My Last Day Of Corporate Work: Stepping Into The Light

by A Purple Life, posted in Annual Accomplishments, Countdown To Retirement, Early Retirement, Jobs, Musings
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It happened. Yesterday was my last day of corporate work.

In an unsurprising twist, I live tweeted what happened throughout the day in a thread here:

But, let’s go behind the scenes. The subtitle of this post was inspired by one of my favorite blogs that sadly hasn’t posted in 4 years: Living A FI. If you want to spend an entire weekend bingeing an amazing blog (like I do at least annually), I’d suggest you check it out. Feel free to start with any of his post series here if you like some good storytelling.

Something that really sticks with me from his blog, besides his eloquence and visceral descriptions, is how he describes walking out of the office for the last time: as stepping into the daylight.

In our “the-US-is-failing-at-COVID” world I knew that I would not be able to physically feel such a thing on my last day though I had previously dreamed about it. But during this last virtual day, I was still curious what I would feel: Fear? Relief? Joy? So here’s what happened:

The Lead Up

September was a weird month. It also involved a lot of hard work and long hours that reminded me vividly why I needed to get the hell out of Corporate America. I was annoyed at several of my colleagues, almost all of my clients, and the world in general 🙂 . Then, this happened:

It seemed like the universe was trying to trick me into remembering this company fondly, but luckily, I have the receipts to keep a grounded perspective. GOOD TRY UNIVERSE! You’re not fooling me! I do love my boss and as I told him during our quitting conversation, he’s the main reason I stayed there 4 years.

However, the fakeness and increasingly toxic culture permeating the rest of the company was starting to weigh on me. But, despite the negatives this company has, it was nice for people to be seemingly genuine in their sadness that I was leaving and their compliments about me and my work over the last few years. I also received hints that making money down the line if I want or need to would not be ridiculously difficult:

So that was what happened during the weeks leading up to my last day, which leads to here:

The Day

I awakened at 3am, which unfortunately was not a surprise. I suck at sleeping on the best of days and when I’m excited or something big is happening, I find it even more difficult. I had been surprised at how quickly I fell asleep the night before, but when I awakened to the (almost) full moon’s light the next morning, it wasn’t a shock.

I went outside and watched the moon and stars while glancing at Mars’ red glow in the sky. It was beautiful. One of my goals in retirement is to be more attuned to the world around me and stop to enjoy the beauty of it – even if the timing is inconvenient – so that’s what I did.

I just reveled in the stars and then read up on the fact that Thursday night would be a Harvest Moon, which is apparently the first full moon after the autumn equinox. My last day of work would be celebrated by a fancy moon 🙂 .

Anyway, I did my best to rest a little and ended up falling asleep on the couch for a few hours. Then I got up to my partner’s alarm because we had an appointment! We went to get a COVID test and I drove for the first time since January – luckily both went well!

We wanted to get tested after flying across the country before we combined our quarantine bubbles with my partner’s brother and my Mom. We’ll most likely still stay separate until our full two week quarantine is up, but getting a negative test result back will help me breathe easier, so my fingers are crossed! We’ll hear in 2-5 days.

Then we came back, had coffee on the porch and I started psyching myself up for the day ahead!

The Last ‘Supper’

I scheduled a virtual goodbye meal with my boss that (due to meeting conflicts) turned into a breakfast chat. I gave fair warning in the invite that it would be a video call (you have to give fair warning or there’s no way I’m turning on my camera so you can see my wild bun of purple hair, too large YNAB shirt and baggy pjs bottoms).

I had ordered food to be delivered that the company claimed they would reimburse me for (we shall see…sometimes they’re sketchy AF). After I received my food, I settled in for our chat and it was a doozy because:

We were chatting about our future plans and how we’ve adapted around the pandemic. Then the discussion turned to his sister who retired to Thailand last year in her mid-50s and then to his retirement plans, which he has mentioned to me before. It turns out, he is still on track to retire in 3 years in his mid-50s and then asked what my retirement plans were….and my brain short-circuited. I said something like “This is it – I’m retiring now.”

