Thoughts on beginning my last week at work...
As part of the leaving-my-job process, I've spent the week attempting to clear the mountains of crap that have been cluttering up my desk for the best part of four years.
It hasn't been easy. I am, apparently, a compulsive hoarder*.
I've ditched all those memos I never actioned, the requests I ignored, the appraisals I lied at. I've tidied away the budgets, the forecasts and the schedules - all that stuff I never understood anyway. I ruefully sorted through a folder full of ideas and reports that were all ignored by anyone I suggested them to...most of them have since been implemented anyway, but only when New Boss suggested them. I'm not bitter though. No.
I also came across a huge pile of personal paperwork that I had presumably kept at work in order to shred it. I finally sorted through it on Friday, and it was like looking into someone else's life. Except it was my life - how it used to be before I met the Other Half and things took a dramatic turn for the better. I found bank statements from the joint account I had with the Ex. Old mobile phone bills without the Other Half's number on them anywhere. The confirmation of the cancellation of the holiday that we were supposed to go on in November 2004, that had to be ditched when I came back from a work trip in the August and pulled the rug out from under the Ex's life by telling him I was leaving. The whole process was a weird little wander through how things used to be, and underlined just how much my life has changed since I started this job back in October 2002. Back then, I was married. I had pretty much accepted that this was as good as my life was going to get. I thought I was settled, but I now realise that I couldn't have been further from the truth. That whole part of my life seems distant to me, as if I watched it happen to someone else. In a way, that's exactly what I did.
I start my new job on Monday of next week. I'm not the same person any more, and I couldn't be happier about it. I truly am more settled now than I have ever been. The Ex and I have remembered how it is to be friends with one another. Small Person is a joy, and the Other Half brings me more happiness and stability than I ever thought I would know. For once, it's all good.
In other news, ooh, aren't the nights starting to draw in?
* Isn't this just a nice way of saying "lazy bastard who can't be arsed to throw anything away, like that Mr Trebus off of A Life of Grime that I spent four hours watching on UKTV People today"? I mean, I haven't got a collection of rusty bedframes and old mopeds and carrier bags with poo in them or anything, but I am fucking rubbish at filing my paperwork or folding up clothes and putting them away. In which case, "compulsive hoarder" sounds a bit strong. Maybe....um....ooh! I know! I am a collector. Yes.
It hasn't been easy. I am, apparently, a compulsive hoarder*.
I've ditched all those memos I never actioned, the requests I ignored, the appraisals I lied at. I've tidied away the budgets, the forecasts and the schedules - all that stuff I never understood anyway. I ruefully sorted through a folder full of ideas and reports that were all ignored by anyone I suggested them to...most of them have since been implemented anyway, but only when New Boss suggested them. I'm not bitter though. No.
I also came across a huge pile of personal paperwork that I had presumably kept at work in order to shred it. I finally sorted through it on Friday, and it was like looking into someone else's life. Except it was my life - how it used to be before I met the Other Half and things took a dramatic turn for the better. I found bank statements from the joint account I had with the Ex. Old mobile phone bills without the Other Half's number on them anywhere. The confirmation of the cancellation of the holiday that we were supposed to go on in November 2004, that had to be ditched when I came back from a work trip in the August and pulled the rug out from under the Ex's life by telling him I was leaving. The whole process was a weird little wander through how things used to be, and underlined just how much my life has changed since I started this job back in October 2002. Back then, I was married. I had pretty much accepted that this was as good as my life was going to get. I thought I was settled, but I now realise that I couldn't have been further from the truth. That whole part of my life seems distant to me, as if I watched it happen to someone else. In a way, that's exactly what I did.
I start my new job on Monday of next week. I'm not the same person any more, and I couldn't be happier about it. I truly am more settled now than I have ever been. The Ex and I have remembered how it is to be friends with one another. Small Person is a joy, and the Other Half brings me more happiness and stability than I ever thought I would know. For once, it's all good.
In other news, ooh, aren't the nights starting to draw in?
* Isn't this just a nice way of saying "lazy bastard who can't be arsed to throw anything away, like that Mr Trebus off of A Life of Grime that I spent four hours watching on UKTV People today"? I mean, I haven't got a collection of rusty bedframes and old mopeds and carrier bags with poo in them or anything, but I am fucking rubbish at filing my paperwork or folding up clothes and putting them away. In which case, "compulsive hoarder" sounds a bit strong. Maybe....um....ooh! I know! I am a collector. Yes.
posted by surly girl at 6:52 pm
10 Comments:
..but your mother may be out there googling whilst you speak!
Good luck with the new stuff Surly.
Not at all - we moved house in April 2005, and I finished unpacking TODAY. There was all kinds of fluff and glitter I seem to have decided can't be chucked; shoes that don't fit but which look pretty, hotel shampoos fliched in 1997, so on and so forth.
One of the boxes I finally dealt with and...failed to throw away, consigning it to the loft, was a crate I filled when I left my job earlier this year. There was a salt cellar, a *pink feather boa*, a comedy flamingo pen and a plastic Bruce Lee figurine in there, all nestled in Amazon receipts and copies of my timesheet. It's a large loft, though, so as long as I die before I'm about 90, I am unlikely to drown in fluff and glitter like a more feminine Trebus.
"ooh, aren't the nights starting to draw in?"
Shit surlygirl, my nan used to say stuff like that.
Am I to understand that you're getting old before your years?
When we moved to a new school building this year, I had to box up all of my stuff. It took about 50 boxes to pack my classroom.
When I unpacked it again 2 weeks ago, I threw out a lot of the miscellaneous crap I'd collected. What is it about us that makes us hoard absolute junk?
It's been 2 years virtually to the day since SG changed my life forever. I can never truly express how good my life is now. SG and SP are vital to me and I never want to be without either of them.
Oooh, I'm welling up here!
No seriously, other half, you're a fucking lucky bloke. Hopefully yourself, SG and SP will enjoy years of it.
I'm a natural thrower awayer but it just gets impossible nowadays to keep up both at home and work.
I need an intelligent robot shredder.
Being nostalgic about leaving the past behind and stepping into the future is a good sign, I think. It's balanced and normal, as opposed to the extreme alternatives which would consist of either a) you being dragged kicking and screaming or b) you running into the new job without once ever looking back.
Goodluck!
I’m like Mr Trebus, I hoard everything (almost). I actually rent a building on a farm for storage. Bigger than my house and it’s full – of junk! But I might need 45 screwdrivers one day, etc! I have a 10 ft by 8 ft shed and I can’t get in it! That’s after the spring clean!
Met a 90 year old on a pushbike today. (True) He overtook me!! (Not true but almost, had to pedal like f***!)
You and other half sound like you have got it right! Long may it continue and good luck with your new job! (Again) :)
Sounds like Trebus has Diogenes Syndrome by the sound of it - disorder in DSM quattro or whatever they are up to now in all likelihood. GL with future Surly - hopefully it will be so bright you will, as Timbuk 3 had it, have to wear shades.
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