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Sorry if this posts rambles a bit. I had a major life event and wanted to get something written about it right away.

I ended a long-term job last night. I’d been there 9 and 2/3 years.

I wouldn’t say it was a great job, so to speak. It was a data entry center that employed hundreds of people. The work was extremely monotonous and repetitive, typing in front of a computer monitor all day. After doing it for a few years your brain adapted so that you didn’t have to pay attention anymore. It’s alarming to realize I could unplug from a section of my brain and not pay attention to what I was doing. I stressed this phenomenon was affecting me during my personal time, that I might be running on automatic. Another surprising drawback was the pay. The pay scale there was above average for the area, making it difficult to walk away from.

A major plus to the job was that you were allowed to wear headsets and listen to audio all day. Over the years I enjoyed massive amounts of audio entertainment. I would go through phases. I remember first enjoying my large CD collection much more than I had before.

Then I went into a period of enjoying old-time radio shows. I have listened to the majority of episodes from radio series like Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve, Lum and Abner, The Jack BennyShow, The Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show and The Cinnamon Bear to name a few (c’mon, how many people today can say they’ve heard most of the episodes from Fibber McGee and Molly?).

I listened to many books on tape. I heard a few more of Charles DickensI’d always wanted to read, and also listened to books 1-6 of Harry Potter(the irony of the final bookbeing released at midnight of my last day).

Oh, and I can’t forget enjoying thousands of hours of both Loveline and Coast to Coast AM from the radio.

In the last few years I really took to mp3 netcasts. I really dug The Daily Source Code at first. My enthusiasm for it lead to me getting a co-worker to start her own netcast which still has a following even if she hasn’t posted since last year (and her program got a mention on The Daily Source Code).

Most recently I’ve been enjoying a lot of SEO netcasts like Shoemoney and SEO Rockstars. They really got me thinking about how I could improve my websites. But already being employed to sit in front of a computer for 40 hours a week didn’t make it easy to continue at home. To a degree this new interest caused a resentment for my job.

Well, be careful what you wish for. The whole facility will be completely shuttered in 100 days. Every person there from top to bottom will have to move on. I had to leave now since I’d been promoted over time, and my increased pay scale was too costly for the company to keep around as they power down the operation. Today was the final day for forty of my co-workers as well, people I’d worked with since I began. As certain crews ended their final shift, there was a parade of tears and well-wishes as groups of people left the floor for the final time.

Spending so much of my life there made my co-workers like family. Some of them I adored, most of them I liked and a few I disliked. I hung out with some outside of work, but the reality is I probably won’t see most of them ever again. However, I know from past experience that some I will remember, think of and catalog permanently into my consciousness (and not always the ones you expect).

And the place itself was like an extension of my home. Every nook and cranny is intimately familiar to me. But it is a security building to be accessed by employees only. Today was the last day I could ever see the place I know so well. I can never go back. The company I worked for will clear it out and it will be an empty building by the holiday season. A strange revelation that came to me after I left is I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream about my workplace. I didn’t have to dream it, I was often there. I wonder as time goes by if the dreams about it will start to come.

One good move on my part is, shortly after learning we were to close, I started a blog about my workplace (and an accompanying MySpace page). It’s probably my best blog at the moment as I’ve been trying to document as much as possible while the place still exists. I hope to keep it online for years to come as a memorial that former employees might look back on from time to time. Doing that blog was a good learning experience because I see I can knock out decent posts regularly when I force myself.

So what does my future look like now that I’m unemployed? Well, unfortunately my bills won’t go out of business. I’ve been told I might be getting a severance check. And I might be eligible for unemployment. I do have a ton of stuff I’ve been wanting to sell on eBay. Naturally a new job is high on the priority list.

As I said earlier, I had been wishing I could spend more time at home so that I might explore some of the ideas I’ve had for websites and SEO. So I came home from my last day at work and looked around my apartment realizing that now I would likely be spending most of my time there. And a feeling of dread came over me. I guess it was just a trying day.