The Final Day

This really needs to be a different kind of post for a very different kind of day. This is my last official day in the work force I joined when I was nine years old. That was the summer that Dad and I signed a contract for my lawn mowing services. Further employment is inevitably in my future in order to supplement my pension, but I will have some control over that by living within my means.

The morning started at 4:30 so that Mary and I could get our yoga in first thing. She prepared me a delicious and nutritious breakfast shake which I use to chase down my daily medication. These past six days we’ve enjoyed sharing the ride to and from work since we sent the Hyundai to Flagstaff with Rebecca. For the last time, I swiped by security badge at two entry points on my way to cubicle B110.


Ginny, my lead and someone I’ve worked with from the NOMADS conversion days, baked an “F/U Specialist” chocolate cake just for the occasion. There will be pictures, and perhaps somewhere along the line I’ll find the time to explain how I earned the designation. It promises to be a day full of those things of which memories are made, and I’m looking forward to it.

I’m not sure that it would be much different if a prisoner was being released. The spirit here is almost giddy with excitement over one of us escaping. It’s beginning to feel as though we’re producing “The DAFS Redemption”.

Yea! Liz gave me two postal verifications to enter. I can do this!

Rita and I just lapped the parking lot for the last time. Rita is another friend from the beginning of my time here. Only today did I learn that she’s a Tea Partier (she said any kind of party will do). I must have maintained my cover well because we’re parting as friends.

I am predictably being asked if I’m happy to be retiring, and my answer is an almost unqualified “yes”! The only misgiving I have is to leave so many of my coworkers in this untenable hell hole. I couldn’t have dictated a script as telling as the memorandum from the assistant district attorney at 4:54 pm yesterday entitled Performance & Professionlism [sic]. The entire division was broken down into “givers” and “takers”. This is consistent with the attitude toward DAFS employees from the day I started working here: employees are not the solution, they are the problem. Nevada ranks last in the civilized world for performance, and it has always been the attitude of administration and management that it’s because my coworkers and I just sit around doing nothing but expecting a paycheck. I’m tired of the demeaning and condescending attitude toward the people I work with because I know how hard they do work in an utterly dysfunctional environment. Two major studies of our division that have been conducted since I’ve been here have drawn the same conclusion. I wish that my colleagues could join me in a great escape that would leave our captains awash in the sea of uncertainty they have created.


Now it’s going to get weird. The Intake Unit of which I have been a part just gave me a very nice farewell. The food was delicious. The cards were funny and nostalgic. The gift card will be used to obtain something that will appropriately remind me of all the good people I’ve worked with here. But now, at 1:28 pm, with access to the operating system that I’ve worked with for the last decade taken away, I’m beginning to feel a little like a roach that’s been sprayed and is being watched to see how long it will take to die.