I Quit My Job for April Fools.

This afternoon, I walked into my project manager’s cubicle and quit. Sort of.

Transcript

Me: Hey. All my training material is on my desk. Everything for SSA (current project) is in one pile.
Gary: What’s the matter?
Me: I quit.
Gary: Why?
… [ I turn around and walk straight to the exit ] …
Gary: Wait woah woah woah … Don’t… Hey come here… hey!

This was a carefully planned and orchestrated April Fools joke. The owner of the consulting company I work for (Ty) was in on it. My manager at National Government Services, Inc. (Kevin) was in on it. Half the development team I work with was in on it.

I cleared off my desk, hiding all my personal belongings. I laid out the training manuals and project documentation I have from this contract in a neat fashion on the desk. I wrote an email that said, “APRIL FOOLS!” in big, brightly colored text, and beneath that, “See you tomorrow, sucker!” and set it to delay delivery until after 5:05 PM. All day long, I kept sending the project manager cryptic emails of disgruntlement without context. Things like, “I am so over this.” Over what? And what does that saying mean anyhow?

I put a few things of mine into a cardboard box, put on my backpack, set my phone to record, and walked into Gary’s cube. I said I quit, turned around and walked out. I had a ticked-off look on my face the whole time. Until I got outside and away from the windows.

I spent most of the walk to my car trying not to bust up laughing, afraid he might come running out the door after me (You never know with Gary) and yelling.

I don’t know exactly how it went after I walked out. I figure I’ll find out tomorrow. I do know (because I called him) that Ty received a phone call almost immediately. Apparently, he let Gary go on and on about how he couldn’t understand or believe that I’d do that. After a few minutes, Ty said he asked Gary how his April Fools day was. Apparently, after that Gary went, “AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHRRRRR”

Yeah, I got him good. :-D

Again, I’m going to repeat in case anyone gets the idea to try this next year: I cleared it with my bosses first, and targeted my project manager. I knew I’d be pushing his big, “FREAK OUT” button. I would never voluntarily leave a project in the middle of a cycle, and I made sure that the clients knew this ahead of time.

Still, every time I listen to this recording, I nearly crack up. Gary got a little whiny. :-)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Banter, Core Dump. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.