Every year, our CEO picks a theme for the company and presents it at our annual staff meeting. This year's theme is "Change" and it's overwhelmingly accurate. The company sold off some of our core business and has plans to sell another division, too.
What does that mean? Well, a large chunk of our salespeople and a few operations peeps moved to the company that bought our business. Their last day with us was May 11. Because the support requirements of the overall business will be much smaller, another contingent of operations personnel left on May 25. A few people are staying a little longer for clean up before they, too, depart.
I'm in that last group.
My absolutely last day will be June 29. I would suggest "surreal" may be another theme as I've been here for over 19 years and it's so strange to think I won't be driving through the gates every day and settling in at my tchotchke filled desk. (I've already taken home two bags of stuff and several more trips will be required to get the rest.)
Before you get all up in arms in my defense (because my friends are cool that way), it's all good. For those of us in eliminated positions, we were given plenty of notice and generous severance packages. And, treated with a great deal of respect and care. It certainly wasn't an easy decision for our management but I can't disagree with why they made that decision.
I'll always be grateful for the many opportunities from my time here. The chance to directly see the value I added, travel that allowed me to become an almost Canadian and a European place name dropper, opportunity to learn new skills, direct access to Senior Management and knowing that my voice was heard, flexibility and compassion when I needed to care for my parents, being surrounded by my core group of nerds and geeks...the list of gratitudes is long.
Being the extroverted social butterfly that I am, the thing I'm most grateful for is knowing the fine people I worked with. I've made friends that will always be in my life. I know that because some stopped working here years ago and they're still people I hang out with. Heck, some have left and come back and one is leaving again and we will continue to see each other.
All of the following pictures represent great memories and great times. I love that they're only going back a few months and that there were so many more I could have chosen. We really do like spending time with each other.
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| Our last big Happy Hour. |
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| Afternoon beers on an early out day. |
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| Out with the Sales team after their annual awards celebration. |
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Spring Training.
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| Corporate golf shirts through the years. |
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Golf tournament shenanigans.
#greatestfoursomeever |
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| Company picnic. |
Yes, there's an element of melancholy. I truly enjoyed my time here. I absolutely loved being "the" expert on many things. It could be intimidating going into a new environment and not know how it all works but I'm choosing to look at it as a challenge. I loves me a challenge!
Thanks for the memories, SmartPractice. More importantly, thanks for the friends!
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