Waiting for them to come out and yell “Surprise!”

As you all know, I quit my job last week and this is my last full week at MTV.  I’ve really enjoyed my time here at MTV and was, until last night, really sad to leave.

Last night was my big going away party.  My friend Matt invited our entire department, some other people in random departments and a few extra friends that had nothing to do with MTV.  I nervously checked the facebook invite once an hour to see who would be attending my special send off.  Slowly but surely responses were rolling in, mostly from people I do not immediately work with.  With the exception of Matt and a few people who apologetically called me or emailed to say they couldn’t make it, no one from my immediate department even RSVP’d.  I thought, well I suppose they’re just not into facebook invites.

So in my diligent fashion I sent a mass email to everyone who had not responded, just reminding them that I was having this party and I was in fact, leaving next week and if they want to say bye, now was their chance.  A few more responses trickled in, but still a majority of the people I work with had not responded.

Last night I got to the restaurant with Matt, one other coworker in my group and about 8 other people who I do not directly work with but have worked on projects with.  My boss did not show up, my boss’s boss did not show up.  Not even the girl I work side by side with, showed up.

None of this particularly phased me throughout the night.  I had a nice time drinking sake and stuffing myself full of sushi and didn’t notice the lack of my coworkers.  But when dinner was over and we were heading home, it hit me.  Nobody cares.  No one cared enough to take one night out of their busy lives to see me off into the world outside of MTV. My boss’s boss has not even spoken to me since I resigned.  Not a word about “we’re going to miss you” or anything.

This has been one of my fundamental complaints about my current department both in a work and a personal sense.  I have never felt liked I belonged.  I’ve never felt that I was important enough to these people to really give the time of day to.  They never wanted to train me, they never wanted to get to know me.  And that’s really, really sad.  What also makes it so sad is that I didn’t really realize that until last night.  It does make my decision to leave a lot easier.  I’m excited to move to a company with 8 people in it.  At least there I have a fighting chance of getting to know everyone.

Anyway with 3 days left on the MTV payroll, I keep waiting for that cryptic meeting invite in one of the big conference rooms.  I keep waiting for the administrative assistant to send me out on some BS errand so I can be out of the office while she brings in a cake.  I keep waiting…waiting for someone to acknowledge that I’m leaving and that it sucks and they will miss me.  I suppose I can keep waiting but I’m sure as hell not going to hold my breath.