Last Day

Well, after around 2 weeks since we were given the news, the final day at Freescale arrived quite quickly. No one has done anything useful at work in this period of course, and that's not surprising really.

On Tuesday most of the day was taken up with a party in the clubhouse, and coming in today was little more than a convenient way of getting everyone in to agree on the evening's party venues. Or so I thought. The morning was largely taken up with a hurried exchange of linked-in requests. I take most of the credit/blame for this, as I have been steadily adding my French colleagues to my list since I arrived, but it's not really taken off here as it seems to in the UK. People sat up and took notice though when I explained that linked-in is the sole reason I ended up in France - that's were my name was plucked from. Not its finest recommendation, but there you go, and enough to encourage a good number of others to join up.

The same goes for Facebook, only more so. Only one person I know at Freescale has signed up. They have some work to do over here it seems. I don't think there is any other site they use, it's just that they're not really interested. Given the way that Arnaud spams everyone, this is surprising, at least in his case, but then he'd need victims, wouldn't he....

Anyway, the most important events of the say were as usual based around food. A long and extended breakfast in the garden started things rolling, with coffee and croissants in the morning sun. It's a shame we got sacked at this time of year, because this was only the second chance we'd had to do this, and it makes a welcome change to eating indoors.

Next up was lunch, and again, we ate outdoors. Plenty of vino around too for this, and and the last meal was every bit as good as the first. I am really going to miss this canteen. I finished, as I had started, with fish, and yes, that is red wine. If the French can, then so can I. The atmosphere was really chilled with lots of banter going on, and people who hadn't eaten with us came and joined us for a period to say goodbye to colleagues, or simply join in with the humour - Madame La Guillotine figured largely of course.

Eventually, we trudged back upstairs to fulfill our remaining task - collect 4 signatures signifying handover of appropriate bits of kit. This was an odd bit of red tape that I think the French are famous for, but of which I've had little experience. We even had to get the return of our PCs acknowledged! It was easy enough, and everyone who's signature was required was in the appointed place at the appointed time. Security is managed by a third party, so I couldn't escape with my pass card as a souvenir, as I did at Symbian and SEMC. In fact I never saw a Freescale mug to steal in the whole time I was here either, and I've had one of those away from every company I've worked for. I didn't even get a pen!

Our final act on work premises was to sabotage the boss's office. He had left his door open, and then disappeared for the afternoon - foolish boy. We packed his office with just about anything we could find that wasn't nailed down: cupboards, CRTs, plants, boxes, shredders, fax machines, fans, lamps. It took us about an hour in total, and we really crammed it in, so he'll have a devil of a job clearing it out with hardly any staff left to help. We then covered his window in sundry photos we'd taken since Tuesday. The effect was quite pleasing, and we all felt very satisfied as we had a final handshake with each other before filing off home.

The evening went thus:

First stop - all meet at the De Danu Irish pub, to get leathered and eat some food - in that order. The mood was fantastic and we were all screeming like little school girls for most of the time here. I expect brownie points from the owner for dragging 30 odd people here, as opposed to just me and Peter for the football games.

Second stop - a salsa bar. ie a bar with salsa music and people dancing like they knew what they were doing. This does not include me. Luckily it didn't include quite a few others either, so we drank large quantities of mojito and let the others get on with it. I ended up chatting to quite a few locals in here too, not entirely unaware that they were probablt just using me to practice their English. My French is certainly not up to nightclub standard yet.

Third top - some nightclub. Very tacky Euro music (you know the kind), and very expensive drinks but a fine way to finish off. Only one fight seen, between two red faced youths which tickled me no end - usual handbags at 10 paces, so nothing serious. Those of us still going were here until after 5AM, and it was still going strong when we left. Tomorrow was going to be a big recovery day.