Monday is John’s last day.
It is finally sinking in to both Michelle and me that John will not be there anymore after Monday.
No John to constantly ask questions of for answers we can’t figure out.
No John to harass.
No John to mock and tease about not being a real guy.
No John to argue with about the worth/worthlessness of the Greek system in American colleges.
No John for Michelle to physically annoy and harass.
No John as a medium for me to mock Michelle.
The three of us have really bonded since I’ve been working for the company. I know they and my predecessor got along well too, and I’m not saying I replaced her in their hearts. They just added me on. :o)
Some days John and I gang up on Michelle, other days it’s John’s turn for Michelle and me to gang up on him. I asked them today why they don’t gang up on me, and they tell me they don’t get along well enough for them to do that.
But in reality John and Michelle are perfect co-workers. Their temperaments are so similar, and they get annoyed at the same thing and they both like to bitch about those things. They know when to laugh it off, they know when to just keep silent. They realize that each other’s teasing is just a way to express their fondness for one another. They’re both the same age, with the same degree, except Michelle also has her master’s. John is now following in Michelle’s footsteps and taking classes from professors she had when she was in grad school.
And it’s totally platonic. Michelle is dedicated to her fiance, as John is to his wife. You may even think they’re related because they just annoy the piss out of each other the way siblings do.
So Michelle and I put our arms around each other and approached John in the office with our bottom lips sticking out and trembling. Which, of course, cracked John up, and forced him to use the digital camera to snap incriminating photos of us.
But Michelle and I are rather distraught. It’s not so much losing John’s knowledge — it’s losing John.
A very depressing thought.
As a result, however, I get my own office. Figure the odds, when I’ve been working for a company for a mere five weeks, and now I have my own office. I pity Michelle — she gets Tesfa’s desk in John’s office while Tesfa gets John’s desk. But she tells me that she’ll be visiting me quite frequently in my office. I could see that coming. :o)
Kurt came to eat lunch with me today, and afterward I hauled him up to the wet lab to show him the rotary evaporator because I’d figured out how it works, and I think it’s a damn cool piece of lab equipment. This notwithstanding the fact that it’s my responsibility to clean the damn thing, and I got beaten into my head exactly what every part of this thing costs, which is far more than I make in a year there. So I wanted to show Kurt exactly what was going on, and Dr. K followed us up so he could make some compounds. After Kurt left, I went back to talk to Dr. K, and he asked me, very intently, “Do you really want to learn?”
I just sort of blinked at him, afraid almost, and told him that I love to learn new things, that I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but that I do want to learn. That I’m fascinated by everything in the lab, and PLEASE teach me!
He seemed happy with that, but then he left so preoccupied that he didn’t secure the flask to the rotary evaporator properly, and the flask was going around all lopsided in the water bath. It couldn’t have fallen off; it’s all vacuum in there.
So I’m not quite sure what that means, but he asked me if I wanted more responsibility, and I’m all for that. She who was there before me told me that a trained monkey could do her job, but while I don’t quite hold with that, it doesn’t take much.
We’ll look for further developments.
On a national front, I found my postcards of the US flag and the Virginia flag that I had bought forever ago intending to display them in my dorm room window. I think now I’ll put them in my back window of my car.
The Mind of Bluesleepy 