"Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life"

Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE cheese. In fact, for the last 2 years in a row, I have received cheese goodie bags for my Secret Santa gift. The relevance? I mean, the title alone has got us off to a pretty camembert start, but prepare yourself for the raclette themed post that you are about to read...

Set the scene! I’m currently sat on the sofa, wearing pyjamas which are covered in photographs that have been dug out of the Envireau Water archives. To my left, what can only be described as a vandalised calendar, featuring pictures of topless kilted models superimposed with the faces of my male colleagues; to my right, a pile of meaningful gifts, handwritten cards, and an INCREDIBLE book filled with good luck messages and memories from my last 3 years as part of the Envireau Water team. Combined with my (multiple!) leaving dos, I truly couldn’t feel more valued and appreciated and can’t express my gratitude and thanks enough.

Having shared this with friends and family over the weekend, all have commented “that is so much more than what other companies would do”, which has given me 2 reflections:

1. Envireau Water really does 'so much more than what other companies would do’, from the technical expertise that goes into their work, to the shindig they put on at Christmas! Particularly, I’ve been personally impressed by what they do to nurture the mental health and happiness of the team - from taking time out for specialised training, to the support given by management and board members, to the provision of professional counselling. Before I left, I failed to find a way to explain this on the website without it sounding contrived. The only way for it to be sincere is to come from individuals themselves. So here we go - it’s been hard for me to get my head around leaving the team, I dare say I’ve been in denial. However, over the last few months, ‘the company’ has regularly checked in on me, offered both personal and professional advice and when needed given me the chance to process the change in my own way. Referring to ‘the company’ leads me nicely onto...
2. When writing copy for Envireau Water, I’ve rarely referred to them as a company. I would never have gotten away with branding our company culture as ‘Envireau Family’ but consider this...within a family unit, each individual family member has their own role and brings their own personality; a family shares a history and goals; and we need our families to collectively celebrate our successes and collaboratively work through difficulties.

So, grasping on to my words of encouragement, a lot of happy memories and my extremely comfortable new pyjamas, I’m excited to discover what my DC adventure has in store for me. 

Whilst packing, I found my year book from when I left school to undertake a Physics Masters degree (there you go James, I’ve admitted to secretly being a scientist at heart). In it, Kevin Bailey, my Physics teacher and ‘inspo’ wrote “take that spark into the world”. When I spoke at his memorial service a few months later, I promised to take my spark and light up the world. I’ve definitely not fulfilled that quest yet (the younger me may have been a little ambitious!) but here’s to igniting a few more fireworks! As I’ve said to the team, this isn’t goodbye, just a temporary taaraa!