"I don't know if I would be as gracious." - Arthur

On Monday, I officially resigned from my job with a very gracious resignation letter in which I honestly said I was very thankful to have learned all I have in the past two years, and to work with such amazing people. These are true statements. And I am grateful for the learning, and for the people.

I did leave out a lot in that letter. And I will not record everything that's happened here, except to say that sometimes people forget the heart of the matter and what is really important.

But for the record, on my last day of this job, I've been thinking about a few things.

Some things that are important to remember when doing work that impacts kids include:

1) at the end of the day, it's all about the kids. end of story. finished. done.

2) the work is the work. people are more important. as lester tells mcnulty in season 3 of the wire:

Freamon: The job will not save you, Jimmy. It won't make you whole, it won't fill your ass up.
McNulty: I dunno, a good case—
Lester: Ends. They all end. The handcuffs go click and it's over. The next morning, it's just you in your room with yourself.
McNulty: Until the next case.
Lester: Boooooy, you need something else outside of this here.
McNulty: Like what, dollhouse miniatures?
Lester: Hey, hey, hey, a life. A life, Jimmy. You know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come.

3) whatever you do, if you come to a place in time when someone asks you to compromise your integrity, it is not worth it. i suppose some folks will say it's easy to be principled when you've got food in your stomach and another job lined up, but there is no work worth doing that requires compromising your integrity. ever. and i think that when you stand up for what you believe in , things have a surprising way of working out. end of story. finished. done.

4) my grandpa always says that if you don't have any enemies, you're not doing your job right. this is probably not a popular saying in seattle, but I think he's right. asking hard questions is not something everyone likes, because a lot of people want to stay comfortable and happy and complacent. it'd be nice to live in la-la land, but too many kids don't get that chance, to live in a world of good, and pretending they do doesn't make it so.

5) As sij's dad says, AFGOs (another fucking growth opportunity) happen. They are hard but make us better people.

6) there are some amazing, fantastic, quality people in the world who truly value kids, and I just got to spend two years working with some of those people.

And it was good.

end of story.

finished.

done.