Good luck Sam!

A bit of a special day today and an end to a special relationship, not between two people but between Sam, myself and Anglia Ruskin University as Sam left Student Services too today. The double act as we were called no longer exists.

You probably know the story by now, but for those who don't, we were at the same interview and have worked together for eleven years side by side on the information desk. Not the same desk I hasten to add or even in the same building or on the same campus. We've had three desks and god knows how many bosses through the years, at one point I think everyone thought they were our bosses!
They all came with big ideas and went off to some other Uni and the people we started with remained and just carried on regardless till the next boss came along.
But we worked so well together, bouncing off of each other from when we first started on Central Campus and that's when it was a real students centre to now when we were over run with rather joyless bosses, who in my humble opinion rather lost the meaning of what we were about.
We have dressed up for charity, organised pancake races and were famous for our donut days! We were invited to different events and were always there for the students.
We did have one boss, who really got the ethos of the centre and made us feel worthy, but she left for pastures new too.
Still nothing stays the same and today Sam left to start again at the Council.

The Council workers will gain a real caring colleague, one who carried me through my last stressful year at ARU when work was really getting difficult and tiring for me.
Who was caring enough to know that bending or stretching to get files made me breathless and rearranged all the shelves in our cabinet, so things were easily assessable for me.
Who knew that I couldn't do certain things anymore, but was ashamed to admit it, so did the things without a word.
She knew when to cuddle me and when not to say anything. She would cover for me when I needed it, especially when I was dead on my feet.
She was there with me at the court when I was made bankrupt just after my divorce and always gave me the 'look' if I was being a pain in the arse moaning about something trivial.
Of course we would have our moments when we just wanted to strangle each other, but they only lasted for a very short time. We were the stars signs that shouldn't get on, but weirdly we did!
She was the girl I stood in front of when a student went berserk shouting at her when she was pregnant and I would have laid him out rather than see her hurt, but I wasn't allowed to on 'bosses orders!'
She was the girl that I had secrets with and we could easily giggle all day long about everything.
She was my little sis who I never had and who I love to bits.

We walked out the doors of Tindal building today together, just like we did on the day I retired, the double act will be no more I'm afraid.
Good luck Sam in your new job, all the best xx

Lots of love Debbie x