Saying goodbye

Last week was an interesting week. I said goodbye to a really good friend, J., at work. She left the company to move across the US to take on a new job and live closer to her husband. They've been living across the nation from one another for almost a year and a half while he was finishing up school and then finding a good job. It turned out that he found a really good job near Connecticut, but she wasn't quite ready to leave until recently. She found a good job in New York, so they are finally going to live closer to one another until both of their leases are up and they can find a good location in between. It will sure beat having to travel across the US a few times a year to see one another.

There has been quite a bit of turnover in our organization over the last year, and it's always hard to say goodbye to people, especially when you really respect them and like working with them. J. was the kind of person who was always willing to answer a question and lend a hand. Right after my divorce, I went out with her and several women in my group for her bachelorette party, and after that we became better friends. It was really nice to find a group of women that I enjoyed spending time with and who were really supportive of everything that I was going through.

And it's always nice when you work with people who try to make your job easier simply by being willing to share knowledge with you and working with you for a better outcome. That was J. Some people in our industry act really high and mighty about the things that they know, and look down on you if you don't know as much as them. These are the kind of people who make my job harder by expecting me to play a game to get information that customers want and need. This is not how everyone acts, but I have worked with several people throughout my career that think this is the way to do things. It's very frustrating. So, I'm always sad to see people go when they are like J.

But, even beside that, J. was just a really fun person and really open minded. I learned a lot from her about her culture, family, and religion. It was really neat to talk with her and compare and contrast our experiences. I really enjoy having friends with different backgrounds so that I can learn more about the world around me. I will really miss her, but I hope that she loves her apartment and finds friends as good as us at her new job :)