To which he nodded and smiled and said “That’s so exciting!” Shockingly he wasn’t even surprised – I guess I wasn’t as sneaky as I thought 😉 . Maybe I shouldn’t have been giving out investing and frugality tips left and right at the office if I wanted to lay low 🙂 .

We went on to talk more about our plans and he mentioned that retirement to him is doing whatever he wants without worrying about money (Bro – same), but not necessarily lying facedown on a beach (this is where we differ 😉 ).

He mentioned that he would quit the company (which he owns 1/3 of) and pursue his passions instead. He said that it’s basically impossible to just pull back in our field, which I completely agree with, and that even if you’re part time, the nature of the job requires your brain to always be thinking about it to do a good job. You can’t turn it off.

And that’s where we left it. One of the best bosses I’ve ever had and I just talked about life for a solid hour – more than we have in maybe a year, and it was glorious. It’s great to see who people are outside of their professional mask. He requested that I stay in touch in any way I’m comfortable with and told me he’d see me at our all-company meeting later that day. And that was that.

The Exit Interview

To set the scene, I’ve never had an exit interview before. This is my 6th company I’ve worked at and yet, not a one. So I was very excited when our HR person told me that we would have an exit interview when I gave notice a month ago.

I imagined all the questions she might ask and how I would respond. I was trying to decide whether I would provide the usual textbook political response or the truth, even though I had been warned by my Mom (who worked in HR) that these meetings are meant to benefit the company, not the employees, so telling the truth is not necessarily a smart thing to do.

In the end, all this prep wasn’t needed. I’m planning to write a whole post about the ordeal, but in summary, this is what happened:

Stay tuned for the full, lame details 😉 .

The Final All-Company Meeting

One of my colleagues/friends and I have a tradition of talking shit during company meetings. We text each other every time someone lies, compliments someone they hate or generally is a fake version of themselves…which is, unfortunately, very often.

However, these little games help these meetings pass more quickly and be infinitely more enjoyable. In a great example of our company values, this 1.5 hour company meeting is occurring during our lunch hour 🙂 . They sent a note that we can expense a small lunch, but still. Practice what you preach people – this is not how you promote work/life balance.

This is going to be my last work call of my career and it seemed to go out of its way to give examples of all the ways meetings can be annoying. First, someone thought they were muted and were not, so myself (and 75 colleagues) heard their conversation with their partner about their latest doctor’s appointment. Then we all waited 5 minutes in mostly silence for other people to join…what a great use of $1,000 😉 (aka how much 5 minutes of all of our billed time is worth).

My company has been trying (too?) hard to make virtual meetings lively in a way that only in-person meetings can be. So there are instruments and noise makers that hurt my ears flying around while I feel like the epitome of Grumpy Cat.

Then the company leadership asked for volunteers to move the furniture in our office to another location…during a pandemic….seriously?? We make like $20 million a year with a small team (that you DEFINITELY don’t pay all that money to and we have little overhead). Also there are professionals who know how to move safely in a COVID world soooo why aren’t we hiring movers? Sigh – so typical.

Then, there were company updates including announcing that I’m leaving, which created a surprisingly sweet response where people were texting me and sending messages in the chat and spontaneously saying kind things about me in front of the whole company.

I thought I was the old curmudgeon of the company that did my job well and that’s it. I didn’t realize people liked me that much so those kind words were nice to hear 🙂 . That interlude ended with the CEO saying “It’s not a goodbye, but a see you later…You’re coming back right???”….Awkward…

And finally after many more updates, the meeting’s substance came to an end and HR declared that it was time to play a game!…Are we 5 years old? It was a trivia game that we had to play in teams (since group projects are the best projects 😉 ).

I planned to play with the same colleague I like to talk shit with so we had fun, but goodness WHY are we playing games? Forced camaraderie? I know I’m an emotionless robot, but I am so happy to be rid of this nonsense and only have to be around people I ACTUALLY want to be around. After that forced bonding ceremony, the meeting ended. Then I closed my conferencing software and sat in the sun.

