The Thing – the day after the day

In the film in my head I had thought of a couple of ways to hand in my resignation and a couple of reasons to give them why I leave.

1. “Yeah I had a nice weekend, I helped someone move.”
   “Who? Ehrm, my new boss.” (true story)
2. “A new project that will start in June. Right. Yeah. Well, something tells me that it won’t be me working on it then.”
3. ” I want to undo the fact that I have spend more than half of my life (22 years) typing weird code like

   if dreamjobcomingup = true then
      call leavecompany()
   end if
   
   function leavecompany()
     dim i
     dim mystring
     for i = 1 to 100
         mystring = mystring & "Wooohooooo "
     next
     mystring = mystring & "So long and thanks for all the fish ..."
     response.write(mystring)
   end function

   behind a computer. I mean, seriously, there must be more to live than that?”

4. “Suppose you got offered your dreamjob. What would you do?”
5. ” When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.
   My heart has been nagging me for a long time now, it wants to go with me every day.”
6. “Eventually I want to make that film with Bill (when he’s 80 and has nothing to lose). And let’s face it, that is not going to happen if I continue to work here.”
7. “Who’s Bill?”
   “There you go. That’s another good reason.”

Of course I didn’t say any of that. Oh I might have mentioned number 4. And number 5 in a more downbeat version. But I was way too nervous to actually make jokes about it. And when I stepped out of the office I didn’t feel the “woooohoooo” thing, I felt more like “Oh shit, what am I doing”.

I know why I felt the “Oh shit” thing, it’s because I am really going to miss my colleagues. And the view from the 18th floor over London. And my beloved Caterham train. And all the trainpain. And it’s the feeling that you have decided you are going to dive from the highest tower in the swimming pool, and when you finally stand on top of it and walk to the edge you find that it is much longer down than you thought! All that raced through my head.

Until I sat down and started typing things like those under 3 again. And thought – 22 years – you really want to do this 22 years more?

I could hear Davy shout “Ahrrr! Of course you don’t! Arrrre you silly or what? This is what you are dreaming about!”
And I could see S. he just looked at me as if to say that, of course, it was right thing to do.

Do you remember the scene in Love Actually where Laura Linney is about to kiss Karl (Karl a handsome guy in the film – not the handsome guy in the film but, yeah …) and she just needs a second when they step into her appartment, and then she hides behind the door and jumps of joy because she finally is going to be together with him. (Well, that’s what she thinks at that moment anyway)

When I was at my job interview they really tried to warn me that shooting in documentary style is not the same as feature film making (I knew that). And that the subjects they have been working with weren’t the most sexy subjects in the world.
“What subjects are you working on normally?” I asked them.
“We do a lot of work related to trains”
“Trains. You mean … real … trains and such?”
“Yes we do a lot of work for the rail industry, have been shooting along tracks, in trains, you know, not rrrreally that sexy”
“Well …” I said.

I tried to act normal, but in my head I was Laura Linney.

Of course it is the right thing to do. Am I silly or what?