Nearly six years ago I took this job for six months. That over-run casts many of the projects I’ve worked on in a far more pleasing light. Sure we’ve missed the odd deadline, a few months, maybe a year, okay a bit more than a year late on occasion – but FIVE YEARS late on a six month project. That’s appalling.

A bright future in project management awaits then.

It’s been a week of many lasts; last time on this train, last time lost in the swarm of the tunnel rats, last time to use my security pass, last time to fabricate my timesheet.

Not the last time I’ll be going to the pub today. Because Lunchtime and Evening should count double, unless they blur into one mad drunken slur from midday to midnight.

I feel the very best I can hope for from this evening is to retain a smidgen of my dignity. And even that would be a bonus based on my dismissing tolerance to alcohol allied with an absolute belief I’m still about 18.

So this would probably be a good time to worry. Not about the prospect of being trundled home in a wheelbarrow or shopping trolley* as that’s mostly pre-destined and beyond my control. No, about what happens next.

I look into a diary that is normally crammed full of meetings, conference calls and other stuff pertaining to be useful. And I see nothing but ‘dead air‘, white space and endless days filled with bugger all. And yet I’m curiously unbothered about the prospect of unemployment.

And while my primary emotion is not as strong as exultation, it is certainly stronger than relief. It smells like freedom and that’s my kind of rarefied air. I’m swinging between lunatic-asylum giggling and wild thoughts on the farming of lettuces.

I suppose it comes down to this; I’ve spent 20 years+ working and have at least as much again to go. I’ve not enjoyed that much of it, so it seems pointless to continue to plough that particular furrow.

We seem to live in a world – from childhood to retirement – in a state of delayed gratification. Work hard, get good grades, work harder, get promoted, work longer for your pension. Retire, Die.

I’m sure there’s a better way. I’m just not sure what it is 🙂

* Not home exactly. A friend’s in Ealing. Or East Slough as I like to think of it.