My Last Week At Work - Quite Exhilarating!

It was quite a week for my last week at the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency).  The two big highlights were the Retirement reception, which was held on Wednesday afternoon, and the lunch with some of my colleagues from my department, held on Thursday, my last day.  On Wednesday, I was truly overwhelmed by the turnout - over 100 colleagues from a large cross-section of the agency came to the event.  During my 19 years at the OCC, I worked in our IT department, our Economics department, and in our Supervision area.  Also, over the last 2 1/2 years, I started and facilitated a mindfulness meditation group, which drew in over 130 people from all across the agency at headquarters.  So, I guess it wasn't that surprising.  But I was still surprised!

My immediate supervisor did an amazing job of organizing this reception and started lining things up 3 months in advance.  We had Spanish music playing, photos projected on the big screens, and super-sized pictures of parts of Barcelona and areas of Spain around the wall, as well as the Catalan flag on some of the walls.  Besides the food that was catered by the agency, some friends made Spanish and Catalan dishes to share.  A colleague who is also a professional photographer took photos and another colleague did videos (I felt a little self-conscious having the video camera videotaping many of my conversations with friends - but I know that it will be worth it since the quality of the work from both of these colleagues is superb!).

We tried to keep the speeches short and we only had 3 speak: my director, my best friend at work Carol (I

Some members of the FINDRS V2 team

consider her my work wife!), and me.  The words and the feelings that they expressed touched me deeply.  It was also very heartening to talk to so many colleagues afterwards expressing their congratulations, good wishes and appreciation.  I was deeply moved by some of those who regularly attend our weekly mindfulness meditation session sharing with me how helpful it was for them to learn that practice, to practice together with the group and to begin to experience the benefits of meditation in their daily life.

I understand that I may not see the photos and videos until I get closer to when I leave for Barcelona.  I'll post a few of them here when I receive them.  In the meantime, I've posted a photo taken with some of the team that I worked with over the last few years at the OCC.

Working at the OCC has been a great experience in so many ways, in spite of the few bumps along the road.  I will miss my many work friends there.