The OOTO Message

I had all kinds of daydreams about what out-of-the-office message I would leave when I retired. The best example I came across was this banger from Slowly Sipping Coffee:

Image

But, instead of that badass mic drop, at 5pm PT my email started replying to all incoming messages with this:

Hi,
I no longer work at [Company]. For assistance contact [Boss].

Simple, clean and to the point…though I do wish I had the balls to drop a knowledge bomb instead 😉 .

The Emotions

Excited

This emotion was very clear to me when I woke up at 3am and wasn’t able to go back to sleep. The moon was 99% full and Mars was a bright orange dot hanging out right next to it. It was a beautiful night and my stomach was flipping in excitement. I wasn’t able to go back to bed for a long while and when I did it was that quick snooze on the couch.

Grateful

When I was watching the moon and stars, I got a pingback on my blog (that happens when someone links to a post of yours) and was shocked to see that several of my finance friends had written posts commemorating me and this milestone. I was so shocked and touched. I teared up right there and could hardly believe it. Here are the kind posts they wrote:

Modest Millionaires: Congrats Purple, FIRE at 30

Financial Mechanic: This Woman Just Quit Her Job At 30 After Saving $500,000!

We Want Guac: A Purple Life Blog Review

Josh Overmyer: Lessons from Purple

Tread Lightly, Retire Early: Women’s Personal Finance Wednesdays Spotlight – A Purple Life

Calm

I thought I’d be freaking out about what I just did because I’m a very cautious person and this job was the best one I’ve ever had (yes, that’s true – despite my complaining 🙂 ). I’m ‘throwing away’ a really sweet gig to venture into the unknown and for that reason I expected to feel at least a little nervous about it, but I don’t. I feel…at peace. It’s a weird feeling that I must say I haven’t experienced much in my life, but I feel calm and ready to take on anything.

The Celebration

At 5pm PT/8pm ET I glanced at my phone, saw that I had no work emails and dragged the Outlook mobile app to my phone’s trash bin. And it felt good 🙂 . Then I got my computer and charger ready for their adventure to FedEx in the morning. To do so, I deleted all my personal files (that I’d already copied over to Google Drive) and logged out of everything.

Then I walked out of our new tiny house and joined my Mom, partner, ‘brother-un-law’ and ‘sister-un-law’ on the lawn for some distanced hangouts. We sipped some wine and ate what have been deemed “gas station burritos” because it sounds funny – when in reality they are delicious burritos from an authentic taqueria that happens to be next to a gas station.

My Mom also brought my favorite ice cream (white turtle from Bruster’s) that I inhaled an impressive amount of 😉 . It was a delicious time. Then I was surprised to see that the new phone I bought online (a fancy and affordable Moto G Stylus) arrived early and I got so excited that I had to set it up on the spot. It’s a sweet phone and I think we’re going to be very happy together 🙂 .

After watching the Harvest Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars twinkle in the sky getting up at 3am caught up with me and I retreated to our tiny house to finish up this post and then crawl into bed with a smile on my face. I’m looking forward to getting out of bed whenever the fuck I want tomorrow….I’m thinking noon sounds good 😉 .

The Conclusion

Thank you all for being here with me on this journey – I appreciate it more than I can say! I’ll leave you with what I have been listening to on repeat:

How did your last day at a job feel? Did you have any regrets?

49 thoughts on “My Last Day Of Corporate Work: Stepping Into The Light”

  1. Huge congratulations on crossing that finish line with such peace in your heart, and ice cream in your tummy. It’s like it couldn’t have gone better, annoying company antics included to make sure you didn’t have a vestige of misplaced regret 😅

    I’m excited for you getting to sleep in and just plain enjoy doing whatever you want for the next stage.

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much!! And totally agree – it went better than forecast 🙂 . I thought I would be working until midnight/the last minute like the last day at all my previous jobs. I had a nap today and it was glorious. Think I’m going to make that a daily thing 🙂 .

