Just real quick, guys…

Bryant and I went to an ex-coworker’s going away dinner last night with a ton of our ex-coworkers. Like way more than we expected. And it was an amazing dose of “wow did we make the right decision or what”. PTL.

I don’t remember if I ever posted this here or not.

My weird little sentimental summary of my job for the past eight-ish years.

Today is sort of my last day at work. I had made all this peace with The Last Day and how it was the day before my birthday, and Bryant’s last day, too, and we’d start off our new life next week.

But I’ve been asked to come back next week or the week after or some time to do some more work that I don’t particularly want to do. So that makes me feel like there’s not really an appropriate time for hugs and goodbyes and stuff. It’s also just been a really weird ending, anyway. People petering out one by one all week, and rumors and dumpsters and notes on DVD extras.

Sometimes I want the big farewell, and sometimes I want to sneak out the back door when no one is looking. This feels kind of like an awful combination of the two.

It’s my last week at my job. There have been a lot of weird and awkward and sad moments, but I think the weirdest one came today. It’s a transitional time at the company, so lots of strange stuff is going on. There’s been a huge dumpster in the driveway for a few days and not only is it full, but there’s a two-dumpster sized pile of other trash sitting next to it. Me and a few coworkers watched from the second floor today as the dumpster got emptied, and just talked about how much of that stuff shouldn’t get thrown away. So much cardboard and paper just getting smashed up that should’ve been recycled, but also some iffy stuff like beta tapes and film and huge chunks of metal. The sort of laziness or carelessness of it almost made me want to cry. I can’t quite figure out if that’s a hippy love of Mother Earth, or just a bummer to watch the company just Not Give a Shit on such a big scale. 

But then we were asked to move all the pile trash into the dumpster so they could empty it again. So Bryant and I went home because fuck that shit.

I’m gonna say this here because it’s my own pouty corner of the internet.

Getting an email from a somewhat difficult client letting me know, “Sound makes a big difference!”

That is the sort of moment where I want to trot out my sound editing Emmy nomination and be like, “nah, dude. I get it.”

But then I remind myself that I’m going freelance and I need every crappy $500 gig I can get at the moment, so shut the hell up, sense of self-importance.

If I was in a better place about my job, I would probably find the banjo-harmonica-fife jamboree downstairs charming instead of annoying.

I used to work at a Jiffy Mart many years ago. There was one day when a particularly nasty, rude, hateful old lady came in and did something like expect us to open a register that was closed for a shift count just so she could jump the ten people in line at the other register to pay for her muffin. No one in the world matters but her. I remember when she finally left, she tripped on the stoop outside and fell in the parking lot, and the first thought that came into my head was, “good.” And the second thought was, “holy shit I need to get out of here. I’ve lost my humanity.”

And I’m beginning to feel that way about my current job. Perhaps it’s the countdown to leaving (which is about a month and a half away), but I find myself thinking really negative things about some of my coworkers and it seems like walking away is going to be a healthy thing to do.

Panorama of my desk.

I swear to god I get less confident every time I do this.

HEY GUYS. IT’S FRIDAY AT ALMOST FIVE.

I leave for the mix on Sunday.

I still have an entire twenty-seven minute reel that I haven’t touched yet.

And I need to go over alts and I need to edit all the archival.

But instead, I had to teach two people how to use the pencil tool because another dialog editor is behind. And I have to email her about the reel I’m going to send her to show her how to do stuff. And Bryant is supposed to be helping me (and is and has been because he’s the best) but now he’s trying to figure out why there are 1600 missing files in the giant effects session. 

FRIDAYS BEFORE THE MIX ARE THE BEST.