Manna, and it's time I said thanks

So I sort of feel like my job needs a tribute. Over three years working with the same people (well some of the same people plus a revolving cast of characters), the last two of which have been spent in the same cubicle (I feel like it has my perma-germs), on different aspects of the same large-scale IT project meant to make the government itself fitter, happier, and more productive (p.s. we downloaded this Radiohead lullaby album from itunes and it is awesome). That's something.

Without this job I've had for the last three years we probably wouldn't own our home (and have been able to fix it's myriad quirks and dangers) and I wouldn't have saved enough to be able to try freelancing now. It was pretty much manna from heaven as it was something that I really needed and that has sustained me and us so very well and I did very little to get it. Seriously I sent out a bajillion resumes and went to muchos interviews to get my job BEFORE this one, but this one I just got a phone call. And just like the Hebrews, I have complained plenty about that manna. Because it was never quite what I wanted, even if it was very much what I and my family needed.

Though I'm impressed and grateful that computers work, do I really care to know about system design? Not really. And is there even a spot for the barest schmidgen of creativity in this job? Not really. But there's no point in dwelling on that part now.

This sweet day has its bitterness. The bitterness is mostly me never having appreciated what I had enough.

Give me a few months and I'll probably miss having people around everywhere too. Brilliant people and people you wonder how they are keeping up the charade of competence. Nice people, most of them, though some are neurotic. A good number of genuine people with a few fake ones thrown in for contrast. People I trust. And people that trust me. Just people whose faces I will no longer see. People I spend more time with then I spend with El Esposo. People that threw me a surprise baby shower. How stinkin' sweet that was. These are people that realize there is more to life than when the servers will be available, or whether I have filled in my timesheet correctly, or what my status update is this week. I almost certainly should have given them more credit.

Goodbye Job.