Last week our longest serving team member announced that he would be leaving the company at the end of October. He is off to join his former colleagues at a rival company. That he has chosen them to work with again isn't a huge surprise, they had all worked together for about 30 years prior to his colleagues deciding to branch out alone. So if he was going to go anywhere, that was where he would go. What is a surprise is that he is going at all. He such a conservative guy that I can only assume that he has become quite unhappy with his workplace surroundings over the past few years. And that I can sympathise with.
When I first started working for the company (which will be 6 years come December), I was the first to be brought into the team for 5 years. We were 7 guys in total. One had "recently" been employed, 5 years ago. The other 5 had worked together for 30 years. It was really tough for me, coming in to such a tight environment. I was young (ish), I had no Swedish work experience, and I was an immigrant. Hardly a recipe for encouraging bonding. On the positive side, between them all they could do everything in the industry. Literally. They knew more than our suppliers knew, they knew more than our clients knew. They were a gold mine of information. If there was something I needed help with, I didn't need to go hunting for a product catalogue. I simply stuck my hand out and someone came with the answer. Emotionally it was a tough environment for me, but technically it was a dream ride. I didn't quite appreciate that at the time. Anyway, one bloke left to work for one of our clients, while 3 others left to start their own company. That left 2 of the original gang. Earlier this year, one of the remaining 2 decided to start early retirement. He will be working part time for as long as it suits him and us.
And then there was one.
One of a group with 30 years of work companionship now surrounded by newer and younger faces. I can well understand his decision. I'm the nearest person that he has to familiarity and I'm hardly a poster child for the conservative Swedish engineering community. He has very little in common with us.
But it's not just one-sided. Your first job in a new country, your first job anywhere, has a huge effect on you. That group of 6 unique people who I suddenly found myself in the middle of, for better or for worse, they are part of that important establishment chapter of my life. When this last guy walks out the door in October, that's the end of that. I working pretty much independantly these days, and have done so for quite a while. But it still feels like an emotional abandonment. I'm going to miss him a lot. Miss him personally as he is a really nice guy who always treated me fairly. But I'll also miss what he represents. It's the end of my start.
Come November, our team will look very different. In my eyes at least. We've had people come in to replace those who have left so, from a practical sense, life will go on. But its not the same life, not for me. Maybe it will be a better life, that's possible. The humour in the situation is that now, after years of that incredibly tight group of Swedish engineers, the most experienced member of the team, and the highest ranked within our local office, will be an immigrant.
Stick that one up you, Sverigedemokraterna !
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