Today was a really tough day.  The office organized one last morning tea for us.  I knew that saying goodbye to my workmates was going to be incredibly difficult – ugh.  Sandi warned us that we would need to bring tisses and she was right.  Speeches from both Sandi and Cheryl, a beautiful slideshow of photos from our last two years set to tear jerking music, a sweet little thank you to Emily (which got us all crying), a perfect gift box, and then I had to try to talk.  I knew I would be emotional about halfway through so I prepared a speech ahead of time.  I wasn’t prepared to already be crying when I started speaking.  Thank goodness I wrote it all down ahead of time.  For my friends in Crestmead, I will never forget you.  Thanks for an awesome two years!

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Thank you so much for organizing this Last Morning Tea.  One thing that Australians do really well is morning tea.  It hasn’t always been easy to adapt to the tea tradition, like the first time I tried a scone but didn’t know if I needed to put the jam or the cream on first, and Harry had to interrupt the department meeting to make sure I did it right.  Did you know that it took me almost an entire year to try a sausage roll?  I was imagining that it was like a hot dog – what we call pigs in a blanket in the states.  Cheryl’s sausage rolls taste NOtHiNG like pigs in a blanket – why the heck didn’t I try them sooner!  The first morning tea I tried to organize for Order Fulfilment was “interesting”, or so I was told.  Apparently caramel apples and veggies with ranch dip are not common morning tea items.  I was just trying to mix it up a bit!  Nobody ever complained about my brownies though, or Jay’s buffalo chicken dip.  :). 

My kids are forever going to expect a daily morning tea and afternoon tea.  Kids don’t have “tea” in the US – they have “snack time”.  I would love to see the look on Ty’s new teacher’s face the first time he asks when morning tea is.  She is going to think that we give our children actual tea to drink.  

Or imagine the first time he makes a mistake when drawing and he asks his teacher for a rubber.  We call those erasers in the US.  A rubber is something entirely different and may get him sent to the principal’s office.  Google it.  This will be similar to when he tells his teacher that he can’t find his thong.  Hopefully he doesn’t make a mistake on his artwork when he loses his flip flop, or I will most certainly receive a call from the teacher.  

If any of you have ever been to the corporate office in Moline, there is a skywalk between the East and West office buildings.  I was 7 months pregnant when Jay sent me an IM to go for a walk to the west office building.  He told me that we had an opportunity to go work in Brisbane.  I looked at my belly, looked at him, and said, “um, are you kidding?!?  Yes!” All before we crossed the skywalk.  My next question was “can I have the baby in the US before we go?”  I can remember laying in the hospital bed with Lily only a few hours old, talking to Jay about details of the move.  Was the timing ideal?  Nope.  But would it ever have been?  Probably not – it’s never the “right” time to do something this major.  We just saw the opportunity, realized that chances like that don’t come along every day, and went for it.  

The two years here have not always been easy for us. We have all been incredibly homesick at various times.  We have struggled with many cultural differences, and it took us quite a while to fully understand how things work in Australia.  For example, there is not a 24 hour Walmart within 20 minutes of anywhere.  Coffee is VERY different.  Mexican food?  What Mexican food?  Despite our little hiccups, we have tried to make the most of this crazy adventure.  We have travelled all over this beautiful country and a couple others nearby.  We have used every hour of vacation time wisely.  And we still didn’t get to see as much as we hoped.  Never take for granted this beautiful country you live in.  Get out there and see it.  

Now for the hard part of this little speech. Probably going to need some tissues.  Each and every one of you has made an impact on my life, and on Jay’s life.  You are all permanently etched into our memories.  While we made the most of our time away from work, most of our time was spent AT work.  Surrounded by all of you.  Day in, day out.  For over two years.  I have learned so much during my time at JDL. I showed up on my first day of work here with zero knowledge of Order Fulfilment, zero knowledge of how a foreign branch operates, zero knowledge of SAP SD.  Zero.  

So my first huge thank you goes to Cheryl.  The poor thing didn’t know what she had agreed to by taking me into her department.  Thank you for giving me a chance, teaching me, challenging me, encouraging me, supporting me, and laughing with me.  I hope that everyone here realizes the depth of knowledge, passion, determination, and genuine desire to make things better that Cheryl has to offer.  You are lucky to have her.  

My next thank you goes to my Order Fulfilment teammates – current and prior. I cannot thank you enough for everything you do every single day.  The volume of work that constantly flows through your desks, the relationships you build with the dealers, the knowledge you have on products, systems, and processes – are sometimes under-rated.  I think that everyone who wants to move up in this branch should do a rotation through OF.  There is exposure to almost every part of the organization – dealers, factories, logistics, warehousing, sales, marketing, JDF, accounting, IT…  Hiring managers – take note of the skills gained by an OF Analyst.  On a personal level, I have developed lasting friendships with my team.  I am going to miss seeing your smiling faces every day.  I am so proud of the way you have all come together and as a team have lifted the quality of the outputs from our department.  

Thank you to Sandi for having faith in Jay and I to come in and do these jobs, for going through all of the headaches and paperwork to allow us into the country, for all of your advice along the way.  And on a personal note, for introducing me to the awesome sport of netball.  Without it, I am quite certain that I literally would have gone crazy – such a great stress reliever!

I could stand here all day and say thank you to everyone in this room, but I realize that I have already taken up too much valuable time.  Please know that I am forever grateful for having had the chance to get to know all of you.  I hope that many of you friend me on Facebook to keep in touch, and definitely let us know if you are going to be in the states.  

We have sold or given away most of our personal possessions over the past few months, but there was one thing that I was not willing to sell, as I knew that I wanted to donate something special to the branch.  And so I leave you all with…our silverware!!  May you never rock up to an empty silverware drawer ever again.  And to all of you silverware thieves, these are fitted with a GPS tracking device and will explode if they leave the office in anyone’s lunch box.  

***

You should have heard the office when I unwrapped the bag of silverware.  Hilarious!  And then Stu said, “Are you giving us yours or are you returning ours?”  Perfect.

   
   
And with that, the tea was finished. Everyone went back to work.  We said a few more goodbyes, held back a few more tears, and then we all piled into our packed van and headed to the Novotel.  The kids paced around like caged animals, so they tried to swim but the water was frigid.  Lily asked if we could go home.  That is when I realized we are actually homeless, at least until 30 December.  Sigh.  

We are all now in “ready to go” mode.  Just waiting for 9:30 tomorrow morning.  Fingers crossed for a restful night and an uneventful flight.  G’day mates!