My Last Day in the Office

This was it.

Fifteen years of hard work, and finally I was walking out for the last time.

My very own independence day.

Or, as scholars will look back on this day and affectionately refer to it as, The Great Shrug.

My last day in the office wasn’t a victory lap. It was me putting a laptop on a shelf and walking out alone. No speeches. No goodbye tour. Just work continuing without me.

Having a security guard walk me out would have felt more warm and fuzzy than the solo exit I performed.

I felt like a high school kid ditching school in the middle of the day while everyone else was still in class. I knew I was never coming back, and I would likely never see most of these people again, but they had tests to study for and homework to worry about.

No one was thinking about me.

And honestly? That was the most validating part.

I had known these people for 15 years. Instead of job hopping every few years to chase the big pay bumps, I stayed for the measly 1.5% raises that didn’t even cover inflation because working with people I liked mattered to me.

What an idiot.

I mean, I met my wife at work, so I know some of those connections were real.

Right Melissa?

…RIGHT?!

It’s not like I expected a party. I’m truthfully not one to enjoy being doted on. In the world of “love languages,” I’m definitely more of a words-of-affirmation guy than a receiving-gifts guy.

Tell me you enjoyed your time with me. Say thanks. Kind of mean it.

That would mean more to me than some forced little sendoff where everyone stands around awkwardly holding paper plates.

I didn’t tell people I was financially independent. I didn’t run around saying I was done with corporate life forever. I wasn’t firing off double freedom rockets at everyone down the hall yelling, “See ya, suckers!”

I try to keep most of that stuff in-house.

(He says, while writing intimate details about his life on the internet.)

One of the funniest, most on-brand corporate things ever is that I was asked to cover for someone in an all-day meeting on my last day in the office.

I shit you not.

People in the meeting were like, “Wait, isn’t today your last day? What are you doing in this meeting?”

The fact that everyone working in the meeting immediately understood how ridiculous it was, but management somehow did not, is probably the cleanest summary of corporate life I can give you.

I had zero intention of staying the whole day. I mean, it was my last day. How do you not take advantage of that? How would they not expect you to bag out early?

If I were the boss, I’d encourage it. Celebrate the person. Let them say their goodbyes. Send them on their way. Pat on the back. Handshake. Best wishes. Thanks for everything.

Go home. Enjoy your life.

But instead, there I was, sitting in an all-day meeting on my final day because apparently even my last few hours of corporate life needed to be offered up to the Outlook gods.

When 2 p.m. finally rolled around, my part of the meeting was wrapping up.

Did I mention I was covering for someone on my last day?

I was ready for a celebratory beer.

But before I get to the beer, I need to explain the backdrop a little bit.

The company I worked for, like many large companies, had started pushing people back into the office. I used to joke that all the CEOs were on a giant text chain together saying, “If you do it, I’ll do it. They’ll have no choice. Muahahaha.”

I still think I’m more or less right.

People were pissed, but what are you going to do?

Stubborn as I am, my biggest gripe wasn’t even the office itself. It was the control of it all.

Under the guise of “better together” and “synergy,” they flexed their “we own you” muscles and gave everyone the mandate. After a few years of working from home, most people had learned how to be pretty efficient with their time. So the “return to office,” or RTO as the cool kids called it, became an exercise in everyone pretending this made sense.

The commute to work felt wildly unnecessary and stressful. Packing a lunch, if you wanted to eat healthy, became another chore. The nutritious smoothies I used to make at lunch were out. What was I going to do, bring a blender into the office? Protein powder? Fruits and veggies? A little spinach station at my desk?

Or was I just going to get a sandwich in the cafeteria because it was there and it was easy?

Also, without fail, the cafeteria would, let’s say, upset my stomach.

Every. Single. Time.

And I’m usually a steel trap with my stomach. So what are we doing here? What are you cooking with? Is this happening to everyone else too? Are we all just silently suffering through the same cursed sandwich experience?

Walking to a conference room and waiting for everyone to arrive went from a fun way to catch up at first, to a wild waste of time.

“Oh, this could have been an email?”

Awesome. I just lost an hour of my day sitting here. And I can’t even work off to the side while I listen to you waste everyone’s time because I need the monitors at my desk to use the dashboards and spreadsheets I live in.

