It's Monday morning, 7:23 a.m., of my last week at my job. It is going to be a very full week, and I have a lot to get done between now and my exit interview on Friday:

1) Get fingerprinted for my new job today over lunch

2) Go take a blood test at the hospital after work today

3) Fly to Detroit to teach my class tomorrow

4) Go to lunch with my lady friends at work Wednesday noon

5) Meet to discuss teaching my class as a consultant here after I leave this job Thursday over lunch

6) Go to a doctor's appt. Thursday afternoon

7) Go to a going-away party my boss is throwing me after work Thursday

After I accomplish all those things, I'll feel better. Then, I'll just have to make it through my exit interview and clearing out the rest of my things here at work. Luckily, Drew and I started hauling home boxes of stuff last week, so I should be in pretty good shape to grab and go come Friday.

The only unfortunate part is that besides all those "extra" things listed above, I also have to, ya know, finish quite a bit of work, too. It is hard to be motivated to work on some of this stuff, but I made a commitment to leave them with quite a bit done that I didn't know I'd have to do a couple of weeks ago. I'm realizing now I'm probably being a little TOO gracious--why am I trying to fit two months' work into two weeks?--but I would feel guilty, with all that needed to be done here before the holidays, to leave them high and dry. *Sigh* Why do I always take on too much?

Ever since word has gotten around about me leaving the company, I've had a flood of both welcome and unwelcome exchanges. The welcome exchanges have been, well, lovely is the word coming to mind. It is nice to have people stop by on their own, wish me well, and moan about the loss it'll be for our team. (Everyone likes hearing such things, right? It doesn't make me a bad person?). The unwelcome exchanges go more like this:

"Hi, uh, Amber, whoops, I mean, Ember...sheesh. I can never get your name right." (After 6 1/2 years? wow.) "Anyway, you know that project you've worked on for me--the one for which I've completely ignored your calls and emails about for the past eight months? Yeah, that's the one. Well, I'm realizing now that you're about to leave the company that, crap, I really need your help, and would you have time to finish it before you leave? What's that? You have 50 bazillion other projects that you already committed to tying up before then? Oh. Well, hmmm. I guess I should've gotten back to you sooner on it, huh? (I guess you should've.)

It's been an emotional couple of weeks, and I'm sure this last one will be no different--probably even a little worse, I'd guess. I am all at once filled with sadness to be closing this chapter of my professional life (personal too, to a degree, I suppose), anger that people can still be so transparent and clueless, relieved that I will soon be away from them (to be replaced, I'm sure, with a different breed of annoying individuals...no job is perfect, right?), and terrified about what my new job will actually be like. Will I be able to write well? Will I be able to learn quickly the ways of educational services? Will I like the people I work with? Will the politics be as bad as here, or worse? Am I making myself sick thinking about all of these things as well as how I'm going to accomplish everything this week?

Yes.

-Em