She's Leaving On A Jet Plane

It truly is the end of an era at our job.  Our room has been just us 4 for so long now.  As Kim said when our boss quit, the dominoes will fall now, and 1 by 1 our group is splitting up.

Amber said she was quitting work and almost just that quick she was gone.  We had our last cup of morning coffee in the hallway, our last lunch date at work, and finally our last girls night out.

{Here's the delicious and hilarious cake Kim made!}

I was just as sad to say goodbye to her pooches and I had to get puppy kisses before they left.

Amber and I have known each other since high school and took courses together by chance at community college.  We were actually organic chemistry lab partners!!!

We both went on to get our bachelors degrees at different colleges and once again randomly ran into each other in our hometown.  She's actually the reason I got the job at the lab in the first place.  She'd been there a couple months and knew they were going to be hiring.  We both started out in the same big room O.E.P. (Organics Extractions Prep) together and then trained in S.P.E. (solid phase extractions).  That meant learning new methods, working on a smaller micro scale level, but mostly moving to SPE meant moving to the back of the room.

So for years we worked 40 hours a week together behind a tiny little counter.  We would joke that it was a good thing we got along because we saw each other more than our own families.  We had a sort of SPE dance where we were constantly grabbing reagents out of cabinets, anticipating chairs rolling, and moving around each other to get the equipment we needed.  We were good at it.  We were each others' right hand woman, always there to assist.

I've had 2 weeks without her and you really see the roles people play at work and in your life when they're gone.  Her drawer, lab coat, and pipette bulbs have already been given away as a new wave of employees streams in.

I think we are all more sad because Amber is moving far away.  As the title suggests she's leaving on a jet plane.  Her husband is a pilot and the beach was calling, so they answered.  She wants to work with manatee conservation and I truly hope she can.  What more fulfilling job could you ask for?  Of course, if that happens I demanded she get me a job with her again!

I made these guys as going away presents.  They could be a necklace or just trinkets to sit around.  Since I've always been a nerd, that is real beach sand and seashells that I picked up as a little kid and throughout my life.  Now she can take a little of the Midwest with her.

I miss her immensely, but I know we'll see each other again.  Even if we didn't know it at first, it seems we're meant to be forever friends.

Who knows one day maybe all of us at 4ladiesandabeaker will find our way to the beach and back to Amber.