Finished

It was my last day at work yesterday (backblip whilst I process the day)

I wasn't expecting anything great but the traditional thing to do is everyone gathers in the leavers office at around 4:30, has a 10 minute farewell and a reminisce ...

It didn't happen like that for me.

8 years I've been there. The last 18 months have been terribly difficult, going in every Monday and Tuesday, working very hard, being ignored and excluded, leaving for home both days, eyes swollen with tears. The final nail came 2 weeks ago when I had a 'training session' which turned out to be 20 minutes of half hearted training and 3 hours of idle and often hurtful gossip from the trainer.

I went in yesterday, my colleague with whom I've worked most directly did everything in her power to make me look like an idiot, now that she has to pick up my work and I had it working the way I did it, she saw and commented to my team leader about a backlog of calls for a particular customer which, whilst she was commenting about, I'd already explained thrice over that that customers service delivery manager already knew about them. So I was told to start mailing these individual calls back to the customer. I did. And thankfully when I checked my emails last night, the customer and the service delivery manager were arguing the fact that the customer had already had these call details passed over. Forwarded to my manager!! I'd done nothing wrong.

As usual, another day of being ignored by everyone. My colleague took an entire 8 hours to do a job which I did in 2 hours. She was completely incapable of doing anything else and passed the remaining workload to me.

At 3:30, my team leader (who was training a new starter all day) all of a sudden shouted out "Oh yeah, I nearly forgot about this, here you go S, good luck and all that", yes, I quote. Those are exactly the parting words I was given and an envelope thrust into my hand. I was in the middle of something at that moment which I couldn't pause, but that was it. That was my leaving ceremony. Not one other person commented, half an hour later I looked at the card, 10 people had signed it. I've been at the company for 8 years, I have friends spread over 2 offices with whom I've worked with over the years. And that was it. £30 of Amazon vouchers to go with it - which my manager - my husband topped up with £6 to round it up to £30.

Gutted wasn't the word. I wasn't going to give in with tears for then but I was fighting them back hard. I emailed one of my friends in the immediate next office and she was shocked, couldn't believe their behaviour. At 5:30, I got up. I said goodbye to her and left. Not one person in my office said any parting words - despite one girl walking past me twice.

The guy who my team leader was training was someone I recommended, my childminders husband. He got home before we got the the childminders to collect Clara so he'd explained - without me having explained anything to him - my lovely childminder had a hug ready for me.

I've wobbled the last few days, wondering whether leaving employment was the right thing to do, given that I've worked since I was 16, it was a difficult decision. After yesterday, I 100% know that I've made the right decision. I'll never again sit in the car on the way home crying because of the way a bunch of young girls has treated me.

And now my husband will do everything he can to make sure that they are reprimanded. It's easier now that I am not there.

Oh well, onwards and upwards. Thanks for reading x