6 weeks to go and my colleagues and management have realised that I'm getting out and leaving them stuck with one another and decided it's time to flip the Karpman Drama Triangle and see what I look like as a victim. "Spitting Exocets," is the impression I hope I've given, for they've started trying to make things very unpleasant for me and the one person I trusted among them is complicit. Though it's difficult to be sure who's the organ grinder and who's the monkey, because they've all blamed one another when I've confronted them.
It's OK. I was genuinely a bit shaken for the first day or two after the knife went in, but it's actually OK and even somewhat to my advantage. I'm a conciliator by nature and presenting a furious face when I'm calm inside doesn't come easily to me. I'm letting them think what they've done is far more damaging to me than it actually is. Apart from anything else, if I let them believe I was unscathed they might do something worse like try to stir up a complaint or litigation against me. As things stand, they think they've put me in the position of having to cancel a vacation close enough to the date of travel to lose the entire cost.
In the meantime, I'm not sure I'll be qualifying as "FIRE" this year after all. FI, yes, for I can collect a reasonable pension from next year and have enough other savings to bridge the gap even if I don't work again after 31st October. But I've now got a promise of freelance work of a type that quite appeals and have asked for up to three six-hour days a week, I no longer feel I owe my current workplace the courtesy of not making it look as if I've jumped ship (which wasn't at all my intention when I resigned, I just wanted to stop doing what I was doing before this coming winter), and last night I filled in my workplace pension application form then thought, "I'm not sure this is a good idea when I'll be earning enough to live on and keeping a toe in the door of my profession," and put it aside. I'll have a chance to talk to an accountant and a financial advisor about it in the next few weeks.
Maybe I just needed to get out of that particular job. I knew it was a hornets' nest, but I thought I was handling it. It's taught me a lesson. I'll never take on another role with that level of personal responsibility. And I'll never, ever, ever take on another role that involves being an employer.