Finale to the World's Largest Retailer

And it's over. No fanfares. No celebrations. Nothing special. 6:00 rolled around on Monday morning, and I left. That was that.

I was allowed to complete my final two weeks at the world's largest retailer and stock the shelves like I'd been doing for nearly a year. I filled out a sort of exit interview paper showing why I was leaving, and I got a lengthy story about the manager trading in his truck, but that was about much ceremony as there was. I turned in my discount then, and my badge and knife on the way out after I'd clocked out.

My final night went much as all the other nights had gone before except that I knew it was coming to an end. I got hugs and handshakes throughout the night, and was repeatedly told how valuable I was and that I would be missed. One guy kept telling people I was leaving, and that I was the hardest worker there.

One of the women got me and the family a chocolate truffle cake. She walked up to me at one point and said, "Do you like chocolate?" I said yes. She asked, "Does your family like chocolate?" I said yes. I knew what she was up to, but she didn't say any more at that point and walked off. Shortly thereafter, she tracked me down and said she'd gotten me this cake and wanted to give it to me on my aisle instead of in front of "those greedy people" in the break room. I stashed it quickly.

It was overall kind of nice to be in control of when I was leaving a job as opposed to being fired (which is what commonly happens to me). This is one of only two jobs that I left voluntarily instead of being sacked. The other was my term with a security company as a dispatcher (which was an interesting experience as well, though my departure wasn't as warmly met as with the WLR).

As I left for the last time, the air was a bit sweeter and the world a little bit freer. I felt almost reborn knowing that I would only be doing one job instead of two and have my weekends free again to spend with the Queen and Princesses. My first free weekend, as intended, is Memorial Day weekend so I'll have three days off in a row for the first time since Labor Day last year, which I took off from the WLR without pay to head to Missouri where the Queen's family likes to camp and fish.

The Princesses are super excited, though, about having me available on the weekends, and the Queen equally so about not having to sleep alone for three nights out of the week. I plan on more movie times with them, working more with Rock Girl on her guitar, practicing my guitar more, playing more on the Wii, finally playing some of those games that the Queen's father got for me, watching a few more movies, and just being able to rest for a few hours here and there as opposed to having to sleep to regain my strength. It will be very, very nice.

In addition to playing, this will also give me the chance to finally work on the house. When you move into a new house, you spend a year getting adjusted to everything and making sure all the important stuff works. In your second year, you can finally start getting it all put together just the way you want it, but for my second year, I lost my job and started working an ungodly amount to make sure we can keep said house. So all that post-move-in stuff hasn't been done yet, and I'm anxious to get started on it finally. It'll be nice to get it all together.

So that's life as it is at the moment. My crew enjoyed the finale of Dancing with the Stars last night. They've been glued to it all season. I tried to watch Stealth at the same time, but discovered I got a bad disc. Oh well. Not that I'd heard anything good about it anyway. I watch my Alfred Hitchcock Presents instead, I guess.