All good things...

You really don't realize how tough that last day is going to be until you get there.

I didn't know what to say to people, how to tell people how great it was to work with them, and how much I'm going to miss the day to day dynamics we had.

I'm still upset with the fact that I was so busy last week that I didn't leave any time to properly say goodbye to most of the people that made each day so rewarding. Trying to get everything done, the whole time I knew there was no way I was going to get it all finished.
I guess we always think we could have done things differently...

It's funny how, over almost 6 years, you develop a certain special "back and forth" with each person... some are ridiculous and you can't remember how you let the dynamic get there, but there really isn't anything you can do at this point... so why fight it.
Some of these "storylines" include:

• General Lies/fibbing about taking my dad to hockey games on my Lear jet, whistling and foot tapping with Glenn.
• Chris's "not so Hetero" inuendo, bike stories and "email exchanges".
• The constant good natured bashing exchanges (of each other) with my officemate, Joel, with frequent bitch sessions that allowed us both to always go home clear headed.
• Graham's brilliant balance of work management (could he run the entire department on his own?) and websites with furniture in compromising positions... Hehe.
• Dan's relentless willingness to drop everything he was doing to help me with whatever stupid request (and there were a lot of them) I may have. Sometimes he even threw in a good dig.
• Ben's ability to be better than the whole group at pretty much any activity he tried... He might have even got some work done too!
• My use of grammer corrections to counter any email from Andy that was too cleaver (love the irony?) to reply to (which was most of them).
• Hough going to great lengths to create a "family" feeling among us both at work and outside of it. Not to mention the extortion and the seat soakers (I know about your last day plans Mike!!!)
• Martin's indifference to where we went to lunch, his techno music and spongebobsquarepants songs, and 13" tv.
• Paula using Chris' daily "bonus" to save for her retirement, all the time having a little more edge to her than people think. (You da bomb, Blain!)
• Blossom always seeming to be at the center of a "boy vs girl" battle.
• Harb with his stories about everything... no matter what the event was, when Hussein told you about it, you couldn't turn away.
• Teresa with her contageous laugh, forgotten questions and her desk drawer filled with everyone's pens.
• Fred's hand gestures, workhorse mentality and warmth.
• Evan's "out of the blue" hilarious comments and knowledge about pretty much everything once you get him talking.
• Winston's hockey talk, Vit's bike talk.

Well... that went on longer than I thought it would. But point being, it takes a group of good people to create an atmosphere where you actually look forward to coming in to work. Hot Mill Automation was that place... good, fun people with professional additudes to boot (most of the time).

I'm going to look back fondly on this time in my life.

Dofasco @ 43 16'19.91" N, 79 49'11.42" W