The first of April

The last staff members who were leaving this week, have now, officially, left the office. As it was my day off today I missed most of the last goodbyes but I've heard from more than one person that it was a pretty unpleasant day, with a few tears and sad farewells.
We all knew these days were coming, in fact, we've had just over four months notice, but it doesn't make it any easier.
I went through redundancy in another newspaper company, based in Paisley, in early 2005 and we were not even given a month's notice. We were all taken into an office, not two months after the newspaper launch, and told by the bulls***ter of a boss that we had to be out the building by the afternoon. We couldn't even make a cup of tea in that place so, in the end, I was quite glad to be out the place but still I had to get out there and find another job. A slight pain, especially as it was only a week after I had successfully gained a new mortgage.
For the past few months in S&UN there were a few folk seemingly not that bothered to be leaving the company and there were a few folk kidding on they were not that bothered, but, from what I could tell this week, most folk were genuinely sad to be leaving and I was genuinely sad to see them go. It's all going to be very different without them.
It's the first of April tomorrow and the new shifts for the remaining 12 members of staff start tomorrow. As it's the first of April I'm half expecting to walk in at nine o'clock in the morning and find the HR lady standing, greeting me at the office door with a P45 and a big grin, "April fool!".