It has been decided.

I used to work with a manager who, over the years, had developed a template of sorts for firing people. The key ingredient in this template was the opening line: "It has been decided."

According to him, this would set the tone for the meeting. It let the person on the receiving end of the proverbial boot know that no amount of discussion was going to do him any good, because the decision had been made, and whatever events had led up to this moment, he could no longer affect the outcome (if he ever could at all).

Throughout the course of his career, he had had to fire many people and he claimed that his method made it a lot less painful for everyone involved.

Yeah, I've pretty much decided that that's a load of shit.

Here, let's try it out, shall we?

It has been decided. I'm moving to California.

You see what I'm saying? That didn't make it even remotely less painful for me. How about you?

Nonetheless, it has, in fact, been decided. I've known for a while now, actually, but until very recently every time I tried to say the words, I always prefaced them. For some reason, on the path from my brain to my lips, "I'm moving to California" would morph into "I think I may be moving to California" or even, "I'm not ready to say with 100% certainty, but I'm pretty sure I'm moving to California."

It was kind of pathetic, really.

That's all behind me, though, because now, I can say with 100% certainty and zero hesitation that I'm almost positive I'm going to eventually maybe be moving to California. Possibly.

Okay, maybe I need to work on it a little longer.

See, the plan was for me to be here for about a month and half. I was supposed to use that time to train on all the new (to me) technologies that they use here, and, at the same time, get to know the area and try to decide if I'd be willing to move out here. The plan was for me to go home to Tampa and weigh all the pros and cons and make a considered decision. Then, maybe after all of that, at some vaguely imaginable point in the future, I would pack up my shit and head out west.

Well, "the best laid plans of mice and men..." You know the rest.*

You see, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the con list is amazingly short. Basically, leaving my friends and family was the only real item on that side of the list (don't get me wrong, it's huge item, I'm just saying it was pretty lonely). That con, though, as big as it is, is tempered greatly by the fact that my boss offered to let me work from Tampa for a few weeks every couple of months. So, suddenly, it wasn't so much a question of how much sense it made for me to move to California, but rather a question of how little sense it made for me not to.

Besides, it's a pretty scary thing, moving. And what's that, if not living?

The new plan is for me to head home on Monday, the 6th of August, take two weeks to put my life in order, and then hop a return flight on the 20th. After that was decided last night, I went to the office manager this morning to get my flight rescheduled, and told him at the same time that I'd be returning on the 20th.

"The 20th... until when?" he asked.

I honestly could not even make myself answer him. I just stood there looking at him. He's a smart guy, though, and figured it out.

"Indefinitely?"

I nodded.

"So, should I just make it a one-way, then?"

I just nodded again and walked away. Sooner or later, it won't be so hard.

After all, it has been decided.

*Actually, do you really know the rest? It seems like that's the only part of the quote that anyone ever says. For your edification, I looked it up (because really, this blog should be educational at least, it's not like it's entertaining), and the saying is, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." You know where it's from? Didn't think so. It's an adapted quote from a poem by Robert Burns. The original line went like this:

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley.

Yeah, I don't really see why they changed it.