The idea of planning a farewell dinner was sort of brought up in passing when I was just chit chatting with one of my colleague, I was sharing with him that I had been accepted into a new company and will be quitting soon, because he also had plans to quit soon and I thought if anyone can relate, it would be him, so he was quite enthusiastic about the dinner and told me to come to the Showroom on this particular day, but during the days leading up to this farewell dinner, there wasn't really any reminder on his end to confirm that it was actually going to happen, so I figured it was probably something that was said in jest and he was probably going to be too busy to even remember it.
I thought that the dinner was just simple affair, that we would just go get food from the nearby food court, and then eat together in the office like we usually be, except this time, there will be the added significance to the meal being the last one I will have with him in the office, that's why I didn't really want to go to the Showroom today just for it because I can go back anytime for the next 2 weeks to do that with them if I am around the area. And it would really be a buzzkill if I went there, brought it up and then his response be like...
"Oh yeah! I forgot, come, let's go get dinner!"
... which would be really anti-climactic
Anyways, fast forward to this evening, one of my other colleague drops me a text and ask me if I was on my way over, I was quite surprised because it was about 7pm and I had already eaten my dinner, so I lied and told him I had mixed the dates up, he laughed it off in the text and then tells me it was alright, but ask if I was still coming over, so I ask him if they got a lot of food, and he sends me a picture of the steamboat they had prepared.
I felt so horrible because it wasn't just a simple meal like I had assumed, they actually went out of their way to prep the food and everything, so I asked him how many of them were there, expecting maybe just a small gathering of 3 or 4 of them...
"Total got 10 people!"
... which made me feel even worst for simply not being already there, that's almost everyone in the branch Showroom, and after realizing that my colleague had actually gone to the extent of inviting everyone in the branch for my gathering, and almost everyone actually showing up, I obviously couldn't not show up, so I took a taxi down to the Showroom and joined them for my farewell dinner.
It felt weird that I was the one they were celebrating for, it has been a really really long time since I have had a birthday party, so this really felt like one whereby the attention was all on me when I entered the Showroom.
I already had my dinner prior to that, so I didn't really eat much, just had a small bowl of food and a drink, I also got everyone some mini Haagen Dazs and Magnum Ice Cream from 7-11, just to show my appreciation. I didn't really mingle with the main group though and was huddled in a small corner with a few of my colleagues who were in the same duty group as me, we had a small chat and a toast to my new job, my manager then jokes and announces...
"This probably won't be the last time you see him, I predict by November, he will come back again!"
...because the common consensus that a lot of us share about this job is the fact that we will have a very hard time adjusting to a regular working hour job, a concern that I definitely have as well. My colleagues who were sitting around me also chimed in and said maybe I will return much sooner than that, and I jokingly admitted to them that the shortest job I had only lasted 3 days, so they might see me even sooner than that. They left pretty soon after with my manager once they had the ice cream and I went and started mingling with my other colleagues, that mingling then became a Nintendo Switch session.
My Showroom has 2 TV, so while one group was busy playing Mario Party, another group was singing Karaoke and they were really butchering every single song they were singing, which was hilarious. I wanted to join them but I was too engrossed in Mario Party to actually do that and by the time we were done, everyone was already starting to pack up because it was already 11.30pm.
It's moments like this that makes me wish we were having some sort of sleepover because it just felt way too short.
I had a great time and this farewell dinner definitely just made my transition into the new job a lot harder. It is going to be really hard for my next group of colleagues to fill the shoes of this current group of colleagues. The last time I felt this level of closeness with a group of people was when I was in NS, sharing a bunk with a bunch of my NS Mates, I have never really expected myself to experience this level of closeness again but I did tonight.
I might start missing my job months down the road, but I know for sure I will miss the people once I start work at the new company. Speaking of which, I really have to get new clothes and shoes for the new company very soon because my current dressing sense is definitely not going to cut it in the new place.
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