Everything is changing around me at work!

Yeah, I know I’ve been making a lot of veiled comments about my various situations on this blog, and for the most part all of the comments still hold. This storm clouds still loom overhead, but at the moment the rain has let up a little bit. Anyway, that’s not what this post is all about! No, this post relates back to something that was posted about 2.5 years ago.

OK, so around that time in 2007, the Simpsons Movie had come out, or was about to come out (to be honest, I totally forgot). One of the tools on the movie’s website was a widget to create Simpsons versions of whoever you wanted. It wasn’t long before one of our team members decided to create Simpsons versions of everyone.

Do you remember that post? Maybe? Well before you click here to go back, do you remember which of these 9 characters was apparently representative of me? I still think it’s mildly obvious, but whatever. We’ve already touched on that in the old post.

So, we have a print out of this image posted on the cork board in our area. Over time, as people left the team, that person or someone else would ceremoniously draw a big red X over their avatar. In the past few months, we were reduced to just three of these original members. Then two were left: me and one other person. Well, as of tomorrow, the other person is leaving the team. At the end of today, he took the image down, grabbed a fat red marker and crossed out his image. And there I was, the only one left on the image, still unscathed.

No, I’m not crowing. I’m not necessarily happy or sad that I’ll be the last of the group. Heck, it’s not even like I’ll be on my own–a couple of other people have been hired over time, right? Still, in my mind the symbolism is sort of strong.

It’s truly the end of an era. I really respect the guy that’s leaving tomorrow. I won’t be alone in handling things when he leaves, but there definitely will be added pressure on me to perform at a slightly higher level. As the last guy standing…I guess I have no choice.