I didn’t expect today to be my last day of work. My boss and I had agreed that Thursday of this week would be the end of my term of service, and at that point I’d gracefully bow out, say my goodbyes, and who knows, maybe even be the guest of honour at a surprise going away party, where there’d be cake and balloons and a giant banner saying “WE’LL MISS YOU TONS KEVAN” and a donkey piñata and free sandwiches and a signed card from all my co-workers, which would say “Happy wishes for all your endeavours.”

But that’s not what happened. When I arrived at work this morning, the first thing I noticed as I approached was that my name was missing from my cubicle. I thought to myself, “Perhaps the custodian needed to remove the sign in order to vacuum the wall fuzz?” But then I noticed that there was somebody sitting at my desk. I’d never seen her before in my life (but from the looks of it, she was a thirty-six year old Caucasian woman of German ancestry, a former schoolteacher but recently divorced, with ambitions of owning her own consulting business from home). She had papers provocatively strewn over my desk, her bag was slouched on the floor like a bored thirteen year old, and she was typing at my computer like her fingers were on fire. She looked up at me as I came in.

For that brief moment as we made eye contact, I realized I was faced with a choice. I could drop my bag right then and there and challenge her to an office duel. This would involve the two-step stapler draw, which could get messy. Or, I could choose the less honourable option and simply thwack her over the head with my briefcase and reclaim my cubicle. I felt I had a right: after all, this strange woman had invaded my rightful territory. But then I have to figure out what to do with the body. So instead I decided to play it cool: I simply smiled at her and strolled right past my desk, as if I had known perfectly well all along that there would be some strange woman in my cubicle when I arrived at work today. I went upstairs and sat down next to my supervisor.

“Oh hi, Kevan,” he said, without looking up. “We thought you’d gone back to BC already.”

“Um, I, ah, I…nope,” I responded. “I’m still here.”

“Oh, okay. Well, we threw away all your stuff already.”

“Um…okay. That’s cool, I guess.”

“So when’s your last day?” he asked, and finally looked up.

I thought about it for a bit. What could this question mean? Technically, Thursday was my last day. Right now it was Tuesday…I did the calculations in my head and realized that Thursday was still two days away. For those two days, what would I do? Where would I sit? Or more appropriately, how would I discretely dispatch and dispose of the woman in my cubicle? I figured it would be wise of me to simply take advantage of the opportunity before me.

“Today,” I said, improvising. “Today’s my last day.”

“Okay,” he replied. “Well, keep in touch.”

As I headed back down the hall, I held my breath excitedly, waiting for all my colleagues to jump out of the coat closet or from underneath my desk and yell “SURPRISE!” and then there’d be that donkey piñata and a giant “WE CAN’T BELIEVE HOW MUCH WE’LL MISS YOU KEVAN” banner and a tray of egg salad sandwiches and also some fruit punch. But all there was was an e-mail from my boss a little later on. He sent it to me from his Blackberry, which is a like a handheld laptop for people without attention spans. It said: “kevan. thanks u’ve done good work. best of luck @ everything. keep in touch.”

I imagine graduation will feel a little like this. Sure there’s a little more advance notice, and people are usually nice enough to throw parties, and you get to write your little yearbook quote…but perhaps the sensation is similar. The one when you realize that it’s time to move on, even if you don’t know where, and even if you can’t tell if you’ve made a difference at all. If there’s one thing we can learn, it’s this: make the most of the time you’ve got, because you never know when your cubicle will be fiendishly taken over by strangers.

by Kevan Gilbert