Hello, Goodbye

Tomorrow is my last day at work, and the feeling I've had building up to tomorrow can only be described as bittersweet.

What good has come out of it? Well, for one I realized that being a SAHM for 2.5 years didn't render me completely useless to the job market. I was so scared of going back to work - terrified, like a little girl facing her first day of school, actually - and I fought looking for a job as long as humanly possible. Then once I got there, I had to not only go through a month of brain numbing training but had to learn how to use Mac OS too. I can't count how many times I thought "I can't do this, I won't, I can't." I struggled with my loss of prestige compared to what I did before, and with that my own ego.

As time passed, I found that not only had I learned the basics of Macs, but I actually preferred it. A few times I had to use our PC at home, and Windows did nothing other than completely piss me off with its endless system of menus and submenus and unintuitive systems names (yes, I know, those submenus exist on a Mac, but they're hidden). I found I had almost completely forgotten HOW to use Windows. Now, ten months after I started, I have vowed to never have my own computer be a PC again.

I also found that I was actually okay at what I had to do. I am the kind of person who constantly feels incompetent, so that feeling of not entirely failing was actually a relief. And now maybe the people I work with will understand why I'm extremely anal about my csat :P

It felt different but nice to be a part of something bigger than making day by day parental decisions. I wasn't just solving weird problems all day, I was taking an actual invested interest in each puzzle because I fell in love with the products and with the way the corporation is handled. Even their history is more interesting than most.

All of these things I've listed are great and all, but I could not have gotten through any of it without many of the people I came to know on my team. You've got every personality you can think of in this one team - the geek, the know-it-all, the mentor, the chatty one, the smartass, the bogan (that's Aussie for redneck), the hobbit, the jaded genius. Shit, I wonder what my nickname is! Even with the ones I didn't always get along with, I still felt I really learned from them on a personal level.

The year of my SAHMness while in Australia was so reclusive because of the fact that I can't think of any torture much worse than having to socialize with people I have nothing in common with, and as a result I talked to virtually no one. I took Nevan out, I played with him, I took him to playgroups where IF I talked to others it was nothing more than witless banter (you know the kind... baby shit consistency, diaper brands, terrible two's). I didn't get to know Australians at all.

This job changed that and my feelings towards Australia, and I'm glad I got to experience that before I had to leave. I adore Australia and its people, and I intend on coming back many times, if not to live here again.