Year'll Be Alright

I had a feeling that it must be about the one year mark since I left Bear Stearns although I didn't remember the exact date.

I knew it was certainly more than a year since I gave in my notice (that was at the end of January 2008). And, of course, it was a little longer than that since I actually made my decision to resign (although not too much longer - I acted pretty quickly once I had made up my mind).

I remembered that my official leaving date was supposed to be sometime in April. Originally, I was working my entire 3-month notice period but the sudden collapse and dramatic "rescue" of the firm around Easter 2008 made that moot, and I left within a couple of days of the event.

So, it was still less than a year since my employment strictly ended.

I had a look for the email I sent out letting people know about my last day. It turned out that it was exactly one year ago on Friday (20th March), which is when I checked.

There are still a couple of anniversaries to come. The one year anniversary of the date on my P45 is 29th April. In the meantime, 17th April would have been my last day without the intervention of the US Government and JP Morgan.

17th April was also the date of "BSPT8" - this was the eighth and last of the Bear Stearns poker tournaments. I had been planning it before I left, and it went ahead after I left in a dual role as my leaving drinks.

I'm going to celebrate that anniversary, I think, with a re-union tournament. It can't be on 17th April itself due to the Easter holidays, but it appears that it can be scheduled for 27th April which would also be exactly three years since "BSPT1".

A year seems to have passed by very quickly, although at the same time it all feels like a long time ago.