I met with HR yesterday afternoon to turn in my batch and my corporate AmEx card. It felt like a cheesy cop show: "Gimme your badge and your gun, Mahoney -- you're suspended!" Right after that I went back to my building and had a buddy sign me in as a visitor so that we could all hang out and play some xbox. It was hard to let go and not get involved in the discussions going on in the hallways. The day before a large group of us went out for my goodbye lunch. It felt a little bit like a funeral in its finality.
First off, I'd like to say that everyone has been really good about my leaving -- both inside and outside of the company. I think that most everyone understands that 7 years is a long time and that I've "done my time." Thanks for all of the Congrats!
There are a set of reaction posts and comments that are interesting. Adam Kinney was first off the line. ChrisAn also had some nice stuff to say. I got contacted by a reporter from CNet looking for a story. There really is no big story, but she ended up writing a short blurb in "news.blog."
Looking at macro trends, check out the comments to Dare's post. My buddy Vince at articulatebabble.com (who I broke the news to a day or two before) had some comments on Microsoft and Google. Finally, over at "Mini-Microsoft", Who da'Punk fits my leaving into his smaller is better paradigm. I think that he and Vince both have some really solid points. Microsoft could do with some focusing.
My plan this weekend was to get a very tall (30 foot) ladder and clean my gutters. But since my health insurance is in a little bit of a state of limbo before I start at Google on Tuesday, my wife won't let me do that.