Officially Jobless...

1st August 2008, my last day working in UK, end of my 12 months contract. I am now officially jobless again. I had mix feeling leaving the company, the job, my colleagues.

At 10am, I sat down with my manager and department director for an exit interview, giving some feedbacks of my views while working here the past 12 months. At 2pm, my department colleagues got together to a presentation to bid me farewell. My manager gave a short speech and then presented a few farewell gifts to me. They got me a British flag (it's actually a decorator one could hang on the wall) and everyone signed on it. Its pretty cool. Also, they bought me 2 travel guide books, one is for Scotland and the other is about amazing places in Britain. The Scotland guide book will come in really handy for my upcoming trip to Scotland. Also, they got me a GBP30 gift card from Argos although I don't know what to get yet). I was truly touched by this presentation. I hadn't had much interaction with many of them other than the very few whom I work closer together with. Also due to my inwards and conservative personality, most of the time I was quiet and kept to myself. But for them to turn up and showered me with all the gifts and thoughts really warms my heart.

Then at 3pm, we head out to Keynes Park for a picnic. My director had organized this picnic since I was leaving and also it has been some time since the department had a get-together. The weather wasn't all that great for the past few days. and just as we started the bbq, it started to rain. So we all hide under umbrellas and a para-gliding canopy (belonged to one of my colleague) and waited for the rain to past. Its quite a scene. Luckily the rain did not last long... after 30 odd minutes the rain subsided and we proceed on the games and bbq.

Some of my colleagues brought their children there and we played 'hit and run'. It's basically cricket where the hitter would try to hit the ball and then run to a base nearby and back to the pit to protect the pit. The server will try to get the ball back and try to hit the pit before the hitter comes back to the pit. All the others will try to catch the ball and return it back to the server. The hitter would be considered out of the game when the ball he hit is caught by the rest before dropping to ground or the server managed to hit the pit. Its was kinna fun.

After all the food and games, we bid farewell and headed back to home. This would be the end of my working experience in UK. It has been a truly remarkable experience working in the UK and I have gain valuable skills, experience and also the good working attitude portraid by my colleagues. I will definitely miss my time here.