Good Riddance, or How I Am When I'm At Work.

We had three retirements at my job this week. A potluck was held, which I didn't participate in. We returned to the office full time in 2025, we've had a few events at work since then. After a few attempts at participating, I decided I wasn't going to try that anymore. Even though I've worked here nearly seven years, I still feel out of place and I've realized it's going to be like that till I retire. I think some of it is that notorious Northwest Freeze, but I've never really fit in with anyone at my workplace other than the occasional superficial plesantries [and as I'll mention later, sometimes not even that.]

The first day we came back to the office, I went to our tiny, inadequate galley kitchen to put my lunch in the fridge. A younger guy was walking down the hallway. I said hello, and he glared at me and said nothing. That's pretty much my whole experience here. Another guy, in HR, would occasionally be in the office back when we were still working from home full-time [I would have to come in a few times a month to deposit checks and do a few other in-person activities.] He would blare music on his radio, sing along loudly, and generally behave as if he were at home without thinking about others. When we returned to the office, he'd be friendy and gregarious with everyone--except [you guessed it] for me. He would remain silent and unsmiling when I said hello. After a while, I stopped saying anything when I saw him, since that's the tone he apparently wanted to set with me.

Sometimes over the last couple of years, we've had award ceremonies, and my team has won awards. I've been to a couple of them, each time I had the junior high school feeling of being unable to find a table to sit out when we had our lunch. Often I would try to sit somewhere only to be told the seat was taken. Even my boss and other people I thought were at least somewhat friendly didn't seem to want me to sit there. I'm an adult, and this isn't junior high. I don't have to be in these situations if I choose not to be, and after the last time over the summer, I decided that was it.

The awards are a lot of bullshit, largely. I've seen a lot of the laziest people get awards [especially in my office] who spend all their time doing "morale based" activites and complain when they're asked to do their actual jobs or assist other teams. It's a situation where most of the work is done by a small percentage of people and everyone else just sits around and chit chats all day. My boss has been out and left a bunch of stuff undone without taking care of it first, and not letting us know what we needed to do. I got a call this week about an outstanding item connected to a former employee who had transferred to another location and it was causing them issues in the system where they worked now. My boss could have helped, but was gone, and only this one person who had formerly had accesss to the system could enter the required approval to clear things up. She complained, didn't want to do it, eventually did, but then deleted herself from the system so she could never be asked to help out with it ever again. I sit near this person, and she spends most of her time looking at her phone, chatting with co-workers, and going "on break." Every time she does, I say to myself, "On break from what?" She routinely gets awards at these events.

We have a lot of hardworking people out in the field, and I don't mean to disparage them. They deserve every bit of recognition they get, and should get more. But it seems really upside down in my offce.

Anyway, all that to say that I no longer go to events, and remain at my desk at potlucks and most other celebrations, anything that I can't comfortably do alone. The HR guy was one of the retirements this week, and I kept thinking that yes, it's a celebration, a celebration that he will no longer be there. Only about 6-7 years to go till I no longer have to be there either. I plan to just leave my ID badge and other stuff one day at my desk, leave, and send a text the next day saying I'm gone.....