      Reply

  2. Hi Purple.

    Such big congrats to you! Awesome rocking it! My last day was a bit of a non-event because of Covid. You work virtually all the time so your last day was nested in normalcy. We all worked in person, but started working virtually through March/April as more info on this virus became available. We were going to have a nice good-bye dinner for me – cancelled – and my last day on April 30th came and went very quietly. It doesn’t matter, though. It’s like the difference between a big wedding and going to the JP; both are a day, then the marriage follows, day in day out, year after year. That’s retirement – may it be long and fruitful for all of us!

    Reply

    1. Thank you Kathleen! I’m sorry your last day played out like that, but it’s awesome you have that perspective – marriage is a great example. I’m looking forward to it 😉 . May it indeed!

      Reply

  3. Congratulations!! 🎉 I am so excited for you and encouraged on my own journey. ☺️
    I also love that now, we can all read
    your journey to FIRE as a complete story. That’s so cool!

    Reply

    1. Thank you Abby! So happy I could help encourage you – it was other blogs that kept me going all these years so it’s wonderful to hear I’ve paid that forward. And very true! I hadn’t thought of that – it’s all there start to finish in its less than perfect glory haha.

      Reply

  5. Yay, congratulations! I wish you many a great alarm-free sleep-in to come.

    Yeah, in my experience, exit interviews are usually lackluster and neither party really gets to say what they want. I’ve had plenty of job last days (a feature of seasonal event and festival work); they always come with mixed feelings. I’m glad my pursuit of FIRE has meant that I don’t panic if I don’t have work lined up when the latest 3-6mth contract ends, unlike other colleagues.

    That’s great that you were able to confide in your boss about retirement, even if a slip up! I’m so pleased. I would totally be unable to contain that as a secret. You could do yourself some damage, holding that kind of awesome in!

    Well done, purple friend. See you in Australia some day.

    Reply

    1. Thank you lady! I should have come to you for exit interview information before this – I hadn’t thought to do that. Love that you don’t panic and that you’ve put yourself in a position to not have to work for a company anymore – you’re a rockstar 🙂 . And haha yeah it was hard to contain since I like him and he’d shared that info with me – I’m kind of relieved it’s out and he didn’t feel the need to share with the company. Yes indeed – see you there someday!!

      Reply
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  7. Nice, congrats! All of this drama wants me to go back and start watching reruns of “The Office.” Funny about the exit interview. Really, I think it’s just a formality. Glad you got through it. 🙂

    Excited to hear about the next chapter in your life. And yes, I think the word “retirement” is overrated. To a lot us in the personal finance space, it’s not what people think it is.

    And, great song! I do like listening to Bastille as well. I think “Good Grief” was the first song I heard from them. Then, I was hooked!

    Reply

    1. Thank you! Glad you like Bastille – they’re amazing. I’m going to go listen to “Good Grief” again 🙂 .

      Reply

  8. I got teary eyed reading this! I am so happy for you lady and I loved how smooth that last day was. So excited for this new chapter in your life! Thank you for sharing your journey with us!

    Reply

    1. Awww! Thank you so much and yeah I was shocked myself – they usually give me a lot more grief than that 🙂 . And of course – thank you for reading about it!

      Reply

  9. Congratulations! You handled it very well.
    Interesting about your boss’s reaction. He sounds like a good boss.
    My last day at work was short. I left early and never looked back. Driving away was amazing. It felt like the last day of school. It’s a big transition point.
    Sorry, you missed that (physically driving/walking into the sunset) with WFH. 🙂

    Reply

    1. Thank you Joe! The last day of school is a great, similar example. The end of one thing and the start of another new adventure. And no worries about missing the physical part – to be honest I wasn’t planning to go in on my last day even before the pandemic 🙂 . I prefer to sneaky out in silence.

      Reply

  10. Congratulations, Purple! Great shout-out to Living a FI, one of the first FIRE blogs I encountered. I look forward to your posts now that you’ve entered RE. So many bloggers go semi-silent. I’m glad you plan to keep posting!

