The first time I quit a job, my then-boss warned me about the new place I was going to join. About the politics, the people, the pettiness and contradictorily, the bigness size-wise of this mammoth organisation. He made it sound like Evil Inc. and John Grisham’s The Firm all rolled into one.
It wasn’t.
Yes, the office was thrice the size I was used to. There were roughly five hundred more people than my last office (and I don’t till date know most of their names). There was a coffee machine. And I was sitting alone in a cabin with seven boys.
But my boss wasn’t a hound from hell. Agreed, he talked faster than the average hyperactive human, to the extent that my art partner spent the entire first month asking me to repeat everything my boss said, only slower please, so he could actually understand it this time. But the boss, he was nice and generous with deadlines, in that he pushed them to the other side of the week with barely a thought. His boss was surprisingly down-to-earth for someone that ridiculously high up the pecking order, with a fervent love for the dance floor and a tendency to treat the rest of us unwashed masses as his family. The brands were good, the work was great and the office was close to home.
I sort of felt like a Jew breaking out of a concentration camp, who suddenly finds herself in modern-day Hollywood.
The effect was heightened by my meeting a bunch of other new recruits, with whom I went on to have some famously fun adventures. Famously because you’ve read about the exploits of Mini-Me, Smiley, Magic Pants, the Queen of Mean and others here. It was, in the modest opinion of the Queen of Mean (who’s in fact a large, green-eyed, exceptionally mean and slightly funny boy) the golden era of this agency. But then, he says demented things ALL the time so…
Anyway, the reason I’m getting all reminiscent is that after four years of shuffling around
uncomfortably till I made a cosy little nook here for myself, I’m packing my bags and dragging my ass to a new place. Filled with strangers and friends, none of whom feel stranger or friendlier than the ones I’m leaving behind.
It’s not really sunk in yet – I’m meeting all the gasps and sighs of “Oh no, you didn’t!” with a dry little smirk as if this was all actually an episode on A*G*E*N*C*Y* and not as it is in fact, my life. But one day it will. One day I’m going to snap out of the new job buzz, look around my new desk and go, “Wait a minute, THIS isn’t my office.”
But till I do, to all the brave and bizarre men and women I’ve had the joy of calling colleagues so far: So long, people, it’s been quite a ride.
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