Great. I’m really feeling the synergy.

The one thing I’ll actually give RTO credit for is that it genuinely was nice to see some of the people there. I had made real connections with people, and it was good to see them.

We bonded over how much the return sucked. How much they owned us. How much being “better together” somehow meant being less efficient, more tired, and more annoyed.

I’m sure that’s exactly what they were going for.

Of course, after enough futile attempts at in-person meetings, we all just went back to what was actually working and started sitting at our desks taking Zoom calls all day.

But the cubes were tight, and we were packed in together, so if you were trying to hear or talk, you were probably interrupting your cube-mates. So you either needed noise-canceling headphones or you had to start booking conference rooms just for yourself.

They did invest in some cool little pod things where you could pop into this phone-booth-looking box and take a personal call, jump on a meeting, set your fantasy football lineup, question every life decision you had ever made, etc.

You felt a little like a zoo animal as people stared at you while walking by.

But hey.

Better together.

We literally went from being physically apart but spending our effort connecting, to being physically together but spending all of our effort trying to hide from each other and block out each other’s noise so we could get shit done.

And then came the kicker.

They announced they were moving the company headquarters.

You might ask yourself, “Oh, to a cool new building nearby? If they’re going to force everyone back into the office, at least you’ll have that, right?”

Cool new building?

Yes.

Nearby?

No.

The company was moving about 60 miles north to the next major city. It was planned to be near a train station so you could commute in that way. Driving was pretty much not an option.

The building did look cool in that big-city, trendy kind of way. But with expensive real estate, it also looked like the desks were going to be standing room only.

Awesome.

Maybe they’d give everyone new headphones.

For many people, this commute was about to become a two-plus-hour ordeal.

Each way.

Get up. Drive to the train station. Pay to park. Hurry up and wait for the train. Get on the train, if it’s on time. Depending on the station, it’s anywhere from a 45-minute to an hour-and-fifteen-minute ride. Get off the train. Walk 10 minutes to work (at least that part I’d actually enjoy). 

Then get to your desk. Work around your synergistic, better-together teammates. And when the day is over, start the process all over for your return home.

“Well, certainly if they’re moving the headquarters, they’re going to be flexible with working from home, right?”

No.

Non-negotiable.

But it was only three days per week, so you’d still get to see your family on Mondays and Fridays.

As the great Maui from Moana once said, “What can I say, except you’re welcome?”

They did offer some money to people who wanted to relocate closer to the office. Get this. If you chose to uproot your life to avoid this insanely inconvenient company move and buy a house in a real estate market that was easily three times more expensive, they were willing to help pay for some of your moving costs.

If you qualified.

Haha.

All that being said, I don’t fully blame them.

I said from the beginning that if I were in their shoes, I’d probably do the same thing. If I were a consultant, I might make the same suggestion. Go where the talent is. Get into the city. Build the shiny headquarters. Make it look like the future.

Fine.

But this is exactly why financial independence matters.

Because other people will always have plans for your life.

Where you should be. When you should be there. How many days per week are acceptable. Which building you should sit in. Which train you should take. Which version of “flexibility” they’re willing to allow.

And if you don’t have options, you have to call those plans your own.

That was the part I couldn’t shake.

Because after a while, everything boiled down to leaving the comfort and efficiency of working from home, commuting into an office, taking Zoom meetings from a desk while sitting near other people taking Zoom meetings from their desks, eating shit food - pun unfortunately intended - bonding with coworkers over how much the whole thing sucked, and then staring at the clock waiting for the appropriate time to leave regardless of how much work you actually got done.

Or how much some people, not me obviously, would continue doing when they got home.

After their traffic-filled commute home, that is.

My last day was no different.

This all-day meeting had everyone in their cubes, staring at the same Zoom call, noise-canceling headphones all around. It was dystopian to walk the halls and see everyone physically together, but completely sealed off from each other.

My boss was in this meeting too. She sat three cube-doors down, which sounds like a Weird Al parody song, but was also geographically accurate.

My part was done, but she was staying on.

I was fortunate to have a boss I liked. She was honestly great. And that made the ending stranger.

Because even she couldn’t escape the gravitational pull of soulless corporate work.

