So here we are, Friday 20th July and the last day in the office (almost). I have just about made it, next due in on Thursday 26th for a meeting which I normally chair and then my leaving ‘do’. I will also need to have a meeting with my manager to, at the very least, hand my ID card and ICT equipment back.
The actual day started off with a breakfast date with a couple of colleagues. They knew I occasionally enjoy a full English breakfast (just £1.95) in the staff cafe and so they treated me to it. That was nice, it had been in my calendar for several weeks!
Today I handed back the safe key ahead of everything else. In spite of having had the safe key I have never needed to use it until today when I placed some contracts in the safe. Do you think I could get the lock to turn? Took some doing. Worse still was that I needed to pop something else in and I was getting worried I simply couldn’t even get the key to sit properly inside. This was getting embarrassing and I did wonder if I’d broken it in some way. Eventually it worked. Phew. I assured my colleagues I wouldn’t make a very good bank robber!
The rest of the morning was spent tying up loose ends and speaking with a very helpful procurement colleague several times. I do like her directness. Sometimes she calls me and says “Doug go to page 20, paragraph 2. Found it? Good. Tell me what it means”. No pleasantries, straight to the point. After we have resolved the concern, we then have our polite conversation about the weekend, what’s going on in our lives. Although we don’t share the same faith, we have enormous respect for each other, especially where faith is concerned.
Several emails, a few more phone calls, final touches to one or two documents and moving something around on Box, the cloud-based storage facility the Council is gradually switching over to.
My desk was very busy with several things on the go together. Normally I don’t like to do too much multi tasking but today it was necessary. I got through quite a lot which was quite satisfying. Actually I could go on and on forever doing things, so I paused and thought I should limit myself to about 3:30pm. My manager somewhat surprised me by emailing the wording for my out of office message and advised me when it should be activated, so that made things a little clearer (even if I dislike being “told” what to do).
Lunch time arrived. Rachel had said earlier that we should have lunch together. So once she’d arrived we had a little picnic in the nearby Campton Plantation. This was special with a perfect temperature, ambiance and company.
After lunch I carried on with a few last minute emails, phone calls and disposing of various papers. It was time to go. To my immediate colleagues I remarked it wasn’t really a farewell at this stage, since I’ll see them next Thursday and so instead it was a case of wishing them a nice weekend.
Great is thy faithfulness
The journey home was, to begin with, in silence although I enjoyed driving quite fast with the windows open; I love being blasted with this hot, dry summer air. I called Rachel to let her know I was on the way.
Next a few more miles in silence and then I wound the windows up ahead of saying “hey Siri, shuffle music”. This turns my iPhone on and plays a random selection of music through the car’s audio system. First up was the old Christian hymn “Great is thy faithfulness”. I marvelled at how fitting this was; it really was.
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