I am leaving my adored position and company. Are you shocked? Because no one in my office seemed to be. Including my boss. Shall I tell you the story of how my boss finagled my notice out of me? Yes. I shall.
Let's set the scene: My "office" is a room with 2 cubicles in it, but I sit alone. The other cubicle is used for stuff people don't know what to do with: old meeting posters, magnetic business card holders, a fleece blanket with a misspelled program name. My office/cubicle room is full of defective, useless and unwanted items (metaphor). I face the wall and one of my cubicle walls obstructs my view of the door, so often, when I'm quite engrossed in a dramatic episode of Gossip Girl, I will not hear when someone comes in. It just so happens, the day my boss heard I was leaving (from an unknown [i.e. known, but un-admitted- dR@m@!] source), I was watching a VERY dramatic episode of ABC's Once Upon A Time (I started running out of shows to watch on Hulu, leave me alone... it's good... ish).
Boss: Hey, Anika.
[Papers fly, cups are knocked over, my keyboard crashes as I attempt to pause my show and pull up my email so I look like I'm doing something, even though my last email was from a week before. I'm sweating before I've even said anything. I sweat a lot. I'm looking into treatments.]
Anika: Hey, M*ke. (For security reasons, I've hidden my boss's name.)
Boss: So rumor has it you're leaving us.
[20-30 seconds of silence.]
Anika: I am.
I then proceed to ramble on about how I'm going to save the world and become president or something, while he examines my collection of CVS hand lotions and birthday cards on my desk shelf, obviously very engrossed in my future endeavors. For some reason, I have the urge to stand up and shake his hand thinking this would make the situation less awkward and more official. I pump-fake-stand-up a couple times but then resolve that a hand shake would do nothing but make this encounter more awkward. After lengthy spells of anxious silences, he leaves me, confused and sweaty, wondering how, WHY, this just happened.
Don't worry. It gets more awkward.
A few days after giving my official notice, we had our staff meeting. My co-worker warned me ahead of time that our boss would most likely say something about my upcoming departure. Fine. I can deal with this. It just so happens that at this staff meeting some employees were being presented with gift certificates for being nominated for several office-wide awards (no, I didn't get one, don't ask me why). In the middle of this presentation, M*ke accidentally advanced the slides. Up popped a slide titled "Good-bye, Anika!" laden with a phenomenal picture of me and a graphic of some office-type people holding a banner that says "ADIEU!" A snicker erupted from the crowd (I would've preferred a cry of anguish or a collective pained sigh, but whatever) and M*ke noticed his mistake. He proceeded to flicker back and forth between that slide and the one he was supposed to be on, quite amused with himself.
Finally, my good-bye portion arrived. He announced my departure and described (somewhat accurately) what I was moving on to do. He continued on for approximately 2-3 minutes (my picture still displayed on the screen) with a speech about how it takes a special and brave person to make a major life change and that I would most certainly have a position here when I return. Then, for the next 5-10 minutes, he began discussing the "ADIEU" clip art graphic on the slide, relating each frumpy, office-y character in the graphic to our group (my picture still displayed).
All in all, this experience could have been worse (right?....right?). But I am leaving. The question in your mind must be this: What kinds of sweat treatments are you looking into? JK. (But honestly, I'm not looking into any, I'm just hoping it'll go away. It's how I deal with most of my problems.) The real question is: What will happen to this beloved blog? Answer: I don't know, but I'll let you know when I figure it out. Submissions for other "On a"-ka titles welcomed.
Let's set the scene: My "office" is a room with 2 cubicles in it, but I sit alone. The other cubicle is used for stuff people don't know what to do with: old meeting posters, magnetic business card holders, a fleece blanket with a misspelled program name. My office/cubicle room is full of defective, useless and unwanted items (metaphor). I face the wall and one of my cubicle walls obstructs my view of the door, so often, when I'm quite engrossed in a dramatic episode of Gossip Girl, I will not hear when someone comes in. It just so happens, the day my boss heard I was leaving (from an unknown [i.e. known, but un-admitted- dR@m@!] source), I was watching a VERY dramatic episode of ABC's Once Upon A Time (I started running out of shows to watch on Hulu, leave me alone... it's good... ish).
Boss: Hey, Anika.
[Papers fly, cups are knocked over, my keyboard crashes as I attempt to pause my show and pull up my email so I look like I'm doing something, even though my last email was from a week before. I'm sweating before I've even said anything. I sweat a lot. I'm looking into treatments.]
Anika: Hey, M*ke. (For security reasons, I've hidden my boss's name.)
Boss: So rumor has it you're leaving us.
[20-30 seconds of silence.]
Anika: I am.
I then proceed to ramble on about how I'm going to save the world and become president or something, while he examines my collection of CVS hand lotions and birthday cards on my desk shelf, obviously very engrossed in my future endeavors. For some reason, I have the urge to stand up and shake his hand thinking this would make the situation less awkward and more official. I pump-fake-stand-up a couple times but then resolve that a hand shake would do nothing but make this encounter more awkward. After lengthy spells of anxious silences, he leaves me, confused and sweaty, wondering how, WHY, this just happened.
Don't worry. It gets more awkward.
A few days after giving my official notice, we had our staff meeting. My co-worker warned me ahead of time that our boss would most likely say something about my upcoming departure. Fine. I can deal with this. It just so happens that at this staff meeting some employees were being presented with gift certificates for being nominated for several office-wide awards (no, I didn't get one, don't ask me why). In the middle of this presentation, M*ke accidentally advanced the slides. Up popped a slide titled "Good-bye, Anika!" laden with a phenomenal picture of me and a graphic of some office-type people holding a banner that says "ADIEU!" A snicker erupted from the crowd (I would've preferred a cry of anguish or a collective pained sigh, but whatever) and M*ke noticed his mistake. He proceeded to flicker back and forth between that slide and the one he was supposed to be on, quite amused with himself.
Finally, my good-bye portion arrived. He announced my departure and described (somewhat accurately) what I was moving on to do. He continued on for approximately 2-3 minutes (my picture still displayed on the screen) with a speech about how it takes a special and brave person to make a major life change and that I would most certainly have a position here when I return. Then, for the next 5-10 minutes, he began discussing the "ADIEU" clip art graphic on the slide, relating each frumpy, office-y character in the graphic to our group (my picture still displayed).
All in all, this experience could have been worse (right?....right?). But I am leaving. The question in your mind must be this: What kinds of sweat treatments are you looking into? JK. (But honestly, I'm not looking into any, I'm just hoping it'll go away. It's how I deal with most of my problems.) The real question is: What will happen to this beloved blog? Answer: I don't know, but I'll let you know when I figure it out. Submissions for other "On a"-ka titles welcomed.