I could feel the struggle in her. I felt like she wanted to jump up and give me a hug, or say something, or at least acknowledge the weirdness of the moment. But the shackles to the desk were just too tight.

She smiled, waved, and mouthed a silent “bye” as she briefly diverted her attention from the Zoom call before snapping back into it.

And that was it.

Fifteen years.

A silent wave from three cubes down.

I got a little rush as I waved back and made my way toward the door. The office was still quiet in that dystopian way because everyone was still plugged into the matrix. Uh, sorry... the meeting. 

I walked past my other coworkers for the last time. Part of me wanted to say goodbye. Part of me wanted to pick up my walk to a jog.

This last day had given me something I didn’t expect.

Clarity.

It was time.

I had been there too long.

Whether we were fully ready for financial independence or not, whether I had the perfect spreadsheet or not, whether every little detail of the next chapter was completely figured out or not, a change was needed.

Being able to walk away was a wild life experience.

There were maybe two guys I was close with at work who had some idea that I was able to leave on my own terms. Most people just knew I was leaving. Taking some time. Moving on. Whatever vague thing you say when the real answer is too big and weird for a breakroom conversation.

When I finally walked out of the building, I did what any newly free, emotionally stable, extremely well-rested man would do.

I took a terrible selfie.

I stood in front of the entrance, pulled out my phone, squinted directly into the light like a hostage seeing the sun for the first time, and snapped a picture.

It was awful.

I looked tired. Probably because I was tired. I hadn’t been sleeping great leading up to those final days. Even though I was excited, I was also anxious. Wired. Restless. My brain had been running laps around the same questions for weeks.

Was this really it?

Was I actually doing this?

Was I about to walk away from the only professional life I had known for 15 years?

Apparently, yes.

Because there I was, standing outside with my bad selfie, laughing at how ridiculous I looked, and walking toward my car.

Once I got in, I called Melissa.

She was excited for me. Laughing with me. Fully appreciating the absurdity of the day because she had worked there too before we had kids. She understood the place. The culture. The ridiculousness. The way something could be completely insane and still somehow qualify as a reasonable Thursday.

I had made plans with a buddy from work who was also going to sneak out early and meet me for a celebratory beer. So after talking with Melissa, I drove to a brewery we frequent by the ocean.

It was one of those cool October days where the sun still feels good, but you can tell summer is gone.

We had a couple beers overlooking the water, talked, laughed, and kept it pretty light. No grand speeches. No dramatic reflection. Just two guys having a beer after work.

Except I was done.

That was the strange part.

Everything still felt normal. The brewery was the same. The beer tasted like beer. The ocean was still doing ocean things.

But something had shifted.

Eventually, I headed home.

And when I pulled into the driveway, Melissa and the boys were waiting for me.

They had the hatch of the minivan open, and they were all standing there with this giant homemade poster. Stick-figure family drawings. Pictures. Big happy letters welcoming me home.

The boys obviously didn’t fully understand what it meant.

Not really.

They knew Dad was done with work, or at least done with that work, but they couldn’t possibly understand the years behind it. The savings. The stress. The spreadsheets. The late nights. The weird quiet panic of trying to figure out if we had actually done enough.

They just knew we were celebrating.

And honestly, that was probably better.

I got out of the car and gave Melissa a big hug.

That was the moment.

Not when I put the laptop on the shelf. Not when I walked past the cubes. Not when I took my terrible little squinty freedom selfie. Not even when I had the beer by the ocean.

It was pulling into my own driveway and seeing my family waiting for me.

That was the whole thing.

After that, we went out to eat at one of our usual spots. Nothing fancy. Nothing expensive. Just the kind of small place we’d go to once or twice a month.

I had a beer. Melissa had a glass of wine. The kids had their chocolate shakes.

And somehow that felt exactly right.

After 15 years, my final day ended in the most normal way possible.

No fireworks. No parade. No dramatic music swelling as I walked into the next chapter of my life.

Just my family. A homemade sign. A regular dinner. A normal night.

Which, now that I think about it, was kind of the whole point.

I wasn’t trying to escape into some fantasy version of life.

I was trying to get back to this one.

If you ever want to reply, shoot me a note at whatsthewhyfi@gmail.com — I read everything.