It was Gayle’s last day on Thursday. A very emotional time, not just of sadness at her leaving; I have felt a lot of anger and resentment about it too. Irrational thoughts along the lines of “how dare she have expectations about how I do my job here when she’s leaving”. I’m not proud of my attitude and behaviour towards Gayle in her final weeks. I’d been a real cow at times, culminating in an argument on Wednesday about the collection of money for various funds.
I still think my concern about security of the money was valid, unfortunately I delivered the point in such a blunt and bitchy way it is no wonder Gayle misunderstood me. Her fear was that I was planning to take facilities away from the staff and she furiously told me I would “make more enemies”. I picked up on the “more enemies” part, it was all quite upsetting. I ended up backing down, I didn’t think it was worth arguing the point with her as she is accustomed to lording it over me, the rest of the day we were very cold towards each other.
I did some soul searching that night and realised that if I hadn’t been feeling angry towards her to begin with, the argument would never have taken place. So the next day I apologised and told her how I’d been feeling and we hugged and cried a little bit. I reassured her that I viewed my role as one that supports the staff in performing our organisation’s mission, and that I would work hard not to lose sight of that. She told me tearfully that I’d been a good assistant, and we were friends again once more.
The rest of the day was just numb for me, I’d already been working long hours and all I could see was the mountain of work ahead. But I think Gayle had a good last day, there was a steady stream of well-wishers to her door, we had a morning tea in her honour. Wheelie Wayne was there too so there was a lot of good natured stirring. There is another dinner and another morning tea coming up at the end of the month before she starts her new job.