Days of Leaving

[rhythmaning]

Last Friday, I finally left my job. Spiritually – and where I worked didn’t really have much spiritual about it – but spiritually, I really left back in April, or perhaps May; but aside from physically leaving at the end of June – taking the rest of the time as holiday – I formally left on Friday.

It felt a bit strange; the only reason I had to go into the office was to hand over my phone’s SIM card, my credit card, and my pass. (The phone itself has been recycled.) My manager – a term which can be used quite loosely – had delegated all this to his PA, who was on holiday, so she had delegated it to someone else, who said that she couldn’t do most of it since the rules state that the manager has to cancel the credit card.

(The rules also say that I should return my uniform to my manager. I do actually have a uniform, a remnant of when I did consultancy with customer facing staff and need them to accept me. I used the uniform as my default suit when I cycled in: I would leave it hanging, not wishing to leave my own clothes in the office. So the uniform was there, waiting to be handed in. I very nearly did, just to see what my manager would say, and how he would react. It would have been very funny. But also a bit cruel. So my suit is hanging where I left it; and I expected it will still be there in, oh, five years time.)

I spent a couple of hours chatting to friends, disrupting their work, catching. There was a brief few words from my manager to mark my departure – he described me as “shy”, which didn’t really work for me, and nor did it work for him, since he withdrew it and then couldn’t think how to describe me. He settled on “intellectual and rigorous”, which I suppose suit, though stuck me as a bit lazy, and he said he could see me “writing for a whisky magazine or a jazz magazine” – right interests, and right about the writing, though he did pick the two subjects that I find hardest to write about.

Then, after a couple of hours, I was away. I had a broad, broad grin on my face, and I think I have been smiling most of the time since.

That evening, it was my turn to have a leaving do, together with northernexpat, who is off to fulfil the expat part of his user name by moving somewhere a little hotter than Edinburgh, and a colleague who was moving to another role internally. We had booked part of Grape, a wine bar in St Andrew Sq, housed in a former insurance building: it has high, high ceilings, and a safe in the basement. (The safe is now full of champagne.)

northernexpat was there when I arrived just after five, together with four former – ha! - former colleagues. We had put some money behind the bar (it was such fun buying people drinks! without having to pay for them! well, at the time…), and got stuck in.

For a very long time, it seemed like there were just the six of us in this large bar. It has to be said, this didn’t really bother us: there was this pile of cash behind the bar… But more people showed up, and it got to be a pretty lively gathering. I moved from group to group – sorry, perhaps that should be stumbled from group to group – gossiping, chatting, bitching. Someone had a camera there (I deliberately didn’t; that would have been a bit weird), though I don’t know if there are any photos about. Well, there must be somewhere, because of course I picked up the camera and kept using. I must ask…

It was a good crowd: there were people there from the whole of my twelve year career with the firm, and quite a few people who had left or were away on maternity leave came along, too. At least two people told me in stage whispers that they too would be leaving soon.

We drank a lot. We spent all the money behind the bar – well, a fiver doesn’t go far (tsk, tsk!) – and then we all got our wallets outs and spent some more. I was drink white wine all night – most other people seemed to be on beer.

The crowd began to take an a more organic, flock-like attitude: suddenly we were all going to another pub. I don’t know why, but it did seem like a good idea; it seemed like a really, really good idea, actually. We headed along George St to the Queen’s Arms, not actually finding it to start with – we were on the wrong street – but once there, we more or less occupied the whole place. It was crowded.

More drink!

I went outside to make a call – a drunken call, natch – and whilst I didn’t think I had been gone very long, when I got back, the pub had shut and the crowd were nowhere to be seen. (The is obviously a time-tunnel in Thistle Street; I was whisked away, and then delivered back some time later.)

So I went home. My wife says that I was more drunk than she had seen me before. I was home at about 1am.

I heard from friends – who I saw last night at another leaving do (they’re falling like flies) – that everyone else went on to Poo Na Na’s – a night club next to the pub (now, that hadn’t occurred to me. No really, it hadn’t). northernexpat says he got home at about four – though no one remembers him leaving, either (see! a time warp!). Others kept going a bit longer. They went back to someone’s flat on Cumberland St, where they carried on drinking until six or so, and then staggered off to their flats in Bellevue, a ten minute walk away, which took them an hour…

And a good time was had by all!