ZERO - My Final Workday

     So, this is it. My last day of employment at this, or any job. It feels... weird. I'm trying to think of how I summarize my ten and a half years working slightly above minimum wage as a low-rent piece of garbage security bank guard. Hmm... maybe I just did. If you remember from my Fedex post back in November 2016, I like to take a lot of pictures when I leave a job. With that said:

A jacket with one button remaining, a shirt with an extremely dirty collar, and pants with holes in the crotch. But the worst was the tie. When I was a kid I would watch my dad put on a tie for work. I remember seeing how uncomfortable it looked and wondered why a person so powerful would need to wear a tie. I promised myself I wouldn't work a job that had me wear a tie. It took some time, but it feels good to know that I fulfilled a promise to a kid that had so many promises broken to him.

The lobby office.

I remember sitting in the lobby office, and how it used to be when I worked with fun co-workers. We would sit there and eat food from the diner, talking about sports and gawking at the few sexy woman that passed by. Oh, the sexy redhead...

I definitely won't miss the tedious paperwork. Checking CCTVs, writing about the same incident report three or four times... yeah, I'm definitely not gonna miss this shit.

The hallway. I remember walking towards the office, my mood to be based on whoever was in there.

This was the car of that gay dude that kept looking at me funny. Not sure why I took a picture of this.

10 years ago, this place looked completely different. The lights were orange, the paint was chipped, and it was just a miserable atmosphere. It's still miserable, but only because I've been there for so damned long.

The vacant building. This is where I used to eat food and write my posts on my old blog, The 6 Year Millionaire. Every time that door would open, I would put my laptop away and walk about, pretending to be in the middle of a round. I missed this place so much that I stole the chair in this picture.

Another pic of the vacant building. Before it was rented out, this was my refuge from all the idiots at and around the job. I still remember hating the times they'd use the building for meetings, forcing me to wait in the car.

The bank basement bathroom. Once the vacant building was rented out, this became my new house of dumps.

My final refuge area, the 7th floor computer room. I remember taking off my clothes, putting my feet up and playing games on the GPD Win 2. Using the bluetooth speakers was an added perk.

The 7th floor training room. I really hated those weekend mornings being forced to come in and sit through monotonous training courses. So I'd put stuff on my phone like old TV shows or pornography to lighten the mood.

 
     You know, it's funny. Some of these pictures bring decent memories, but seeing them also confirmed for me that I'm done here. I mean, I looked at pictures of my old job at Fedex and laughed. I remembered all those pictures with at least a little bit of fondness. The bank job is different. Other than the areas that I took shits and played video games, I don't feel anything about this place. What did I learn here? That 80% of women who come out of Volkswagens are usually attractive? That most people who drive Mercedes Benz and BMWs are assholes? I knew that from my living in New York City. I was glad to meet guys like Bob Rogers and Tax Guy Ross, but they simply gave me the same services that anyone else in their field would have given me. So really, what did I gain in my 10.5 years working at this bank job? Hmm. I had to think for a couple of minutes, but I actually have a good answer.

     What I gained was stability. For 10 and a half years, I had a stable source of income that helped me. Whenever I made a mistake that cost me money in real estate, I was able to survive and recover. The hope was that I'd get more properties so that I'd be able to recover without the job. So even though the job was boring, with crappy people and just-above-minimum-wage pay, it was money that I could count on. They gave me on-time payments that I could count on whenever a tenant didn't pay or a repair costed more than I could afford. So I can't complain about this job, but I'm pretty happy to finally be leaving.

     I won't lie and say this is the perfect way to retire. Instead of retiring from paycheck work with hundreds of thousands of dollars like most retirees, I retire in debt. I'm basically giving up stable income in return for a profession that hasn't exactly been a big money maker for me. I know this, and I'll cover that more in another blog post. For now, I'll just say that there's no way I can stay at this job. I felt the same way as I did when I quit Fedex. Even though the job was easier than ever, I just couldn't stand working there another day. The same goes for this place.

     I just completed my final round. I'll put my clothes as well as my work ID in the last drawer in the lobby office, watch an old episode of The Practice, and then wait until my relief shows (most likely late). Then I'll go home, play some games, and then go to sleep. Tomorrow it'll probably hit me that I'm no longer employed, and that I'll be on my own from here on out. Whatever anxiety I feel must be tempered with this fact: I have thirteen apartments, with twelve rented out. If I can't make a decent living with this many apartments under my belt, then I deserve to be broke.

    Goodbye bank job. You were the crutch I needed, but now I need to be able to stand on my own.