So, a few months ago, I threw in my chips and retired. Dropped out of polite society, quit the rat race, made a new plan, Stan. I hadn't intended to retire just yet, but things at the former gig had been going from bad to worse with each new day, and I'd finally had enough. I sat down one morning and looked at the 401K for the first time in nearly a decade, gazed at the distant horizon and realized I had enough saved to dispense with all that.
I gave notice at the job a year ago last January, but I remained for another seven months while I hired and trained my replacement, saw the program through a grueling audit of the program last July, and met with the grant managers to assure funding for 2024. When I left at the end of August, everything was in good shape. We were verbally assured that the grant would be renewed.
That was then. Fast forward to this morning when I found out no one had followed up with the grant application after I left. As a result of this, and other factors, the contract wasn't renewed. They just lost over a quarter of a million dollars in grant funding. Two of my former colleagues abruptly left the program, and our director (my former boss) was fired over the weekend.
I'm frankly shocked by this development. Why didn't anyone see the grant application through? It was done, all they had to do was hit "send." The very last thing I did as I walked out the door was send a reminder to follow up on the status of the grant.
No one did. Now the funding is gone, they're all looking for jobs, and somehow I'm still to blame for everything. Why did I retire early, you ask? This is why. This right here.
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