Nearing the Finish Line!

Monday is my last day at work. Why Monday? Well, long story short, it's all about how you leave. Every year, I am responsible for putting together a lot of data from my team for the annual budget process. In order to do this, we get inputs from other groups. Those inputs were due on Friday, so I volunteered to stay for an extra day to make sure I had all the inputs ready to go for them so they could proceed to the next step. I wanted to minimize the impact of my departure as much as possible. I guess part of it is just from pride. I don't want them thinking "Man, Tinydancer really left us high and dry here." The rest of it is keeping bridges intact. I don't know if I want to come back to my company directly out of school, but I want to stay in the industry, and it's a small industry.
Of course, as expected, not all the information came in on Friday. Not sure if we'll get it on Monday, but it probably won't matter for me because I have too much other stuff to take care of, including exit interview, transitioning all my other projects, and cleaning out my desk. I've done my best to have everything in the best state that I can get it before I leave. That's all I can do. I really wish that I had a replacement to train like Julydream, it would be so much easier! I've already had to deflect many last-minute requests to do more work and I've had to say no. Not sure what kind of superhuman they think I am!

3 more Days

I only have three more days of work! You'd think that I'd be winding down and finishing up a few things here and there while I leisurely clean out my desk. You'd be wrong. In classic fashion, my company only started recruiting for my replacement a week ago, so of course there is no one for me to train and transition my work to. So I need to get all my open projects into a state where they can sit for awhile without anyone attending to them. Meanwhile, my managers are panicking and trying to unload more work on me, presumably so that they won't have to do it once I'm gone. It's getting stressful because I have less and less time left to get it all done. I'm so tired! I'm gonna go to bed early tonight to try to get some energy back.
Can't wait till Tuesday when I will be officially unemployed!

Big Brother Strikes Again!

My employer is pretty tight with restrictions on our computer systems. Besides the fact that we are woefully behind in technology (I have a 6-year-old laptop with Windows 2000 and Office 97. Yes 97! It's 11 years old!!), we are also severely restricted in the things that we can do on our computers. We pretty much can't install anything ourselves; it has to be requested from IT. No IM software is allowed whatsoever. They even block Google Talk!

And every social networking site you can think of is blocked. Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn. Youtube is blocked of course. And now as of today, the final straw - blogging sites are blocked!! I was so sad when I tried to log on today :( The reason the evil blocking page gives is the website may have "dangerous software." BOOO!!!

Yeah yeah, I probably shouldn't be blogging at work anyway, but this is ridiculous! I feel like I'm going to regress technologically and be lost when my classmates start talking about twittering or something (yes, twitter is also blocked).

The Cat's Out of the Bag

So we had an "end of the year review" tonight (read: holiday party masquarading as a meeting so as to be able to spend money from the company budget). My boss's boss came up to me and said "So I hear you are applying to grad schools. Where did you apply?". GULP! I tried to play it cool, but I'd just drank a large glass of wine and I'm sure I looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar! [My boss knows of my plans and wrote recommendations for me, but I had the impression he had not told anyone else.]

Anyway I couldn't lie ... he was going to find out anyway. Unfortunately, when I told him, he looked surprised. Oops. He probably knew about how I was planning to apply to part-time programs, but that information is several months old. He was nice about it and told me about the guy who'd had my job before me and went to Kellogg. Then he asked if I'd heard from either school yet. I said no. I haven't even told my boss I got into Kellogg yet. End of year ratings and raises are coming out soon. I'm sure nothing would change if they knew I was leaving for sure, but I still feel like I need to hold on to the information for a little bit longer. He said they would fully support me and that if I got in, they would try to hook me up with an internship or full time position. So, no harm done I suppose.

Ugh, but it was so awkward!