Last week I informed my employer that I would be leaving. Having been there such a short time, only five months; I experienced a lot of guilt as I contemplated my early exit. In the end, I had to weigh the offer that had come before me, which I had not sought, and my longer-term future and career happiness.
As I’m now beginning to reflect on my time here, serving a number of electeds, it’s difficult not to think about what I’ll miss and what I won’t. I’ll definitely miss working in the core of downtown. I love being so close to so much and often in the center of the action.
How many people can say they’ve watched a botched bank robbery from the corner office of the floor where they work? It doesn’t hurt that we’re directly across from police headquarters. When something goes down around here, it goes down fast and furious. Honestly, I’ve never seen so many big guns, and SWAT units in action, except during maybe a CSI episode or some other show involving cops and crime. And, if you’re going to rob a bank, my suggestion is do it a bit further away from police headquarters. Basically, the attempted robbery happened less than half a block away from a building full of cops and it just so happened that one of our finest was doing his personal banking two lines over.
The teller had the wherewithal to signal him that a robbery was in progress, and it was all over for Mr. Robber who fled the bank, jumped in the waiting cab, threatened the driver to drive, and…the driver instead ran, leaving Mr. Bank Robber to jump in the front seat and attempt to escape.
Mr. Robber’s day was already starting to go very badly so the fact that he couldn’t get the car in drive seemed pretty consistent with his day. He too decided to run without success, along with another of his accomplices, who has more success, leaving the third one in the car. The SWAT team pulls the BIG guns on her, demands her to exit (she doesn’t), uses some non-harmful pellet gun to break the glass in the back window of the cab and finally, she comes out, but even then she doesn’t really cooperate very well for having so many guns on her.
All in all, there were 8 cars and about 25 officers surrounding the scene. Quite impressive! But, Mr. Fleeing Accomplice in the dirty pink backpack was still on the loose that day. I have yet to hear if he was caught, but I’m still on the lookout for that dirty pink backpack – just in case.
So, I’ll miss the excitement that tends to occur in the area, whether it’s a bank robbery gone bad, a flaming car next to the Municipal Court, a suicide attempt at the prison, a major car accident right under my window or just the regular hustle and bustle of the day.
But, the one for sure thing I will not, never ever, no way miss is the shouting lady that does her thing either below my window or directly across the street in front of the Police Station a couple of times a week.
She’s clearly not of sound mind, although she doesn’t really look dangerous and she looks like she must have somewhere to sleep at night. Her deal is that she orates, I guess. She delivers passionate, or should I say ranting speeches to her imaginary audiences. She needs no mic. She needs no real audience. All the world is a stage and she’s found hers near the corner of Cherry and Fifth.
As far as what she’s ranting, I really don’t know. While she’s very loud, and quite annoying, I couldn’t tell you what’s coming out of her mouth – none of us really can. But she yells with conviction, darn it, even if it is laced with anger.
I’m sure she has a purpose, and perhaps someday someone on this floor will figure out exactly what that is. Until then, goodbye shouting lady. Yell on yelling woman, because I will not miss you. But, I do feel for the next person who takes my office and quickly discovers it’s really not the calm, quiet corner one might expect.
