You Want To Be Where You Can See, Our Troubles Are All The Same; You Want To Be Where Everybody Knows Your Name

--"Where Everybody Knows Your Name", Cheers Theme

Well, I've finally reached it. Tomorrow is my last day at my current position as a collector for Bally's. After tomorrow I can kiss my free gym membership good-bye. After tomorrow I'll never have to worry about starting another shift at 6 a.m. hopefully. After tomorrow I'll never have to hold in any urges to tell people, "well, go ahead and be fat. See if I give a crap." And, sadly, tomorrow is probably the last day I'll see many of the people I've worked with in the last year-and-a-half.

I know I'm supposed to feel more... more something... about leaving, but right now I don't think it's completely hit me what a big change this new job is going to bring. It not only means a change in pay, a change in scenery, but it also means a change in the way my days are socially structured. There's not going to be as much hanging out after work with co-workers as I have no clue how sociable my new co-workers are going to be. Certainly, it'll be a rough road to establish the same tight bonds that I made in the last few months working in the current department where I work at. There's not going to be as much familiarity, at first, with the way everyone around me reacts to what I say and do. It's frankly a little scary to think of having to work at making new relationships. It's kind of like I'm going to be the new kid in school and worried about not making any friends at all. I know I'm better than that. As my cousin said, I think I've opened up in the last couple of years and I shouldn't sweat such a small thing as being liked. It was just kind of nice coming into work and not having to worry about all the drama and bureaucracy that accompanies most days at work. It was nice being generally liked just as it's kind of nice to be missed by people.

I know I should feel more emotional about this, but the truth is that it doesn't quite yet feel like I'm leaving. I still have a lot of pins in the air that I'm juggling in terms of plans with the people at Bally's. I still have an Angels game next week with some of my co-workers. I possibly have a date at Ruth's Chris next week with some other of them. And I still have my trip to Boston with a friend of mine from work. Not to mention, I have certain plans set up in the future that insure that I never have to lose touch with the goings-on at Bally's if I never want to. To tell the truth, it doesn't even feel much like I'm saying good-bye at all.

It's like what they say about your job. It'd be great if you didn't have to work so much.

I'm not going to miss my responsibilities at Bally's. My replacement can have those. The only thing that I was in danger of missing were the people there and, if I plan things right, I'll never have to really miss them at all.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers