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livI've never left a job before. I spent my 20s as a contract researcher, and when my project came to an end, I just... didn't work in that lab any more. So I didn't know how to give notice, how to do the tax paperwork, it was all completely new to me. Also, the people I've been working closely with for the past eight years were all actually sad to see me go and wanted to mark the rite of passage. That was new to me too, in a mostly touching but slightly bittersweet way.
So I returned from the wedding and spent Tuesday and Wednesday fairly frantically packing. Somewhere in there a man with a van came to pick up the bed that was a wedding present from my grandmother, and my brother is getting it but I was really quite sad to see it drive away.
Then Thursday I ordered in my sister's cakes for colleagues. About 30 people turned up, partly for the cake which was received with great enthusiasm, but I think in large part also to say goodbye to me. They said some really sweet things; my boss' speech was about how I'm really supportive to both colleagues and students, and always enthusiastic and cheerful and willing to help out. They gave me a spotty Emma Bridgewater teapot, which was of course the obvious present, being both a local souvenir and something tea related. But I think I may actually own too many teapots, if such a thing is possible, because people keep on giving me them due to my well known obessession with tea.
Then I had a brief panic because I thought I'd lost my phone, retraced my steps back to my flat and discovered I'd just failed to pick it up when I left in the morning. And in the afternoon we went out for a team bonding event, which wasn't officially part of my leaving do but happened on the same day and got rather conflated with it. A colleague had organized an Escape Rooms event. That turned out to be a lot of fun; I like my colleagues enough that going out with them is genuinely enjoyable, and anyway solving puzzles together carries a lower risk of being horribly cringey than a lot of team bonding stuff.
I enjoyed the game for its own sake too. They'd done a lot with a small space, with half a dozen rooms to solve and plenty of variety within that. Some searching the physical space for clues, some code-breaking though nothing very taxing or frustrating to people who don't have much experience with that sort of puzzle, some lateral thinking and finding clues in a steganographic way. And a very small amount of physical skill such as grabbing a key that was out of arm's reach. The puzzle was also pretty atmospheric, though the one my team was randomly assigned to was horror themed, involving a lot of gore and severed limbs. Well, it's kind of hard to squick a team of medically trained people, mostly anatomists, but even so, I can imagine some people would find it hard to have fun with that flavour. Also, it was dark, and they deliberately undersupplied the players with torches. In our case that was largely a positive, because it meant we had to work actually together, we couldn't divide up and have some people searching and others code-breaking, since we all had to cluster round the light sources. Anyway, I gather most of the escape room puzzles aren't like that, just the one we happened to play.
Then there was the kind of torrential downpour that's kept happening through most of this summer, so we had a drink in a somewhat random little bar in the shopping mall, and continued chatting until we could get to cars without being soaked. We went back via work mainly because some people needed to leave from there, rather than trying to do any work for the last half hour of the day, and then we headed out to my absolute favourite country pub, The Hand and Trumpet, for my leaving meal. That was really nice too; not all the people I'm closest with were able to make it, but lots of people I like and I was pleased that people I don't necessarily know that well made the effort. Also several of the senior team; they're the kind of senior team who often do turn up to colleague's celebrations, so it's not that I was especially honoured, but I do like working somewhere where that's the case. By the end of the evening I was a very full, slightly tipsy and happy extrovert. And I felt really, really valued.
And the next day the movers came in and stripped my flat, and I handed back the keys and my work pass, and walked away from the past eight years of my life. From the job which in 2009 was my dream job that I never expected to leave. From my tenured position, and from scientific research altogether.
I started my new job the following Monday. I need to work out how much I should talk about that in detail here; for one thing it's looking to involve somewhat more blogging and social media presence as my professional persona than the old job did. Also I am still adjusting to living in Cambridge full time, which is probably another post, and I'm up to my eyes preparing for the High Holy Days beginning on Wednesday, so I am going to stick with posting about leaving rather than about arriving for now.
