On Thursday, I had my final day at work. As expected, I did about fifteen minutes of actual work, allowed myself an hour-and-a-half lunch, and then jack-assed the rest of the day away.


I came back on Friday for my going-away/birthday party which I had been touting as "My Final Huzzah." I told everyone that the theme was "East Coast vs. West Coast." I showed up wearing a blue bandana, a wife-beater, one pant-leg rolled up, and a temporary tattoo of a dragon on my neck along with a couple of other tattoos my sister drew on with Magic Marker that said "Thug Life" on my shoulder and "Anya" (the name of my neice) on my clavicle.


I'm not sure which coast I was representin', but I am certain it was to the fullest.


I had reserved one of our large training/seminar rooms with multimedia capabilities. It was easier than I thought. I just told the person in charge that it was for a "team building activity" and I neatly skirted mentioning that I would no longer be an employee at the time of the event.


I highly recommend learning some meaningless bureaucratic terms. They're very effective with people who don't want to admit they don't understand what you're talking about.


When I entered the training room in the building that I used to call work, I was not surprised to see that no one else had put much effort into the theme. I understood. I'm sure they had opportunities to dress up as gangsta rappers at work all the time.


We had pizza, cookies, chips, brownies, and soda. We had chess, dice, cards, and Hungry Hungry Hippos (thanks, Jake). I brought down the projection screen and slipped Office Space into the DVD player. I laughed at the movie. I also laughed at my supervisors as they cringed and fretted during some of the racier scenes in the film and whenever the movie blasted explicit gangsta rap music. To their credit, none of them made me stop the film. This confirmed what I had long suspected: the disciplinary problems I often presented them with had not been covered in any of the corporate training, rendering them essentially powerless as long as I remained polite and exuded confidence.


I'm going to have to put that on my next resume'.


So now I'm free as long as my bank account holds up. It is a strange feeling. I think it's like when Neo touches the mirror in the first Matrix movie. There is this little blob of freedom on my fingertip and it is spreading, slowly at first, but gaining speed.


I think I'm starting to feel like myself again which is good because, all things considered, I really liked me.