Hasta

When I started here 6.5 years ago I used to get notifications for "Retirement Parties" and would wonder if I was supposed to attend them for people that I didn't really know, people I had only passing interactions with. To this point I have not attended a retirement party at work.

I suppose it is ironic then that the first retirement party I will attend fills me with great sorrow. I know it is a happy time for my sector manager, but I am being selfish and wondering who in the world I am going to go to with random questions and whose office I can go land in and say, "help me". I am going to miss that "hey lady" greeting.

My sector manager is the first upper upper management that I have gotten to know well. Well enough that I can walk in and land in his office. Well enough that my mailbox was filled Friday with Outlook folders from his computer because he wanted someone to have the files.

Wednesday at noon is his last day. Actually his real last day is sometime in February or March, when his vacation runs out. But his office will be cleaned out as of Wednesday.

I felt privileged that the last meeting he wanted on his calendar (at 11am Wednesday) was to be with me and his replacement. Of course neither of us could make that due to travel plans, but it was the thought that counts. Instead I will see him last thing on Tuesday.

He keeps reminding me he isn't going far -- which I suppose if you count the east coast as not far he is right. But really, my client has hired him on as a contractor and he will be one of my POC's for "the other side". So I am quite privileged in this regard. He really ISN'T walking out of my work life, he is just switching teams.

I have dreaded the arrival of this week knowing he would be departing. I expressed to AB on Friday that if this was a normal Thanksgiving week where we weren't traveling Friday would have been my last day off for 9 whole days since I always take Thanksgiving week off. AB knows me too well... "you wouldn't have done that this year though".

Yeah, I wouldn't have.