Play the Pipes Lowly

An experience that is tragically becoming all too frequent these days:  Boudicca of the Iceni is leaving.

It is another bittersweet experience, happy with a sting.  The happiness engages from the sense of release and moving on that exudes from her pores as she prepares for her last day; the sadness stings with the fact that of Monday, our world will be a great deal dimmer.

I owe a great debt to Boudicca.  By watching her, I have learned a great deal about actual management and planning.  I've seen someone who knows process and product so intimately and well that she knows more by thinking than most of us do by looking something up.  I've seen what real, practical expertise is and how a deep knowledge of something is a thing of power.

She be missed by the environment as well.  When she leaves, the living memory of the company and its efforts will be greatly reduced by a factor of 4 years. With her, an entire line of things disappears into the darkness of the past, to live only in moldering records in a warehouse awaiting destruction.

I will miss her companionship as well.  I will miss the ability to just drop by the office and talk for a few moments about anything; of the sudden rush for something to eat; of the magical "food drawer" from which things emerge from time to time.  I will miss the times she came by when I was obviously in distress and cheered me up.

I will miss the fact that she taught me one of the greatest lessons I have learned: about shutting my mouth.  And  a second great lesson:  about forgiveness.

Ave atque Vale, Boudicca.  Your new future is bright with promise, even as ours is dim with your departure.