Technically Speaking...

Don't run away in horror! I'm a geek, but in this case, I'm not going to go into techno-babble.

Technically speaking, it was a "summer party." But for some strange reason, nobody was in that much of a festive mood. At all.

Hmmm... I know that we had the shindig scheduled before half of the lab was let go and the other half were told that they would be losing their jobs by the end of the year, but honestly, how much fun could it be?

It was a strangely small gathering. It was a gathering of employees and their families, but it seemed much smaller than the last such party - the one that was employees only. The absence of so many people that I REALLY like was conspicuous to say the least.

There was a smattering of applause when the administrative assistant in charge said that there was no "executive" there to make a speech. If there would have been one present and if they had tried to make a speech and if there was a rope handy... It's scary to think what might have happened. Yes, I say this tongue firmly in cheek, but the last thing we needed was someone to tell us how well the company was doing now that we had all been stabbed in the collective back.

*sigh*

But the saddest part of all is that this seemed, to me, to be a last farewell. There will never be another such party. I won't be working with these people any more. I've been working with them for five years. They have become friends. I'm going to miss my day-to-day interaction with them.

Chances are, I'll fall out of touch with all but a few of them. Most of them, I may hear of or see once in a while, but I'll rarely, if ever come in contact with them again. That saddens me, but experience tells me this will happen.

So today, we got together and had lunch and roamed around Thanksgiving Point together. But it wasn't a party. It was goodbye.