I'm not here to retire. I'm here to wish a work associate/colleague/SAP mentor/friend good-bye and best wishes. His last day with our company is Friday, and so our big send off is Thursday. After 29 years with this company, he is moving on. To Pittsburgh. To a new opportunity using his SAP skills.
I'm not gonna lie. I am going to miss this man. Period. No other person in our company sends me more emails or receives more emails from me. I told our boss, M, today on the drive down that it could be weeks before I stop typing in "P" in Outlook to include him in an email.
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for him and his beautiful wife, T. She touched me deeply a day or two after he announced their move that I was one person she really wanted to see before they left. A lump forms in my throat even now as I type this.
But just because I'm happy for him doesn't mean I'm not going to miss him.
And yet, such is the nature of the work we do. The SAP world is somewhat of a sub-culture all its own.
For those who don't know, SAP is a computer system that companies run to integrate their purchasing with their manufacturing with their quality with their warehouse with their sales orders with their finances. That is WAAAAY over simplifying it, but like most any computer system, it needs knowledgeable people to get it going (commonly called "implementation") and to keep it running (commonly called "support"). And since knowledgeable people are in demand, many times we will only work together for a few short months or maybe a couple of years before the next project or assignment or opportunity comes along.
The people who "do SAP" are the ones who make up this SAP world. We have our own language and if you've been in it long enough, you learn the secret handshake.
I haven't been in it long enough to learn the secret handshake. But I speak the language pretty well these days. Words like "integration" and "testing" and "transport" and acronyms like "ABAP" and "MRP" and "PIR" and "PIR" (different acronyms, I promise you) and "MM" and "FI" and "QM" and "WM" and "SD" and table names like "MARA" and "MARC" (pronounced by some as "mark" and by others as "mar-see") and MARM" and "AFKO" and "EKKO" and "EINE" and "MCHB" are all part of my normal vernacular these days.
And I'm not alone in that! Lots of people all around the world speak this language! Some even know the secret handshake.
Maybe someday I'll learn that, too.
But for now, for today, I have different lessons to learn.
Lessons about saying another SAP good-bye. P's good-bye this week isn't my first. And won't be my last. I have said "hello" and "good-bye" to quite a few SAP folks over the last 6 years of my life. Good people. People who have taught me a lot.
People like T, an MM consultant who taught me the ropes of MM.
And people like A, a PP consultant who taught me the ropes of PP.
But there's another lesson I am continuing to learn. An SAP good-bye is rarely a "break-up," if you will. It can be a break-up - I've had a few of those - where we don't even declare that "we'll just be friends" - but most are more like "I'm moving on, but let's stay in touch." That has been true with T and A, that I mention above. It's also been true with T, a lady who used to do WM with our same company.
It's been true of C, who was a member of our implementation team, and who knows exactly who I'm talking about when I say "Mary Poppins" or "His Royal Highness, King H - Duke of the Smart Ass, Defender of the Specdom." Sometimes, nicknames are your only way to cope with an SAP project. That and a good visit to The Melting Pot.
It's been true with B, who taught me the ins and outs of capacity planning within SAP. In each of these cases - and many more in my life - I can pick up the phone, send an email or text, contact on Facebook, whatever - and seek out their help with an SAP issue or question. Or in the case of C, discuss the ins and outs of a good butter sauce. By and large, most SAP people are eager to help each other out, to help each other learn and grow in their skills, to not harbor their knowledge but to instead share it so others can learn.
And it will be true of P. Even though he is leaving, and I will need to learn a new email address, I have every confidence that we will stay in touch - that we aren't "breaking up" but moving into a new stage of our SAP colleague life. And that helps to make saying this good-bye easier. Yes, I have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes as I type this. Yes, I am afraid that I'm not "ready" in my SAP skills for P to move on. But I know he will only be a phone call or email away to talk me off the ledge, to interpret or speak Smyrna Bubba for me or to share a victory because we got our PLCs to talk to our SAP system for more timely inventory updates.
And maybe...just maybe...if we stay in touch long enough, he will teach me the secret handshake.
Good-bye P. You have taught me more than I can articulate in this post. You have talked me off the ledge more than once. You have given me insights into so many things, both on and off the job. You speak Bubba better than anyone I know. I never envisioned when I sat down next to you that first day we met that you and I would work so closely together or that I would dedicate an entire blog post to you. But I wouldn't have traded a moment of the last 6 years of working together. The absolute best of everything to you and your wife. May God richly bless you both in your new life.
Love,
D
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