She even moved with us, from the 15th to the 24th floor. She's not even an official employee, but she's always been there. She was oldish and spoke Polish and I never said more than thanks or "sorry, I need to make sure I didn't throw out something important." Sometimes after a day of coworkers showing how smart they were--often to each cubicle row in turn--I needed simple non-exciting conversation. Before when she left I figured she was on vacation--it was a topic of remedial conversation before--but it's been about a month now. I hope it was retirement, or promotion.

I remember staying late at work and hearing another cleaning staff person address her by her name, but I forgot that. My cubicle has one of those cheesy nametags. I doubt she remembers too many of our names now.

When I started working here, I wondered who would leave first. It's that way with many other coworkers. I've outlasted more people than I thought I would, including the fellow who scored 10 million on Robotron and, with a friend, 6666665 on Q*Bert (he was upset they didn't go for 5555555.) I'm comfortable enough to have stuff that's been in my cubicle for five years. Sometimes I wonder what weird things people would miss/remember about me when I go. But I don't quite have enough to retire yet.

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Revisiting Bard's Tale Childhood dream: achieved! I'm on Itch.Io, yay. Is anyone else?

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	honestgamer - December 12, 2009 (01:18 AM) I always wonder who I'll outlast when I go to a new job, but I never seem to stay all that long so that answer is usually "not a whole lot of people." I'm almost never at a single job for more than two years. Of course, my current job is retail, so I've seen a lot of familiar faces leave... mostly because they got fired for stupid stuff. I wonder who is wondering now if they'll outlast me...
	zippdementia - December 13, 2009 (10:31 AM) A strangely nostalgic and emotional post.
	aschultz - December 14, 2009 (09:10 AM) Sometimes I'd like to see bigger turnaround because it gets my life in gear, a sort of "look what he did--I should try this." But other times it's good to have security. Also, I find that googling people or checking their facebooks (what is shared with nonusers) can give me an idea of what people I remember are doing, and while it's not jealousy per se it's "hey, look what he did, I should try something." In a way I'm sadder about the cleaning lady leaving than many of my former coworkers. I wonder what the guys who've been rehired once or twice (they got laid off in recessions & I'm a bit jealous really--severance pay and all) think about it, or what the cleaning lady thinks/thought about re-seeing them, or knowing layoffs have occurred. While it'd be hard to take that sort of job, the ability to be a bit nosy just by accidentally noticing things in cubicles is intriguing.