I now know that the internal office move which resulted in this being the view from my new desk is a direct result of one company director pulling out all the stops to keep a small group of staff happy before they are sold off to the highest bidder. The last thing they want is good staff walking away prior to the sale.
What an irony it is then that the staff being treated kindly are those being moved downstairs to my previous location and that it hasn't crossed anyone's mind that my team are preparing to jump ship.
Today, the print-room was brought back up to the room it left on the last Wednesday before Xmas 3 years ago and so my lovely boss planned to get in early.
And because my bike is currently non-functional and I am relying on my boss to ferry me in-and-out of work, that meant I was in early too.
I knew I had to tell him, and I knew I wasn't going to do it while he was driving his car, so as soon as we got out of the car and before we entered the building I told him I'd got a new job.
I knew he'd be devastated and I wasn't wrong. I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet here, but when I was interviewed he'd confessed that morale in the drawing office was shockingly low, and I decided to make it my ambition to turn that around. I have. He's so happy! Everyone is so happy. But today I had to nurse all the conflicting messages of;
“You're doing the right thing”
“I'm heart-broken”
“Of course you must do what works best for you”
and “Please don't go! (only joking)”
I knew it would be like this and so I got very little sleep last night.

Today both the first and second flats I had lined up to move into slipped away from beneath my feet and so I have lined up a third. I won't be living above a pottery-shop after all but that's small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

So much left to do, and so exhausted, but the exit timetable is in place and I'm just hoping for a soft landing upstream.