![Roy as a baby](/IMG/blog/roy_baby.jpg)
Photo which goes back to circa 1984
N hindsight, I believe that resigning from my job was an excellent choice, from a career ‘s perspective. I think I made the right choice by reducing a workload which provided income. For those readers who are lost, my last day at work was yesterday.
My life remains divided between voluntary contributions to Open Source and some jobs and duties, which help make ends meet. I recently mentioned my departure in terms of hardware depletion, which is of course irrelevant in any respect. What I care far more about is that gap and distance that will prevent me from seeing old colleagues and friends. This proves, as a matter of fact, that social aspects in a workplace can help in attracting and keeping valuable and talented staff. Luring people in is another matter altogether. It is no longer surprising to me that certain people work for one single company throughout their entire life.
I have held this particular job for 3.5 years. No doubt it will be remembered as quite a nice occupation. My other job I have held since 2001 and I will probably finish my contract this September, which will leave me far more independent. I guess it is simply a matter of moving on, probably to bigger and better things. Maybe even freelancing!
During my service at Manchester Computing I got to know many people, which made it hard for me to ever decide to leave. I once thought I would leave after a year, but here I am several years later, saying farewall rather late. This was probably long overdue, yet I remain rather saddened. Behind me I leave a place that had served me well in many ways.
Looking back at the E-mail archives from work, it is evident that I helped many people. Above all, I helped keep a variety of things running. It is a very important matter to me, as I once wrote about in “my creed of life” or “why I do what I do”. Many of the people involved were academic staff, who are nothing to sneeze at. My memories and experiences (more latterly at the Visualsation Center) will be tattooed in my memory forever, I am sure. If not, perhaps the blog will have me remained one day. Being an on-line diary, it is a avaliable tool for reminiscing.
To mark the occasions, I had a blast last night. A bunch of us went out to Rockworld and got wasted. Fortunately, no hangovers like the last time! For the first time, however, I spotted a case of complete memory loss. I cannot recall how I got from napping position on my dining table onto the bed. I guess the combination of heavy drinking and sleep made this reminiscent of insomnia.