Not an April Fools' joke

It is a strange thing to give a boss what is essentially nine months' notice. As BoKo put it on Wednesday night, while we were deliquescing over drinks at Wine Bar, it's time enough to have a baby --- which, let me reassure Nardac, is not part of the plan because that would have negated the necessity to have The Talk in the first place.

But I digress. Back to the Talk.

It wasn't easy getting a foot in the door, as it were. I missed the first window on Thursday because my meeting ran late and by the time I was done, the boss had another meeting going on. I missed the second window because even though I knew the boss was available, I popped into the restroom for a minute to compose myself, and during the two minutes I was in there, someone else beat me to getting facetime with her.

So when the third window presented itself, even though the boss looked (as usual) busy and frazzled with whatever was on her desk, I steeled myself for the worst fate that could possibly await an errant employee and appropriated the chair in front of her desk before she could demur. And we had The Talk.

It went as well as I could've hoped for. My deepest fear: that she would be stung by my decision and wreak frightful vengeance on me for the remaining nine months. The basis for this fear: nothing to do with the boss's actual personality and leadership style, everything to do with my own sense of guilt and uncertainty about walking away from a job where I have such good prospects. The eventual denouément: a mature, professional exchange of opinions and possibilities, interspersed with faint humour (once she got over the initial shock), an abundance of goodwill and, well, the inevitable mild panic. Don't get me wrong, I'm nowhere near being indispensable to this organisation. But given the rarity with which anyone is actually fired from my line of work, I guess people just aren't much used to dealing with exit scenarios.

When I told Wes that night about The Talk, he asked if I felt lighter, more liberated. I averred that I did. "Then you know you did the right thing."

As opposed to what the parentals are likely to say when they found out. (To the brother and all cousins reading this blog: NO telling to my parents or anyone in their generation till I give the go-ahead.)

I don't mean to turn this into an Oscar Acceptance Speech blog and close every other post with a litany of thank-yous, but thank you to everyone who's said encouraging as well as reality-check things in the last few months. Telling the boss was just the first step. The next nine months will be the hard part: getting my shit in shape, figuring out a little more specifically what I'd like to do next, gearing up for the next big thing --- oh, and not spending too much money until I get to it, either.

"It's just a ride..."

Edited to add: I meant this post to be more timely, but what with heaps of work and Blogger conspiring against me by mysteriously tossing up "unexpected errors" every time I did have time to work on this post, it wasn't till today (April 6) that the post's good to go. Hope the suspense didn't kill ya.