    Reply

    1. Thank you Tara! And yeah his blog has been very impactful to me, particularly in mentally and emotionally preparing to leave so I had to give him a shout out. And yep – besides my love of posting that’s another reason I’m continuing. The pursuit of FI seems to have a million examples, but only a handful after the goal is achieved. I understand that sometimes the goal is the exciting part, but I’m too curious about the ‘after’ 🙂 .

      Reply

  11. Congratulations! It’s been so great watching your journey for the last two years. I’m glad you went public, and I’m thrilled you’re stepping into the light. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for you and hope our paths cross someday.

    Reply

  12. Oh wow! I have to say it’s super fun living vicariously through your journey and your twitter feeds. My last day was a little over 3 years ago and I had a long farewell tour (about 5 months) prior where I passed off all my best referral sources to other colleagues who were on on my team. I like how your boss put it – that you can never really fully disconnect and you are always thinking about your job and how you can do it better. That’s how my gig was and though I was offered multiple times to do it part time, there was no point. I worked remotely so there was no fanfare on the actual day. And, I had a deal that hadn’t closed so while I passed off the responsibilities to the team I managed that day, I still had to be attached to my phone for 26 more days. At any rate, it felt good to be celebrated when I retired (though I was so much older than you are) and I feel like I ended everything on a positive note and tied up all the loose ends I wanted to tie up. I’m proud of you and look forward to seeing what fun adventures you have. Salud!

    Reply

    1. So glad you’ve enjoyed it Liz! And wow that’s quite the farewell tour! Did they pay you for the additional 26 days you had to monitor your phone about that deal? So glad everything ended on a positive note! Thank you 🙂 .

      Reply

  13. Hi Purple, congrats. I’m still flip flopping about going next year – let’s see.
    I was thinking how life throws us curveballs all the time. Trump, COVID, stock market gyrations.
    Now that you have left, I guess you cannot be transfixed by stock market events and the ups and downs. You have to be secure in your plan and live life without constant worry. I know you get that, it’s me I’m trying to convince lol.

    Reply

    1. Thank you Jon! What’s making you flip flop? Completely agree you need to be secure in your plan and ready for anything. I hope you figure out what makes you comfortable 🙂 .

      Reply

  15. Congrats. I love a great retiring early on your own terms story. You have done what few even attempt to try. Enjoy this celebration period and prepare for freedom with all it offers. I’m sure you will find early retirement to be as I have, it is an adventure.

    Reply

  16. Massive congratulations! Have really enjoyed reading your journey, you set the date, you pulled the FIRE trigger.

    Enjoy your travelling and visiting friends and family. I look forward to reading about your life of luxury doing not a lot of anything – gaming, sleeping, chilling. Face down on the beach is something I aspire to – hopefully this will be on your agenda soon, travel permitting!

    Reply

  17. Many congrats, Purple! Even though I’m way, WAY behind you on this path (and way older than you, too), it’s inspiring to see you hit your goal and walk away with no regrets.

    Looking forward to reading about the next chapter!

    Reply

    1. Thank you David! The company really made it easy for me to walk away without regrets 😉 . And I’m looking forward to sharing it with y’all!

      Reply

  18. I only found your blog (and the concept of FIRE) this year. But wanted to say congratulations and enjoy.
    Sooooooo jealous 🙂

    Reply

  20. I so enjoyed watching this whole process unfold. I definitely lived vicariously!

    I somehow have a feeling mine won’t be a grand exit, but something else unexpected. Already it can’t go the way I envisioned it. My boss is gone and my company now bought by a larger company. I doubt I will stay there until FIRE. Even though my previous boss could be difficult (sometimes extremely difficult) she had very good qualities too and I know she valued me. I had planned on staying there for the rest of my working career, and had hoped to freelance for her for a little post-FI scratch.

    Well, here’s to the retired life! Enjoy it, you’ve earned it!

