Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 293 - Farewell to Optus 4

The Penultimate Day


7.56 a.m. Bus insanely late today and only just left, 16 minutes late. I'm not overly worried about my arrival time at work but I could have waited for 7.40 train and taken my time. Still the 7.17 does give me a seat so points there I suppose. Man, listen to me, pontificating on public transport options - it's almost worse than discussing the weather! No more train- related musings today I promise...

8.47 a.m. One of my lovely morning rituals here has been pouring my cereal into the bowl, picking up my 'Dalek' (not officially a piece of Dr Who merchandise) metal water bottle, and going to the A1 South Kitchenette (sounds so cosy and 1950s bungalow-ish doesn't it? It isn't) to pour in the milk, fill the water bottle up with chilled H20 (although some days vodka would have been better!) and catch up with whoever happened to be in there at the time. This morning it was the lovely Tricia and Becky.... I will miss my little conversational interludes over whole grains soaking in low fat milk...

Tricia and Becky get their breakfasts ready in the A1 South Kitchenette

My bowl of Cheerios and my 'Dalek' water bottle

9.18 a.m. Off for a C4 document run to drop in paperwork to the Chief Financial Officer's Business Manager. Last time she yelled at me - nothing I had done; she was just frustrated -  so I am hoping she is in a better mood this time...

C4's cubicles where I went a lot delivering and collecting documents and seeing the girls including the lovely Beatrice in the shot

A view of the campus (buildings E & F in the background) from C4

9.42 a.m. Up on C4, the Business Manager did have issues, as always, but no yelling this time thank goodness, and Sandra (my fellow EA from Satellite) & I had a few brief chats with the girls there, and headed down to Jam and Spoon (the shot below is of the campus from the 4th floor in building C) to order catering for the Divisional on Nov 17th, food neither of us will eat. Surprisingly that doesn't bother me...

9.59 a.m. Ran into Genia (the one executive EA who couldn't make it to the breakfast yesterday) at the mailroom - I took a shot of the mailroom gang to remember a  place I went to a LOT for toners, pens, notebooks etc -and had a lovely chat and took some pics (including a Zoolander-esque one). Fun!

Left to right - Vonny, then Brian (red jumper) and Houguez 

10.20 a.m. Nervous waiting for the official farewell in 10 minutes. I don't dislike being the centre of attention, but I am also happy not to be as well, which is just one of the gloriously inconsistent technicolour hues threading their chaotic way through my psyche. Will be kind of glad when it's over in some ways.... but then I will lap up all the attention like the extrovert whore that I am! LOL


10.30 a.m. AWESOME. My boss, Vicki gave a great speech that referenced my passion for writing, current affairs and spelling (saved her many times!) and naturally my retiring, self effacing nature (as I stood in front of everyone holding a bright red balloon on a green streamer, looking quite relaxed and at home in front of a crowd, which I am), I gave a heartfelt speech in return thanking everyone for being such a delight to work with, the cakes (chocolate cheesake and banana cake) were delicious, and the card was full to bursting with signatures (I had been told that it's usually hard to get people to sign cards but in my case, everyone had leapt at the chance, which was so touching and did my ego a power of good) and a $260 JB HiFi gift voucher which is awesome!! It was the very loveliest of send offs. I am a blessed man.

Carol, Sandra, Sarah & Dingers ( Denise) prepare the cakes for my farewell

This takes me back. One of the first things I ever learnt was how to cut a cake for the many events we had at work that needed cake. We hardly had them towards the end but the skills remained.

My work bestie Sammi and I

New and the Old : Mary, my replacement and me

Vicki, my main boss, and me

The crowd waits including two people in Sales I like a lot - Ritsa with the blue balloon, and Dmitry talking to her

L - R : Tiffany, Becky, Amelia, Kevin (Swampy) and Muz (Murray)

Jason Mitchell front and centre who I always said Bonjour to, never Hello.

Sammi & Lisa have fun

Vicki giving her speech while I look to the sky

Odd face you are pulling Andrew

My speech in full flight

I crack me up, it seems

Vicki presenting my card, which overflowed with the loveliest sentiments

Sandra T, Mary, Vicki, me and Barbara (my other boss)

Alison, me, Lisa and Stephanie in normal mood

Now... Zoolander mode!

My icing farewell back at my desk

Goodbye with sugar, just the way I like it.

11.05 a.m. Sat down for an impromptu familiarisation of the role with Mary, my successor. She is bubbly, warm and friendly and will be a perfect for OWS. She's back tomorrow for more concrete run throughs of the handover pack etc which should be fun since she's very easy to talk to. I really do feel now like I am leaving, and it's exciting and odd all at once....


1.13 p.m. It's been hard since the farewell to concentrate properly since the farewell do. Now it all seems very real, and I think I am having a kind of out of body experience. It's not a bad sensation - just odd, and not easily quantifiable but then what emotional experience ever is? Overall it's exciting, thrilling, sad, weird, great.... a bundle of emotions all going around and around in a ADHD blender and I think I'll just let them do their thing and not try, for once, to figure it all out...

1.35 p.m. Down to the new Parisian cafe that's been set up in what was a wind-blown concrete wasteland between A & B buildings, and the experience was interesting, to say the least. The macaron I had, and mineral water were delish, but the burlesque dancer in silver sequined bikinis covered in silvery grey balloons that were popped by her fellow dancer in an ill-fitting animal print unipiece dance outfit was very strange. Very faux Paris. At least the macaron and drinks were free as part of the opening!

2.02pm Off to Macquarie Centre, that bizarre Escher print of a shopping centre near work, for one final work lunch with Bill Z, who is one of my very good friends here. He's a warm friendly guy, we have down to earth genuine discussions, and lots of laugh. He was one of the few people here I could truly speak my mind with, and he said he will really miss me and our heart to heart lunches, a sentiment I echoed. I am glad we got to do it one last time....

Love my Onigiri, soft shelled crab and Yakidori stick

Bill, one of the best guys around

3.47 p.m. Lovely call from my guy to see how I am. Think I may have upset things a little bit by raving about visiting Tilba Tilba and Mogo next week, based on other peoples' recommendations, at which point he reminded I'd said Tilba Tilba looked boring, and he wondered why I'd believe other people and not trust his judgement. Oops. I didn't realise I'd come across like that because I have enormous trust in him - he has awesome good taste and great judgement...

4.54 p.m. The name plate has just come down from my desk so the end is truly near....where are the four corporate horseman of the termination apocalypse?