Check out!

I have reached the point where I have decided I am no longer going to be useful in my current positional description.  My only real goal in life anymore is completing by my Seperation and Extended Absence Clearence/Checkout sheet.  Kind of interesting...after nine years I have finally visited the Shipyard Legal Office and found out there was a Shipyard Library.  With actual books...not just pictures like you would expect most Shipyard bubbas to want.

Wandering around with my check-out sheet also gives me an Official Cover for the unofficial checkout I am doing...drifting aimlessly, shaking hands and saying good bye to pretty good people.  I have known some of these people since I moved back to Washington...almost as long as I have known my wife.

No tears yet though, so I guess that is a good sign that I am doing the right thing.  I am not so macho that I will not admit to an occasional tear leaking from my eye...but I am macho enough to usually try blaming it on dust.  When I left the Seawolf, a place where I had spent 5.5 years and done a lot of growing up, things got a little dusty...felt like I was leaving something behind.  Haven't felt that emotion yet in the Ship Yard, so, it reinforces that whatevr short-term pain and consternation I could be experiencing, I am doing the right thing.

It's also reassuring to see that I have lived my life and carried out my career in the proper manner so far.  People seem genuially upset to see me go, whether they are over me, below me, or a peer.  Which is nice.  From the managment and peer side of things, it is nice to see that the long hours of semi-competent work spent away from family was appreciated.  For the techs working for me...it is a sign that I must have done something right.  As a Supervisor, I often viewed it as my job to act as a poop shield...pass along the good, and do what I can to make the lives of the people working for me better/easier.

Of course, it also mean the technicians I sad to see me go because I have low standards, and now they will need to work for a hardass.

Either way, it's nice to know that maybe I made a little bit of a difference.