Last Day AT Work

Almost five years to the day at started working at Volvo, I finally finsihed working there.

The morning was very busy, as several people asked me to get things done for them before I left. The afternoon was a bit more relaxed, as I spent my time packing the stuff from my desk and wandering around to say goodbye to people.

I got the obligatory little congregation around my desk late in the afternoon, and a short speach from my manager. They had gave me a bottle of champagne. which was nice of them, and then waited for me to do my speech. I didn't know what to say, apart from thank you for the champagne, so it was very short.

I've got to admit, that it felt quite sad to be leaving. I have known some of my friends there for five years, and even though I will keep in touch via email, I will probably never see them again. Of course there was also the nervous feelings, and self doubt creeping in. I might have been bored of Volvo, but at least I knew what I was doing. I was in a comfortable rut for a long time, and the thought of starting a new job, away from home was a bit scary.

Walking away from work for the last time, carrying my box of stuff to the car was bittersweet.

LinkedIn

Four days to go at Volvo. I told a few more people that I was leaving today, including a colleague in Sweden. He was sorry to hear I was leaving and offered to send me an invitation to join his network in LinkedIn.

LinkedIn.com is a social network site for professionals. The idea is that you create your own network of colleagues, who in turn have their networks, and you end up with a vast network of professional people, who all come with a personal recommendation.

To be honest, I'm not sure if it will be of any use to me, but I accepted the invitation, created my profile, and then sent out invitations to few friends and colleagues. The lads from Volvo joined straight away (any distraction from work), and it least it is one way of keeping in touch with them.

Counting Down - 5 Days Left

There is a certain amount of concern around my department now, as people are asking me to get things done before I leave, and document some of the jobs I did so they can hopefully do it for themselves after I've gone.

I had assumed when I gave them four weeks notice, that they would use the time to find somebody to take over my job. It looks like that isn't going to happen, so I am trying to document processes and tasks. However that will only cover the basics. When problems occur, it usually takes experience of the systems to track down the cause. I can write down some of the most common problems/causes, but there's no way I can cover every eventuality.

I'm getting a bit nervous, now I'm into my last week. Moving up to Chester to work at a new place is taking me a long way out of my comfort zone. It has made me realise what a comfortable rut I've been in for the past couple of years. It reminds me of when I left a job I hated at Pizza Express to become a web designer.

It was a dream move away from dull shift work, to doing a challenging new creative job, where I would actually get weekends off. After about a week at the new job, I was having real doubts that I would be able to make it as a professional web designer, and was fantasising about going back to the comfort and ease of working for Pizza Express again. After about another week, I was fine, as I learned the ropes and adapted. I'm sure the first week at the new job will be very similar to that first week as a web designer, and I will have to remember that experience and hope it will go the same way this time.

One Week To Go

After today I will have one week left at Volvo. I told a couple more people that I was leaving yesterday. It is always gratifying to get the same reaction when they hear the news. Its "I'm sorry to hear that / you'll be missed" immediately followed by "who is going to look after once you've gone?".

I can't answer their question. I gave my boss four weeks notice, but I don not know if they are going to directly replace me, or try and pass out my old jobs to various people. They certainly haven't asked me to show anybody anything. Its not my problem, but I can't help worrying about it. Besides, it will probably mean that they will be ringing my mobile while I am at my new job to ask me how to fix the applications that have failed.

New House / Old House

Last weekend we went up to Chester and had a look around a few houses. It was a bit premature really, considering that it will be a few weeks until our house is fit to put on the market, but we thought it would be good to get an idea of what was around.

One of the houses we saw was perfect, and we really liked it. Its on the same road as Paul and Claire (Lou's brother and sister in law), which would be really handy. Plus it is really well decorated and wouldn't need any work doing on it once we'd moved in.

It had only been up for sale for about three days when we saw it. We would really like to put an offer in, but are worried because we haven't even got ours on the market yet. We called the estate agent on Monday to tell them we were interested and to arrange another visit next weekend. Hopefully the fact that this is a slow time of year for the housing market will mean that nobody jumps in ahead of us.

Meanwhile we are working on fixing our house ready to sell it. I replastered and wallpapered the front hallway this week. It looks a lot better. Next week we have a proper plasterer coming to fix the upstairs landing and the walls and ceiling around the stairwell. We need to spend this weekend stripping the remaining wallpaper off so the plasterer can get started. Joy!