Software Services Announcement

It’s Monday morning on the last day of April and I’m sitting in my weekly project status update for a website redesign just like I have nearly every Monday for the past six months. However, this Monday is anything but normal. Last night, I contacted my manager (and one of my closest friends), Chris Wright, to inform him that I had accepted the position.

Chris has since repurposed a team meeting scheduled for Monday afternoon in order to provide the update to the rest of my colleagues. I’d like to tell everyone that I’m leaving BCLC at just the right time so I decide to run my morning like usual and wait for the afternoon to start that process. The reality is that I just don’t want to tell anyone. I have built such strong friendships at BCLC that the idea of telling them that I moving a few thousand kilometers makes me feel sick to my stomach. As our project team reviews documents on the projector, we debate how to resolve an issue that relates to project governance and requirements. As the lead on the project, this decision-making is my responsibility but I know full well that I won’t have this responsibility for much longer. As a result, in order to reduce the churn that will inevitably occur as a result of my departure, I suggest we defer the decision making until later today. This isn’t like me and the team doesn’t understand. Then it all becomes clear as an email pops up on everyone’s Blackberries and subsequently on the outlook window that is minimized on the project. “Software Services Announcement” is the title of the email and its content is public details of my resignation.

“Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag,” I say as everyone looks at me in what seems like a degree of surprise. We sort of nervously laugh together as I detail the changes in my life that are to come. Yes, the cat is now of the bag so I quickly end the meeting (nothing useful was going to come of it now) and rush to my desk. I want my close friends to hear it from me so I forward the announcement on with a brief personal note attached. Then the messages come flooding back.  And with the flood of congratulations, shock, awe, sadness that lies in those messages comes an intense emotional reaction on my part. I was not expecting this. It’s the type of emotional reaction that requires me to get out of the building because, in my vanity, still have a reputation to uphold. I’m able to get it together long enough to attend our team meeting and give them the face to face announcement that they deserve but I have to go home shortly after. This didn’t go nearly like I planned and the difficulty of this day is truly shocking to me.

I find it really funny how I react to needing to tell certain people. I have some trepidation with some and none with others. I don’t think that I can qualify why that is the case but it is. Monday night, I tell my sister. As the intensely family oriented person that she is, I’m pretty sure that I know what her reaction will be.  She is very supportive but clearly disappointed that Andrina and I won’t be around from the perspective that she wants us in her family’s life. Acknowledging this, I try to reassure her that we are abandoning the family and will be around for summer vacations and at Christmas, etc. The reality is that I really don’t know what that will look like.

I tell my brother on Tuesday.  He is one of the people that I’m apprehensive to tell but can’t effectively verbalize why. Maybe it’s the older brother thing. Maybe it’s because we haven’t resolved all the tricky bits of moving down south and I worry he will think that we are being impulsive. Whatever the reasons, he is also very supportive and, predictably, grills me on the details. I know that I can’t answer all of the questions but I know all the questions are coming. That imbues me with confidence.  The perception that we have at least identified all of the important questions is really important to me. I use the word perception very specifically in this context because we don’t know what we don’t know but at least no one is surprising me.

The remainder of the week has been spent telling friends and other family members. My birthday on May 2nd was spent at my favorite restaurant in Kamloops, Felix on 4th where I was able to speak to many people, face to face, for the first time since I resigned from BCLC. The turnout for my birthday was wonderful, many more than I had expected. The unfortunate aspect of having such great turnout is the inability to have time to really connect with people in a meaningful way.

Now, with that week of telling me out of the way, it’s time to start executing on the work breakdown (Yes, I have a WBS for this move). First things first, we’re off to SF this weekend to find a place for me to live (short term) while Andrina gets her affairs in order.