Saying a fond farewell

No one stays anywhere for ever, not these days, at least. Especially in a professional environment, people keep moving around, wandering from job to job, finding new and exciting opportunities around every point in their overloaded resumes. And along the way there are partings, farewells, some good, some not so fond, others barely even noticed. Something like that last happened with someone I know just yesterday; top dog in his particular place and time, he suddenly took off for parts unknown with just a couple of days’ notice for all those who worked with him, leaving behind a shocked and rather stunned wonderment. And when he finally made his exit, I hear, it was not to the usual nicely orchestrated clamour of cakes being cut and hosannas being sung, but a silent slink out the front door that attracted only the attention of those in the immediate vicinity. Which is, in itself, astonishingly lax on the part of all those who should have known better.

Any professional farewells that I have made – and I have done my fair share of those – have always been done with a certain flair and drama. Perhaps the people I have worked with have been more fond of me that anyone was of my friend, or else my own personal colourful and flamboyant personality has made things more loud and obvious, I don’t know. But it has always been a story filled with avowals of endless love and promises to keep in touch for life. None of which actually happen, since a farewell scene is like the movies – all sound and fury signifying very little, if anything at all.

When I quit my first job, it was after the terribly meaningful time span of all of two weeks. It was a ‘mutual decision’, as the phrase goes, with my boss saying as grateful a farewell to me as I did to him. My colleagues, who probably did much to get rid of me, were all sympathetic, giving me small presents of sweets and hugs as I bounced down the stairs to find a taxi to escape the area. I knew that I was wrong for that job, as wrong as it was for me, and I had bigger, better and brighter things waiting, if only I knew where to look for them.

They found me soon enough. And, after some years of toil and troublemaking in the same wonderfully ancient building with a colourful history, I walked out one late evening bearing potted plants, dried flowers, chocolates, unidentifiable pieces of knicks and knacks and staggered homewards, wanting to cry but knowing that it would be the silliest thing I had ever done in my short working life.

Some day I will leave here, where I work for now. And there will be people who will miss me, who will be sad to see me go. In that, they will give me all sorts of memories to take with me, in various shapes and colours and smells, and we will all vow forever love and remembrance. And as each of us gets busy with a new life, some in the same place, some in new ones, we will slowly forget to keep contact, fading into our new and hopefully improved set of friends, colleagues and times to think fondly of. All of which I wish for the person who left yesterday….