Thursday 24 November 2011

Bittersweet

Tomorrow is the last day of work for us in the Census of Agriculture call center. It feels a lot like school the week before holidays, or the last days of summer camp. On the one hand, most of us are happy to be finished the job. On the other hand, the group - co-workers and supervisors - have by and large been terrific, and we'll miss them.

Most cases are closed now, so there's less and less work that can be done, and more chatting going on in the lulls. People are exchanging e-mail addresses, and making plans to keep in touch. Most of our desks have been cleaned out, and the posters and info taken off the walls, so it looks bare. Some of the cleaners are a little enthusiastic - more than one person arrived for shift today to find they had not even pen and paper in their desks anymore! I brought my personal stuff home tonight, just in case...

And remember the last few days of school, there'd be extra recess time, and people would bring treats in for the class? We've got that too. Extra lunch time yesterday and today (and the supervisor didn't even blink when we came back a bit late because we went to the pub for supper), and got to leave early because there was nothing else to be done tonight. A lot of sweets turning up too. In the last two days I've had chocolates, a cheesecake brownie, cookies, cupcake, and a square of something termed 'sex in a pan' which appears to involve pudding and dream whip and shortbread. Usually I only get this oversugared at Christmas!

Pizza lunch tomorrow. And final cleanup, and then we'll say goodbye. And I'm sure I won't be the only one a bit misty-eyed. But underneath, the soundtrack is running, 'School's out for summer! School's out for ever!'

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