "W/A" associates decide they are going to move on, either within our company or outside of it.  So that was my really down day.

But I had my mid-year one-on-one today with Debbie and Carolyn and got a really good review.  And Debbie asked me if I would help her plan something for Tuesday, the day we are all supposed to "find out" if any of us are going to be offered a position with the new document management department.  We are all fairly certain that we won't be.  The new department won't be doing anything that we do.  So I helped her come up with a sort of "celebration of us"; not meant to be insensitive to anyone who takes their news hard, but meant to be a celebration of finally getting to this point where we can leave the uncertainty behind us and move on.  And we are a great group, so we should celebrate us.  I put out feelers and got good feedback from everyone -- really we have the best group there, such a good attitude!  Debbie told Carolyn that aside from S and L, I am her right hand!  That was so sweet.  She told Carolyn that I will be her "go to" person and the one she can depend on to set the tone for the group.  That really made me feel good.  And Carolyn said, watching us planning the Tuesday thing, making it up as we went along, that she could see we worked really well together and she imagined that we were always bouncing ideas off each other.  I told her that Debbie is always bouncing ideas off everything!  She's a regular "light show" of ideas bouncing around!  And it's true.  I have learned more from her about managing people than I have from anyone else, any class or any experience I've ever had.  I will truly miss her.

I'll miss T too.  She had an interview for a position with our company also, but she turned it down.  The other job pays about $4,000 more a year, so she's probably making the right decision.  We're having a party for her on the 22nd, and I suggested that we make it (her name) Day in OCR and do little special things for her all day.  She's the one in charge of the special present we're putting together for Debbie also.  But she assured us she'd have it done before she left.

Well, enough gloom and glum.  I work tomorrow, so I really should get some rest now.  I'll try to come up with something better to talk about next time.