The Last Days...Until a New Opportunity

Tomorrow is my last day at the company where I have worked for 11 years.  Eleven years is a long enough time to tie my experience to larger things.  Many people talk about how people grieve after being laid off in the same way that they grieve after losing a loved one.  My situation is different because I am leaving of my own volition to pursue a new opportunity with a different company, but I still think of my resignation as something of a complete closure.

During the last weeks since tendering my resignation, I have been working as normal:  meeting with my direct reports to coach and help them develop, investigating errors to identify the root cause and develop with other people the solutions, and performing the administrative tasks associated with my customer service supervisor role.  Some people have remarked their appreciation that I have continued to do that.  Others have expressed surprise that I haven’t kicked up my heels and relaxed these last days.

Working as normal, even after my resignation, is the most natural thing I could think to do.  Tying my work experience to larger things, I think of the remembrances I hear of celebrities and other people who work, or do what they believe in, right up until their death.  I always smile at those types of remembrances.  As an example, journalist Daniel Schorr, who passed away in July 2010, worked right up to the end of his life.  I listened to radio political commentaries he had recorded just two weeks before he died at the age of ninety three.  Ninety three!  I love the thought of being able to make the most out of your entire life, the thought of someone who is blessed and fortunate enough to be able to do so.  I hope that when my time is up, I have the strength and courage to keep doing what is important to me up until the end.

Working as normal also ties into my own reputation.  I try to lead by the example of my speech, by listening, and by my actions.  Even though my coworkers’ memories of me at work will, and should, fade with time, I want them to see that how I behave and act really is a part of who I am and not just a performance.  Each of our reputations, built on our own speech and actions,  are all that we have to carry with us throughout this life.

When you change jobs, whether or not it is after a long stint at an organization or a short one, take care to ensure that your actions during the last days of your job illustrate a part of who you are.