Last day at QR National

So after the long 4 weeks notice, the last day finally came. It was a luxurious day, I got into work at 9.30am and had morning tea for my farewell at 10am. As I had influence over the food catered for morning tea, I specifically got Rahni, the office manager, to order no muffins. To my disappointment, according to the caterer, muffins were called 'cakes' and muffins were still ordered!

The awkward moment came as my manager gave a speech and handed me a gift wrapped in silver paper and a card. I didn't open the gift right away. And I had to give a speech, which I was not prepared for, so I said some nice things but could have given a better one if I had been prepared. Note to self next time.

I was very delighted to see the gifts that I got, they were a set of purses and a thick scarf to prepare me for Sydney. I later found out that Rahni had accompanied my manager Jarrod to look for the items. It was an awkward experience for both of them so I was touched they did it for me.

At 12, Sarah, Margarita, Lyn and Helen had lunch with me. It was also Helen's last day. We had lunch at Harlequin Jack and I had the fisherman's boat which was huge. I also got a delightful call from Greg Gilbride, the consultant whom I worked with on my first project at QR National. He arranged for a catch up with me over coffee at Saffron. So not long after lunch, I had coffee with dear Greg and we had a good catch up over coffee and tea.

After throwing out most junk on my desk, and packing the rest up, I waited till Debbie left for my farewell drinks and went over to her desk to play the prank on her. I had printed sticky notes saying 'Debbie is a sex bomb' and stuck the sticky notes all over her computer screen. I had already asked for permission from her boss Brendan if I could, and he said go ahead! This would be a follow up to Stacey's prank of setting auto correct to change 'the' to 'Deb is a sex bomb' on her computer.

After that, I happily handed over my office passes and hopped out of the office for the last time. I felt happy as I knew my time there was up. Headed to Cicada for my farewell drinks. It was good to see Bev, Ranald, Erin, Bing, Dim, Alister, Kit, Angela, Pauline and all my other colleagues one last time before I set off to Sydney. I didn't have too much to drink and had relatively tame night as we finished up at the bar at half past 8 and headed to Vapiano for pizza and pasta.

Overall, it was a great day. Kind of sad to close one chapter of my life, but as the saying goes, one door shuts, another opens :)