The Clam Rampant

clamrampant May 12th, 2007

OK, no more cheap digs at overemotional Oscar winners.

I had my last day at the university yesterday. I started as a student there nine years ago, started working part-time there six years ago, and started full-time five years ago. When one is 30, that is a significant chunk of one’s life. So I expected to be a little verklempt.

When I got into work, there was a huge gift bag on my desk. Puzzled, I started pulling things out of it.

First came a box of Puffs, with a sticky note that read “For when you really need to sneeze. (God bless you!)”

Then came a ziploc with a sticky note that read “Pharmacy in a bag.” Inside were all the various sundries I had had to ask someone else in the office for at some point: Band-Aids, throat lozenges, Advil, and nail clippers.

By this point I was laughing out loud. Next came a box of Nutri-Grain bars. The sticky note on that said “For when you’re running late and forgot breakfast.” (When I told The Big Seester about this, she laughed too, and said “Do they know you or what?”)

Next came a bag of Werther’s, which confused me until I reached in again and found a little glass dish with a sticky that read “Fill with candy – make new friends!”

Then came a microwave soup, with the note “For when you don’t go out to lunch.” (Lately I’ve been eating out almost every day…and fortunately for my budget, there is very little around my new job in terms of lunch options.)

Finally came a big Gladware type of plastic tub with all sorts of snacks in it, that said “Snacks for your desk – just because.” And a cute little box with an angel pin in it, and a beautiful little card with a paper cutting of a church.

Peggy, the co-worker who put this together, suggested I keep the sticky notes on everything at the new job, so the people there know I came from somewhere where people love me. [sniff]

Then my supervisor came in with a card and a gift: she got me a really pretty picture frame, and said “Put a picture of someone special in it for your desk.”

Then, that afternoon at my bon voyage, they gave me a big straw bag full of body care products (almost all coconut-scented, mmmm!). Our administrative assistant was off for the day, so she had already given me her gift: a scented candle and a little tub of body butter.

After work a whole bunch of folks came to Circa, the student dive, to see me off

It reminded me, oddly enough, of the Easter Vigil. As TBS and I were leaving after the little congratulatory party that followed the Vigil, she (apparently surprised by all the hugs I was getting and nice things people were saying about me) commented: “Wow. People like you.” To which I replied, if memory serves, “Yeah – would you believe it?”
Gifts are nice, of course, but what really amazed me was the farewell I got, even from people with whom I’d worked only a few months, or whom I’d known years ago. A woman came to Circa who works in the office I left to take this job two years ago, and brought cards from other people in that office who couldn’t make it. One of my professors from my undergrad (which I completed in ‘01) came to Circa, and two others sent regrets because they were in physical therapy and Finland respectively.

God has been so good to me. I can’t believe how blessed I have been to know such loving, generous people already.

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