When Friends Know You So Well

It is always bittersweet exiting one door to open another. The biggest change and the one I will miss the most in changing careers, is not working with some of the finest people that I now feel privileged to call friends. And as good friends do, they know your routine, your norm, your preferences even better than some in your immediate family do.  While the gorgeous flowers and beautiful cake send off was lovely, I was given more than anyone deserves of truly thoughtful and personalized gifts.  I am not ashamed to say that even the silly ones moved me to tears because of the realization of how well these folks know me, and I know them. 

Here are a few of my parting gifts, chosen through careful thought.  There was theme that surrounded many, ahem, some maybe not my proudest traits. Some of these ideas might come in handy for others putting together farewell gifts for work friends.

Soup: As too busy people often eat lunch on the fly while checking e-mails at their desk or in the rush out the door, forget to bring their lunch, a combination of heated up leftover home made soup, or the trusty canned soup left in my desk drawer as back up was my usual meal. This week i received three cans of soup, a soup mug for heating and eating said soup, a set of lunch box storage containers, and a packet of restaurant "fake it" soup recipes. Recipes included Panera's Lemon chicken Orzo and Creamy Wild rice, and Olive garden Pasta Fagiole and Chicken Gnochi. The.The packet had nine recipes all together. 

Tissues: No one at that office ever seemed to have a box of tissues when they had a cold, a difficult day, or a sneeze fest.  It seemed that the poor soul that thought through this was constantly having their supply depleted.  I was that soul, but am now fully stocked for my new office. 

Chocolate and Candy: I am known for making candy as gifts at the holidays, but rarely eat a lot of it at other times unless, it's chocolate with caramel.  I also have  a little sweet tooth for Smartie's candy, those tiny little rolls of sour chalky bites-not the UK chocolate ones. Yep-I'm fully stocked in the Smarties and Snicker/Milky Way department.

Plants I can't kill:  Last week my managers held an intervention and forced me to throw the Christmas poinsettia.  It was not coming back.  Likewise, I was urged to give my ugly and deformed passion plant-I think that is what it is called, that are thriving in every other place in the office, to the the green guru to try and nurture back to life.  I received as parting gifts, a mug of fake flowers, flowers taped on the end of pens, pictures of flowers, and some cheeky gint gave me a pair of gardening gloves with a note, "to be regifted , unused,in the near future."

Beverages of choice: Coffee, and more coffee, followed by coffee was a welcomed gift. Likewise the Diet Coke, but since myself and the gifter, also a Diet Coke fiend, are trying to reign our habit in, it was the little bitty cans. Then there was wine.  Two big bottles were in  beautiful gift baskets with other luxuries, given by the whole organization, but I suspect, selected by a few.  I also received many single size bottles, including a red and white alcohol free from someone who has given up drinking herself, but thought we could have a toast together down the road.  

There were so many more things, inside jokes and personally touching like  the George Clooney (no more details shall come on this) photo collage and the Minneapolis Cherry and Spoon print from one of my favorite places in the Twin Cities, the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and a tote bin to manage my office clutter. There were so many kindly worded notes, which mean the world, and a department by department scrap book.  I know  several coworkers already at my new job, and I am hopeful that we will all gel as a team as I did over the years with this group. It's a new chapter, but I feel truly blessed to have closed this one having made so many friends. With the work place dynamics out of the way, I hope many of these can now be nurtured properly outside of the work place.