Leaving on a high note

Two posts from yesterday have been posted to Blogger. Now, will they actually appear on my site? Let's find out!

:P

My last day of work was actually good, with both productivity and some nice surprises.

Robert didn't come in until, like, 10:30! I got so much accomplished ;> He gave me a few other jobs, and I did them. Then we had the following conversation:

"Do you have anything else?"

"No....But I'm going to have food here at 4:00 for you."

"You are?" This completely shocked me. "Wow."

"Yeah. I mean if you want to do that."

"Sure. That's so nice!"

"I didn't know if you would want to, since yesterday you were a little irritated..."

"I was. I was a lot irritated."

"But yeah, I want to do that."

"Okay, cool."

Robert got his dopey smile and said, "I'll keep you busy!"

This was another surprise, as I had interpreted his earlier "No" to mean that he didn't have anything for me to do, so I would be leaving and then coming back at 4. "Doing what?" I said.

He seemed to pause before going into one of his elaborate explanations of why he's doing something. It didn't really bother me this time, I guess because of the idea that he wanted to throw me a goodbye party. Finally he got around to the point: he wanted me to purchase and install some software and figure out how it worked, then train him on it.

"Okay."

I don't know if he was expecting more resistance from me or what, but he seemed relieved.

I got to work, buying and downloading and installing, and then I played around with the software some (it's really easy), and then it occurred to me that he must have come up with the idea to have a goodbye party just to convince me to stick around until 4, so he could get me to do this work.

The incredulous laugh came back. I mean, I would have done the work anyway (he obviously didn't understand what had made me angry yesterday). But it also would mean he wanted someone* to train him that much. That he didn't trust his own ability to learn.

*(Not just "someone", but me. Ah, ego.)

But I laughed mostly to myself--he was in the other room--and kept at it. Because, hey, I was wooed by food. And also, it was my last day, and I was happy.

Well, it turned out that he had actually proposed having some sort of party last week. I do think he mentioned the party before he mentioned the work in the hopes that I wouldn't reject the work...but I can't think of him as completely evil, knowing that he'd planned in advance ;> (And also that he didn't change his mind after yesterday's hissy fit.)

He bought sushi(!), and Audrey brought a cake(!), and we--me, Audrey, Kim, Teri, and Robert--sat around eating and talking. It was actually a really nice time :) Bob stopped in to eat some cake, and he gave me a hug and kissed the top of my head and said, "We'll miss you around here!" (I promptly felt like an asshat.)

They gave me a card, too...and Robert wrote some really nice stuff in it, including that I should ask him if I ever need anything. Audrey wrote that while they will miss my knowledge and expertise, they will really miss me.

I don't know if I ever felt that appreciated at 2go-Box before. It was a nice way to leave.