Life is a box of kittens

The deed is done. I left my team. After seven years!

I didn't want a party, because, well, what if I don't pass probation at my next office and I have to exercise my return rights? I'd have to go back and face everybody. (I mean, not that I'm not a good employee, but shit happens. Or more like, budget cuts happen.)

But you can't tell my team anything. They made a breakfast buffet, and invited the whole department. And okay, we had a pretty good time, yeah yeah.

They also took me out to lunch, just the team. Lots of teasing and just a little crying.

At one point, I felt compelled to call my future office, for personal reassurance that they're expecting me Monday. Yes. All is well. This will work. My cheese was moved, like, four years ago. It's High Time.

Funny thing: my leaving has started a stampede amongst my team members. Alien Secty has applications out there. Marsha, too. My boss would normally be worried about the upheaval, but she's so close to retirement, she's more like a woman with a box of kittens - all she wants is to see each of us well-placed in happy homes.

I'm at the college computer lab now, procrastinating blogging preparing to meet the prof who gave me a bad grade on my prospectus proposal. From the ashes of my B-, I shall rise again! I shall put together a prospectus of awesome might and power!

Later tonight, I shall meet the frat boys. As of today, our group project feels hopelessly mired. I've never had great success in team efforts in this grad program, and this team effort will be no exception. What the hell is wrong? Our profs seem to thrive on assigning group projects. I believe it's their secret, underground mission to teach us how to work in groups, or barring that level of success, teach us how not to work in groups. The Trial And Error of Group Project Work - this'll be the stealth class we completed without knowing it. I imagine that in the last seminar in the last semester, they'll all jump out from behind the curtain and yell Gotcha! and then hand out our extra grades.

Comments

[Anthony]

I am seriously going to have to get you to stop calling those adult wannabees "fratboys" since it is very very clear that none of them have been to kegger, thrown up repeatedly or painted their faces and bare chests various colors at the last Cal State Sacto/Chico State football game. Being a fratboy is like being a Marine or a Mason or a professional poodle breeder: specific requirements/standards must be met and maintained at all times. Having a theoretical tattoo and being in a theoretical band doth not a fratboy make, ever...
Besides, you yourself said that one of them used the word "antecedent" in a coherent sentence. More damning proof is not even possible.
But on a lighter note, it sounds like it was a nice party. I'm sure you behaved with far more dignity than I ever will, being as my response to the office crowd I work with would likely combine mooning with an AK47 or a Glock 9!

[pam]

You must be at work today. Don't they celebrate veterans where you live?

I call them frat boys because they come across with that frat boy attitude, which cuts across age and social boundaries. Unfair? Maybe. Rude? Almost certainly. But now that I've administered this unflattering stereotype, it's staying. My blog.

[Anthony]

Celebrate veterans? Sweetie, in these here parts they can't even SPELL veteran without calling in a yankee.
Yes, I'm having that kind of day. Hope you aren't...
(Offically, it's state policy here to shift around holidays, so that the day we lose not getting Veteran's Day gets added to our X-Mas vacation, which more people around here prefer cause it gives 'em more time to put on the hoods and get the crosses lit...)

[muckdog]

Congrats, I think. Hope you enjoy your new cheese.