Happy Path

The Final Countdown

For the first time in nearly ten months, I walked up to 2201 with a smile on my face. Okay, for the first time that wasn't a Friday. I might have even said under my breath, "Six weeks, you son of a bitch. Just six more weeks!" If I had been wearing a hat, I would have tipped it to every person I passed. If I'd had a cane, I would have been twirling it. It was a good day.

It was also a busy day. Charles was occupied the entire morning, so I scheduled a meeting with him in the afternoon. Then Richard insisted I go to a meeting in his stead because he had to be downtown, so I had to cancel with Charles. By the time I had endured one of the most boring, arduous meetings of my bank career—no small feat—Charles had left for the day. I'd lost my opportunity to talk to my boss because some BA with the charisma of an eggplant had plodded through an hour of reading a spreadsheet to a room full of people. At least my notion to get the hell out was mightily reinforced by the feeling that I needed to flee The Bank before all the life was sucked out of me.

The next day, I scheduled another afternoon meeting with Charles. Late that morning, he sent me a message to let me know Richard had met with Charlotte about keeping me on the ADS team.

"Awwwwwww, crap," I said in my cubicle. Charles wanted me to send my current job description, which he could doctor and forward to Charlotte so she could raise a work auth for me. I entreated him NOT to send anything to Charlotte until we'd had a chance to talk. I really didn't want to make Richard or the department look bad. If he'd gone to bat for me, would my resignation make us all look like a bunch of idiots? Don't get me wrong, I wasn't changing my mind. I just didn't care to put Charles or Richard in an awkward position.

That afternoon, I finally sat down with Charles. I went over every other item of business on my list before saying, "There's just one more thing." I closed his office door with a flourish and turned to declare, "I quit!"

"Good for you!" was his response. Then we both laughed.

"That actually felt really good," I said. "I've always wanted to do that."

"Very dramatic," said Charles. Never one to delay forging ahead, he continued, "You know Richard talked to Charlotte about keeping you yesterday?"

"Yeah, I know. And I feel badly about that. I didn't know he had a meeting scheduled with her!"

"Oh, well. We still need someone to do what you're doing, and he seemed to convince Charlotte of that fact." We chatted a bit more about my departure before I left his office with a smile on my face. It wasn't until two days later that Charles asked me to submit a formal resignation. That seemed to me a strange thing to do for a contractor, but I was on board with any process that made us both look professional. I laid the envelope on his desk Thursday morning, about fifteen minutes before we had a budget meeting scheduled with Richard.

When I walked into Richard's office, Larry was there. They were talking about the resource needs for the coming fiscal year. Five minutes later, Charles rushed in, threw my letter of resignation on Richard's desk and had a seat.

"What happened? Did someone quit?" Larry asked as Richard read the letter.

"Someone did," I said.

"I don't accept," Richard said as he threw down the sheet of paper in mock anger.

"Did you hear that, Molly?" asked Charles.

"You quit?" asked Larry, catching up with the matter at hand.

"I did. I'll be leaving at the end of October." Poor Larry. His face contorted in what was surely a reaction to all the administrative duties he feared he'd inherit.

"Where are you going? What are you doing?" asked Richard.

"I'd like to get back to something with a more creative bent. Something that uses my background in radio and TV." Although I hadn't been expecting Charles to present Richard with my resignation right then, there was no time like the present and no reason to hide the truth.

"Well, we'll miss you," said Richard. "And I just told Charlotte how much we need you!"

"Yeah," I said sheepishly. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't know you had a meeting scheduled with her. Was the discussion specific to me? Or were you talking to her about your general need for someone in this role?"

"It was about you!" he said emphatically. I cringed. "But she understood the need for a body within our department. Someone that takes care of lots of administrative duties beyond the scope of project-related work." Richard looked at Larry, his face still creased with worry, and Charles. "I just hope whoever comes in next will be open to all the things we throw at you, Molly."

"Not to diminish my contribution, but what I do isn't rocket science," I offered. "Whoever comes in next will pick up whatever you need them to. In fact, they may even have a better grasp of bank protocol."

"Well, we'll miss you."

After the meeting, I drafted another resignation letter to send to Charlotte. Then I told my vendor I was leaving; she sent me two emails and left a message on my phone over the next hour, wanting to know whether Charles would be looking to replace me. I thought business is business. Listening to her phone message also took me back to our initial phone interview, when I only understood a fraction of what she was saying.