    Reply

    1. I’m so glad you enjoyed it!! And yeah it seems like work is throwing all kinds of curveballs at you. I’m sorry your plan to stay there through FIRE didn’t work out, but I know you’ll figure it all out! And thank you 🙂 !

      Reply

  21. After teaching from home snce April, the news was dropped yesterday that a year level that I teach are to go back to school on Monday, so I have to go there too.
    I’ve already given my notice to retire at the end of the year (Dec 18 is my last day) and my OH NO! reaction to having to go back on campus 3 weeks earlier than was originally planned said it all to me.
    Like you – I’m ready to pull the pin.
    I’m glad your last day went well. I’ll be giving a farewell speech to the rest of the teachers during our Christmas staff luncheon – I’m already planning what I’ll say.
    Good luck with the rest of your sunny days!

    Reply

    1. Oh no – I’m so sorry, but am glad you have a plan and are ready to pull the trigger. That’s awesome you’re already planning what you’ll say! Thank you 🙂

      Reply
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  23. Stepping into the light… now you have time to go inwards and discover yourself, just like J. Krishnamurti was encouraging in his great teachings. Congratulations!

    Reply

  25. Purple! Congrats Lady! I’ve been following you for a while, since I heard you on a Podcast, but have never posted. Wow! I am so impressed. You glided right out of there with dignity and snarky-ness. Love it!. So glad it was on the Harvest Moon! I was looking too that night- so majestic!

    Me
    – re: notice to colleagues and staff –
    I linked a video to A Sound of Music “So long, fare well” and shared with them my new job was Disco Dancing 😉
    – re: Living a F.I. – OMG – it was GOLD for me, I couldn’t have made it through the last several cement-shoe-wearing weeks without that Blog, and Yes! I too lament that Living a F.I. has not posted in so long. I also developed a “deuces out” Playlist that I listened to every chance I got.
    – re: Last Day – It was long and I had a full day of patients, but all the staff on with me that day honestly wanted to be there, so it was a day I will remember warmly. After I signed my last chart, I started the playlist on my iPhone and I walked out to my co-workers serenading me to “The Gambler” – I intentionally parked about 1/2 mile away from the office so I could stroll to my playlist in my headphones – so glorious!
    -re: Post FIRE- welp, it’s been 10+ months now and it still feels strange, but strange is normal, I guess. Weirdly, even though I would consider some co-workers genuine friends, I have not given them my new cell and have only briefly communicated with a handful over email and only if they initiate. For what ever reason, that part of my life has ended and I have no desire to keep in contact.
    I look forward to your next Chapter (oh, reminds me – check out thebestchapter if you haven’t already). Kuddos to you!

    Reply

    1. Thank you! And thanks so much for commenting – they’re my favorite part of blogging 🙂 . And haha sounds like you slide out of there in style!! I need to make a deuces out playlist – that’s hilarious. So glad 10+ months is going well! And yes I love thebestchapter – I actually fangirled all over her and awkwardly inserted myself into a conversation she was having at FinCon last year so I could meet her quickly. She’s amazing.

      Reply

  26. I’m really late to the party, but CONGRATULATIONS!!! What an incredible milestone 🙂

    My last day was very calm and celebratory. The exit interview was a Thursday afternoon, and my last day was Friday… since I had things wrapped up by Thurs PM, I went into the office only to say goodbye to my teams, write my “goodbye” email and auto-reply, and turn in my laptop and badge. I had a late, boozy lunch with my Mom (already retired), met co-workers at a local bar for a goodbye happy hour for cake and drinks, then a celebratory dinner with my partner.

    At the time, I wished I had made a bigger deal of my last day and invited more co-workers to happy hour instead of just my immediate teams. But now, my only regret is not leaving earlier and being more vocal about the office politics and games hurting the company.

    But that’s tough to dwell on when I’m sleeping in on a Monday morning 😉

    Reply

    1. Haha no worries and thank you! That sounds like a fantastic exit!! Good to know about the regret not inviting more team members. I…have not felt that same regret 🤣 . And woohoo sleeping in on a Monday morning!

      Reply

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