End of an era

A period of my life is pretty much over, officially over on Monday. I'm not longer going to be a corporate office worker. It's been a great ride. Started off horribly, placed into an office filled with bitter divorced women who hated men, me being their rallying cry for some reason. But I perservered, and refused to quit, because I had a baby on the way and responsibility to support my family. Then God sent a gift, my new manager, Kitty, and things turned around very quickly.

We made a great team, and quickly were blessed with all kinds of boring corporate success (which isn't so boring when you have to work on it every day). We survived our department being shut down, and all the backbiting that surrounds such nasty happenings. We always stayed optimistic and tried to be the people who got things done and did so glady. We ended up building one of the most successful online marketing departments in our industry (probably the most successful, I would wager). (props to the ebiz team!)

And it worked, we got promoted, got raises, and like a magnet wonderful people were added to our team. Erin, Heidi, Bri, Betty, Donna, Justin, Holly, Bryan, Tee. . .People that I will honestly count among my very best friends for the rest of my life. I feel like Joseph, once at the bottom of the pit, alone and sad, but now (what!?) in charge, a Vice President (me!? still cracks me up sometimes to think about it). And I've no doubt it's a blessing from God. While I've worked hard, I know firsthand that in a bad situation, hard work doesn't really do much (the beginning of my career for instance).

But it's time to move on. One day I just realized, "Unless I leave some day, I will always be here." Simplistic, yes, but profound. And things were never going to get bad enough to force me to leave, they really weren't. So I set a date by which I would leave. . . and Kitty negotiated with me. . . and now one full year later I actually am leaving.

And parting is such sweet sorrow.

No, I won't miss the cubicles. And I won't miss the blinking flourescent lights. I won't miss the slimy cafeteria pizza, the endless pointless spreadsheets, the meetings to prepare for meetings that will determine what meetings we should have the next time we meet, the politics, the opportunists, the slow talkers, the fast talkers, the close talkers. . . I won't miss rambling voice messages from pushy salesmen or the lame pep rallys that senior management put together to make us more productive. I won't miss "leveraging," "optimizing," "haircutting" (don't ask), "cleaning things up on the back end" (really don't ask!), "ideating," "descoping," "fungagating," and "coordinating all relevant variables so as to maximize all appropriate efficiencies." And I surely won't miss hearing people say, "At the end of the day. . ."

But I will miss the sparks amid the rubble. How you're talking about strategy and the prime rate and your eyes are about to glaze over. .. and then suddenly you're talking about someones' mother who isn't doing well, or someones' home life that isn't so easy, or someones' parents who are getting divorced, and then you realize that this isn't just your co-worker, this is one of your best friends. And this isn't an accident that you are here. It's all an elaborate ruse! Sure, you think you come in for the paycheck and the career, but the reason you're there is moments like this, God has used this to introduce you to the people he wants you to laugh with, to commiserate with, to be friends with. And the tapestry he weaves is a beautiful thing.

So thanks all for the last 5 YEARS of my life. You all made it a wonderful way to spend 50 hours a week (ok, for most of my career at least. . . lately it's been like 40. Ok, yeah, more like 30. 25? Let's just say it's less than. .. 15?). KIT (Keep in Touch). FF (Friends Forever). DEC (don't Ever Change).

Thanks!