Sayonara to the Money Factory

Well, it looks like my tenure at the Money Factory (also known as the Very Large Multinational Corporation or "VLMC") will be drawing to a tortured close at the end of the month. I've had eighteen months of blissful stability, plenty of money, amazing health benefits, meaningless work projects, an endlessly agitated bullshit sensor, and the knowledge that the gig wouldn't, shouldn't and couldn't last.

The decision to leave became much clearer and easier for me last week when the VLMC let go one of my good work friends in part of a massive re-organization. Before Andy was let go, I didn't fully realize that he was sort of a lifeline to me in the office. Without him around, work quickly shifted from tolerable to fairly unbearable.

The silver lining in this situation is that I am timing my exit during the same re-org that swept Andy out the door. Most of the people left behind in my department are getting "re-matched" to a new position, but since I'm choosing not to accept the new position, I'll get a nice severance package that will help keep me going through the summer. It will also help me pay off the new Canon D20 and the fantastic new lens I just bought. (I can't figure out if the timing of that major new camera purchase is amazingly terrible, or eerily good. I'm choosing to believe the latter. Now I'll have time to enjoy using the darned thing.)

After my last day of work, I'll burn some work materials in Lalah's fire pit. I plan to make a little ritual out of it. Seems like an appropriate use for those 250 business cards I never distributed. I hope to never see my name printed next to that company's logo again.

I am really not sure what comes after this, but I feel very positive about closing the books on this chapter. The lesson I learned at the VLMC is that it's not enough to just make good money and benefits. There must be something more. Some little seed that opens up new possibilities. Some opportunity for growth, or even some interesting relationship with a co-worker that provides a beam of light in the middle of the day. I'll probably never have an Amazingly Meaningful Job, the kind of job where I save babies from burning buildings or distribute protease inhibitors to AIDS-infected Africans, but I need to do more with myself than clock in every day to a job that leaves me half asleep. I suddenly find myself reminded of the words of Jesus, when he talked about how worthless it was to gain the whole world and lose your own soul. As far as I know, Jesus never worked a day in an office, but clearly he understood how crappy it feels when part of you goes dead inside, and how much better off you are when you fight back against that death. And this thought is oddly comforting.