Time for an update.
Hard to believe so much time has already passed since my last workday! Honestly, I didn't miss it one bit. I was sooooo ready for a break.
All went well with the return of the equipment. I got there in time for lunch, but we didn't end up having lunch in a bigger group (and especially not with the person who asked us to schedule the return together, so that we can have lunch together ... ) Anyway, it was still lovely to see so many people one more time. Most of them stated they wouldn't return their keycard, though, but I did because that's what the contract required. I don't have any plan to go there just for fun or for lunch anyway. So after I did one last round through the building to take some more pictures as a souvenir, I refunded the money from the keycard and handed it back in. It was quite a relaxing day; I spent around 5 hours at the office with no other task than spending 15 minutes with an IT guy how noted down what I returned. Two people mentioned that some of our partners had already written e-mails with questions or to-dos, but I just said, "Haven't seen them, that was after my last workday, so I didn't log in after that. Really don't care." :0) Oh, and we sat together on the roof terrace for quite a while because the weather was really great (I had only managed a trip to the park the previous day, and got soaked during the Festival of Lights). My coworker and I did wonder why the guy who decided to keep his job spent so much time chilling with us - if that's his plan for the future, well then, good luck with the workload.
The first week was still very much affected by my old job because I was cleaning up my desk at home, spent two days shredding paperwork (I still have a full bag to dispose of), and sorting the files I intended to keep also took much longer than I had planned. Turns out I had two different folders on two different drives with different AND duplicate content on my external hard drive, and I needed to bring everything together.
But after that I was in full "enjoy the rest of fall before it leaves" mode. Did a few outings while in Berlin, did some day trips out of Berlin, did some travelling to see family and friends in Hamburg, did two day trips from Hamburg to places nearby ... Gosh, I thought I'd spend so much time watching movies with my mom during m two-week stay, but in the end I had an appointment almost every day. And while I spoke quite a bit about the end of my job and the upcoming timeline with the different people I met, I still kept everything very much distant from myself. It's not the time to worry yet.
Well, and then yesterday I had a notification in my inbox that the school book publishing house for which I had set a job alert has a career day less than four weeks from now. I spontaneously signed up, although that kind of event is totally. Not. My. Thing. I just keep telling myself that this might be meant to be. But I'm not even sure what direction I want to take in the future. I'm still in vacation mode (after all I still had 16 untaken vacation days left when I got released) and have not yet taken any of the next steps - baby steps - to get myself to a new job. After all, I don't plan on starting anything before next summer, to be honest. Consequently, I was a bit shocked when I realized that this simple e-mail and my filling out the registration form put me into panic mode and I instantly started to feel uneasy. Had that mind game turned on right away of what I need to prepare and what it'll be like and how to not make a fool of myself and if this event was even intended for professionals and if I could in fact blow my chances by going there. Exactly NOT what the first few months of this new period in my life should be like.
So I try to avoid those thoughts again for now. I mean, I knew I'd have to start getting in the saddle in the next couple of days anyway, which I will (one way or another). But I also have SO many other things (fun things and necessary things) on my list, which means I have to make sure to schedule my plans soon in order to enjoy the journey and neither get stressed out nor let everything slip away.
All went well with the return of the equipment. I got there in time for lunch, but we didn't end up having lunch in a bigger group (and especially not with the person who asked us to schedule the return together, so that we can have lunch together ... ) Anyway, it was still lovely to see so many people one more time. Most of them stated they wouldn't return their keycard, though, but I did because that's what the contract required. I don't have any plan to go there just for fun or for lunch anyway. So after I did one last round through the building to take some more pictures as a souvenir, I refunded the money from the keycard and handed it back in. It was quite a relaxing day; I spent around 5 hours at the office with no other task than spending 15 minutes with an IT guy how noted down what I returned. Two people mentioned that some of our partners had already written e-mails with questions or to-dos, but I just said, "Haven't seen them, that was after my last workday, so I didn't log in after that. Really don't care." :0) Oh, and we sat together on the roof terrace for quite a while because the weather was really great (I had only managed a trip to the park the previous day, and got soaked during the Festival of Lights). My coworker and I did wonder why the guy who decided to keep his job spent so much time chilling with us - if that's his plan for the future, well then, good luck with the workload.
The first week was still very much affected by my old job because I was cleaning up my desk at home, spent two days shredding paperwork (I still have a full bag to dispose of), and sorting the files I intended to keep also took much longer than I had planned. Turns out I had two different folders on two different drives with different AND duplicate content on my external hard drive, and I needed to bring everything together.
But after that I was in full "enjoy the rest of fall before it leaves" mode. Did a few outings while in Berlin, did some day trips out of Berlin, did some travelling to see family and friends in Hamburg, did two day trips from Hamburg to places nearby ... Gosh, I thought I'd spend so much time watching movies with my mom during m two-week stay, but in the end I had an appointment almost every day. And while I spoke quite a bit about the end of my job and the upcoming timeline with the different people I met, I still kept everything very much distant from myself. It's not the time to worry yet.
Well, and then yesterday I had a notification in my inbox that the school book publishing house for which I had set a job alert has a career day less than four weeks from now. I spontaneously signed up, although that kind of event is totally. Not. My. Thing. I just keep telling myself that this might be meant to be. But I'm not even sure what direction I want to take in the future. I'm still in vacation mode (after all I still had 16 untaken vacation days left when I got released) and have not yet taken any of the next steps - baby steps - to get myself to a new job. After all, I don't plan on starting anything before next summer, to be honest. Consequently, I was a bit shocked when I realized that this simple e-mail and my filling out the registration form put me into panic mode and I instantly started to feel uneasy. Had that mind game turned on right away of what I need to prepare and what it'll be like and how to not make a fool of myself and if this event was even intended for professionals and if I could in fact blow my chances by going there. Exactly NOT what the first few months of this new period in my life should be like.
So I try to avoid those thoughts again for now. I mean, I knew I'd have to start getting in the saddle in the next couple of days anyway, which I will (one way or another). But I also have SO many other things (fun things and necessary things) on my list, which means I have to make sure to schedule my plans soon in order to enjoy the journey and neither get stressed out nor let everything slip away.