So I returned from the wedding and spent Tuesday and Wednesday fairly frantically packing. Somewhere in there a man with a van came to pick up the bed that was a wedding present from my grandmother, and my brother is getting it but I was really quite sad to see it drive away.
Then Thursday I ordered in my sister's cakes for colleagues. About 30 people turned up, partly for the cake which was received with great enthusiasm, but I think in large part also to say goodbye to me. They said some really sweet things; my boss' speech was about how I'm really supportive to both colleagues and students, and always enthusiastic and cheerful and willing to help out. They gave me a spotty Emma Bridgewater teapot, which was of course the obvious present, being both a local souvenir and something tea related. But I think I may actually own too many teapots, if such a thing is possible, because people keep on giving me them due to my well known obessession with tea.
Then I had a brief panic because I thought I'd lost my phone, retraced my steps back to my flat and discovered I'd just failed to pick it up when I left in the morning. And in the afternoon we went out for a team bonding event, which wasn't officially part of my leaving do but happened on the same day and got rather conflated with it. A colleague had organized an Escape Rooms event. That turned out to be a lot of fun; I like my colleagues enough that going out with them is genuinely enjoyable, and anyway solving puzzles together carries a lower risk of being horribly cringey than a lot of team bonding stuff.
I enjoyed the game for its own sake too. They'd done a lot with a small space, with half a dozen rooms to solve and plenty of variety within that. Some searching the physical space for clues, some code-breaking though nothing very taxing or frustrating to people who don't have much experience with that sort of puzzle, some lateral thinking and finding clues in a steganographic way. And a very small amount of physical skill such as grabbing a key that was out of arm's reach. The puzzle was also pretty atmospheric, though the one my team was randomly assigned to was horror themed, involving a lot of gore and severed limbs. Well, it's kind of hard to squick a team of medically trained people, mostly anatomists, but even so, I can imagine some people would find it hard to have fun with that flavour. Also, it was dark, and they deliberately undersupplied the players with torches. In our case that was largely a positive, because it meant we had to work actually together, we couldn't divide up and have some people searching and others code-breaking, since we all had to cluster round the light sources. Anyway, I gather most of the escape room puzzles aren't like that, just the one we happened to play.
Then there was the kind of torrential downpour that's kept happening through most of this summer, so we had a drink in a somewhat random little bar in the shopping mall, and continued chatting until we could get to cars without being soaked. We went back via work mainly because some people needed to leave from there, rather than trying to do any work for the last half hour of the day, and then we headed out to my absolute favourite country pub, The Hand and Trumpet, for my leaving meal. That was really nice too; not all the people I'm closest with were able to make it, but lots of people I like and I was pleased that people I don't necessarily know that well made the effort. Also several of the senior team; they're the kind of senior team who often do turn up to colleague's celebrations, so it's not that I was especially honoured, but I do like working somewhere where that's the case. By the end of the evening I was a very full, slightly tipsy and happy extrovert. And I felt really, really valued.
And the next day the movers came in and stripped my flat, and I handed back the keys and my work pass, and walked away from the past eight years of my life. From the job which in 2009 was my dream job that I never expected to leave. From my tenured position, and from scientific research altogether.
I started my new job the following Monday. I need to work out how much I should talk about that in detail here; for one thing it's looking to involve somewhat more blogging and social media presence as my professional persona than the old job did. Also I am still adjusting to living in Cambridge full time, which is probably another post, and I'm up to my eyes preparing for the High Holy Days beginning on Wednesday, so I am going to stick with posting about leaving rather than about arriving for now.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-18 10:18 pm (UTC)Assam
Ceylon
Darjeeling
Oolong
Lapsang souchon
Flowery/mint
Flowering
And that's really doable.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-20 08:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-20 10:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-20 03:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-20 04:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-19 01:10 am (UTC)Sounds like a good leave-taking, too.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-19 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-19 05:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-19 05:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-19 08:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-19 11:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-20 06:41 am (UTC)