It isn't easy to announce that you are leaving when you have 3 months before leaving a job that you've had for almost 3 decades. Heck, it's hard to tell family that you plan to leave the area after 5 decades as well. I let just a few people know early on. The timing was odd as a co-worker had recently passed away, another was announcing his retirement and one out fighting cancer. And (on the family side) I mentioned my brother moving back to town which was giving my mother the idea that all her family was now going to be close again. We decided in early April to move and I was more forthcoming about it by the end of May and June was openly talking about it. There was a wide range of shock as I was never someone that mentioned wanting to leave the Las Vegas valley.
Long goodbyes are tough. If you are at a party and an hour in you walk around mentioning that you are going to leave and then you are still there hours later, those people you told spend those hours thinking every time they see you "he's leaving soon" and may start wondering why you are still there. That was the last thing I wanted. I actually had someone tell me how hard it was to see me because they knew that I was soon not going to be there. Life is weird like that.
So it suprised me when I walked around the corner during work and saw someone writing on something. It seems that my friend Tony talked to another friend Don about painting a Raider logo on a framed canvas and my co-workers were writing farewell notes on it. I don't think I've ever been emotionally hit like that at work. I love the crew that I work with and it may be the hardest part of leaving. So, I slyly took a picture of it and put it aside for now. I know that I'll be staring at it often once I move.
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