The Final Straw

Hello all, and greetings from behind the scenes of my 501(c)(3) charitable organization, i.e. nonprofit, aka "the zoo". Today marks a monumental occasion. As I made my way into the office Monday morning-- the start of another long and painstaking week, I felt a strange sense of foreboding. After all, I had walked past a fellow employee and a cop taking down a license plate number in the parking lot only moments after stepping out of my car, but did not think too much of it.

I was no more than two steps in the front entrance when I was informed that, once again, our computer servers were down due to a bolt of lightning over the weekend, so instead of checking email and killing time, I spent the first hour of the morning listening to my anxiety-ridden co-worker gripe about the shortcomings of our IT department. She had only just begun her all-out verbal attack on the IT department and how the Internet issue reflects the major problems of the organization as a whole, when a co-worker from upstairs rushed into her office and quickly shut the door behind him.

Shortly after, I was walking by the front entrance of the building. I looked outside to see a scene unfolding that was strikingly reminiscent of the Badlands. Construction men had taped off a bunch of areas of our brick atrium with yellow "Do Not Enter" tape, and their drilling had stirred up a thick smog of dirt, which was blowing around in the heat of the intense mid-morning sun. Through the dirt cloud and drill noises, I saw our HR lady emerge, marching toward the entrance with two uniformed police men in tow. "Very strange," I thought. But left it at that and returned to safe glow under the fluorescent lights of my cubicle.

Moments later my anxious co-worker informed me that the commotion was over our Grants Coordinator who had been caught imbezzling $8000 from the organization and had fled the building before the police could arrest her. She had, however, left her car in the lot, which explains the cop I saw taking down the license plate earlier in the morning.

With no further ado, I logged on to expedia.com and booked myself a plane ticket to Chile. That's right, friends. Today was the final straw... the breaking point in this god-forsaken office life. Life has begun anew and I am now officially flying into Santiago on July 21st!!!


I wanted to share the news and the highly amusing unfolding of events surrounding it with you all, and also wanted to let you all know that I'll be traveling for 3 weeks (Dec-1-20) after my program is over and I encourage anyone and everyone to join me in my adventures.