Paved Paradise, Put Up a Parking Lot

In the meantime, I am finding work is way more enjoyable once the Exit Sign starts flashing. 

I am actively looking for new jobs while winding down the old one. My boss is less asshole than usual, training himself to rely on other people for all manner of nonsense I gamely used to endure. We are back to being just friends like we were years ago. When we first started sparring and swearing in regular conversation.

His replacement (whether he knows it or not) is pleased that I've stepped out of her way without too much effort on her part. We know now that she'd started to replace me long before she was in a position to do so. I just spared her the effort of having to make me look bad to get what she wants.  She's feathering her own nest with her own little chickadees. I hope they enjoy the ride to the bottom of the ocean.  Surely they have no idea they are on the Titanic --- or if they do, they foolishly believe they can take a hard starboard turn and avoid the iceberg.  I am one of the first to board and lower the lifeboat.  They can fight with each other for a seat on the last one on the way to certain disaster.  

I am getting some traction with my resume and networking my tail feathers off.  I come in from mornings off interviewing proudly wearing my freshly pressed suit and killer heels.  I walk around practically giddy that the current stream of pseudo-corporate bullshit is flowing past my office door and across the threshold of some of my more hateful colleagues.  "Too bad, so sad. Looks like someone else will have to get their hands dirty (to match that HAIR!)  Dive in. The noxious pool of swill awaits you.  Hope you brought a haz-mat suit!" 

But in the meager downtime from networking, and lunches with colleagues who want to congratulate me for going over the wall, and interviewing, I am quietly and with great determination wrapping up every last detail of my existence.

Finishing projects.

Writing detailed SOPs for the zillion-and-one things I have done quietly and competently and without drama for years. Even I am amazed at how complicated some of them are. To say nothing of the finesse that is involved.  But there is no SOP for that.  What would I write?  Step 5:  Be savvy and negotiate fearlessly here?

Purging redundant or outdated records. Neatening overstuffed files. Labeling and filing everything of import.  Stuffing the confidential shredder to the brim with everything else. Leaving trails of breadcrumbs that tell the right story for my successor.  Completing evaluations. Assigning post mortem tasks. 

There is nothing I will miss about the job or the people I performed it for.  In fact I am relishing the idea that the people who will assume the responsibility will soon be finding out how challenging it is, and struggle to manage. It will be very edifying.

And that attitude they had about my walking around smiling and joking all day?  The assumption that I did not take my work seriously? Won't they be amazed that I managed to do so much, so well, without a bead of sweat forming on my perfectly made up face, and without ever losing my humor.  Ever. Always solution-oriented, always able to keep my sense of levity.  The humorless were such a drag.

And all the while I have a song pinging around my head:

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone."