And I Left

The Team, not all of them though :)

It was my belated farewell lunch with my colleagues in HP yesterday. It was like any other lunches we had, laughters, rubbish talks, teasing each other. But something different though, my son became the highlight of the lunch nowadays, stealing everybody's attention and got carried around the table, that makes him very happy. Can't sleep when he got home.

It's been quite a journey. I joined HP Failure Analysis team on 11th June 2007. My official last day was 2nd of June 2015. On the paper, I clocked 8 years working in the same environment, (sounded so sad but it's not, really). But technically, I've only clocked 7.5 years because I took 6 months off to take care of baby. And then, I took a step further, I left.

7.5 years is a long time.

They've seen me long curly hair, short curly hair, long straight hair, short straight hair, and long straight hair again.

They've seen me without braces, with braces, and took off the braces with nice tidy teeth.

They've seen me happily single (but not available) traveling around the world with sister every year, happily married and still traveling around the world, and got pregnant and still traveling!!!, and finally, the "balloon" popped, and I am still traveling!

7.5 years, we've seen people come and go. Some joined us as short as a few months. Some for a year and longer. But there were a few of us who stayed together long enough (we've got no choice but to stick together) to become very closed friends. These are the people I can't let go off. These are the people who make me think twice before I started writing my resignation letter. These are the people, I swear I want to keep in touch with. These are the people, I call them friends rather than just colleagues.

I felt so loved all these years with them. My bestie and I have difficulties eating crabs and prawns (actually she has difficulties because of her allergy, I am just plainly lazy. I've been pampered at home, and I'm also pampered at work!), our "English teacher" would peel for us. The "English teacher" also peels oranges for me. Some other guys would carry watermelons back from the supermarket nearby to office, and cut for us for tea breaks.

My lab friends would keep some cup noodles for me in their drawers so that I got something to eat when I'm hungry. Because everybody knows, I am ALWAYS HUNGRY! They would keep any unattended items in their drawers for me, because I'm the No.1 forgetful in the team, and whatever left behind, they always assume they belong to me. Hahaha... Well, 80% of the time, it's true.

And my boss, she'd seen the worst of me. Couldn't handle my emotion properly and opposing her on things that she asked me to do etc. Bad engineer... But as I grow, I started to understand her position, and I realized she's such an understanding boss, especially when it comes to work-life balance, and health of her team. I started to see nobody is perfect, I am a lousy engineer so why should I expect so much from everybody else. I should do my part first. I appreciate her more, and we became closer and we could even pull prank on her! Such fun :)

If I were to write everything about them, I'll needs days to do so. So I'm not gonna do that. I'm sure to whom it may concern, they know how I feel :)

To all of you, I miss you already :)