To my close friends and family, it is no secret that I have been unhappy with the position with Benthic Creatures. In fact, neither Richard nor I have been very happy, and this dissatisfaction has been building since nearly the first week we started. The source of this anger and frustration we've been battling with for months has centered, mainly, around communication issues. There is no need to go into great detail on this – suffice it to say that there have been significant concerns. And ever since the trip to Chicago, when some of the first and largest concerns became apparent, we have both been poking around, using any down time we had to try to find something different.

A few weeks ago, Richard and I talked to someone we knew – someone who has connections in a lot of different places. We asked him if he knew anyone looking for people with our skills, and then at his request, we handed over our resumes, figuring that the 'who you know' philosophy – while it probably wasn't going to generate anything immediately – would at least get us going in the right direction.

This past weekend he told me he had a proposal for me. Call me, he said. I think we can make this full time. Tuesday night I called him. The conversation started with a list of the projects I'd be working on, moved into salary ranges, and ended with a job offer and the best question of all – when could I start? I hung up the phone and looked at the page full of notes I'd been frantically typing throughout the conversation and tried to make sense of what had just happened. And then I spent the next hour trying to compose my resignation letter.

There were a lot of things I would have liked to put in that letter. There were things I wanted to say; things I wanted to put down in writing so that they would finally *have* to be heard. But in the end I was wise enough to realize that short and sweet was the best approach. My letter was brief and polite. Next Friday will be my final day. No more travel. No more mollusks. No more shell-polishing kits and endless days. No more promises made and then taken away.

So now all I have left to do is to wait. It has been harder than I would have imagined, these past two days, to not say anything about my decision. I will tell the rest of them eventually, but I have not yet figured out when. It's not that I want it to be a secret; it's that I somehow sense that it will make things awkward.

I have promised myself that I will be as upbeat and energetic about this job as I can be until the final day. I owe it to myself at the very least, if not to my coworkers and the mollusks. My issues have never been with the people; only with the policies and painful lack of communication.

I've never been very good at keeping secrets. I'm not sure why I even feel that this has to be one; I just do. Next week, once I finally reveal the news, I can break the silence. Until then I can only sit back and wait.

And oh so silently count the days until it finally ends.

This has been an AlphaBytes entry.