“Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
William Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet
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Peggy, and my Corning colleagues,
After 20 years, 5 months and a week, with bitter and sweet in equal measure, I’m bidding bye to my colleagues, current and some former.
What can I say about a place that holds more sentiments than I can express and thank for, a place that helped me see 3 daughters married, welcome to the world 7 grands, and to complete the full circle of life, witness the passing of 2 parents?
Starting with Cindy Burns, Maria Shoemaker, Tim Hurley, and Nancy Arsenault, who put the stamp on the hiring papers, on a cold January day, to offer me a chance to work in a then-$10B company, the biggest I had ever worked for.
‘All I ever needed to learn in my life’, at the Bedford Plant, I learned from:
Bill Galbraith and a-human IgG, a-Mouse IgG, Art Myles and a-Rabbit IgG, Steve Welsh and Streptavidin Black Opaque,
Susan Qian and Streptavidin White Opaque Chemi-luminescence, Jeff Partridge and a-Mouse CD3, a-Human CD3, Tumor Invasion,
Suparna Sanyal and Stem Cell, Mark Timmins and Oxygen Bio,
James Maliakal and Steve Ilsley and Endo Migration, Anne Kadar and Endo Invasion, James Maliakal and HuVEC-2 Cells,
Neka Deshield and Mirela Antohi and too numerous-to-count attachment assays,
Marty Kramer and Gelatin, CaCo2, Shiwen Lin and HFN FB,
Min Wu and Tube Formation, Elizabeth Abraham and Amine 1536,
Kerry Robinson-Thompson and Nickel Chelate, Glutathione, Small Volume, Glass Bottom, PDL 1536,
Alex Montoya and PAMPA, Katie Slater and Dome,
Joanne Bourgea, Denise Ly and Kirsten Cooper and Transporter Cells,
Charlie Crespi and Susan Qian for believing me, and in me, sufficiently enough to do the overhauling of, at least seven separate assays that I can recall,
The ‘bestest’ bosses one only sees in dreams:
Eric Gudas, Sean Cain (who found a way to put a print on my heart by allowing me life’s most precious time, a day midweek off to be with my Sophia, (wish you a long life, Sean!),
Mark Rosetti, Dan Colbert, Matt Smart, Alex Montoya, Pam Picano, and Melissa Mathews, Jim Davis, Himanshu Parikh.
And Unequivocally, and without a doubt’s shadow, I’m indebted to the best manufacturing team ever assembled in the Western Hemisphere,
those who lug around those Matrigel jugs, and the dry ice carts,
grinding brains and smashing spleens,
go in and out of the Media Prep Lab and vialing rooms, and four degrees,
run the crimping, and labeling, and Bio-Coat machines,
all with precision,
day in and day out,
every single one of my besties, my work partners, my lunch-sharing and lunch room buddies:
Dave, Howie, Denise, Chelsea, David, Erica, Rithy, Evins, Jim, Rindara, and PJ:
Believe this when I say it: I had a job because of you. Thank you. I will miss you something awful. We made a good team. And I owe you.
But first and most, the ‘fairest of them all’, Bill Fiore and Sarah Dickson, two of the bright lights that made it a breeze and a blessing, to want to leave a leafy suburb twenty miles away, and trek down, East on 20, up the 128 Belt, and further up on 3, putting my auto on auto pilot, five days every single week, in chilling wind and in waving heat, on glorious New England ‘mid-summer days’ when beach sands are beckoning, and drive down towards Oak Park, to park under giant oak trees.
It has been one heck of a ride. And a lasting interlude.
The movie, ‘The Godfather’, opens with the line, ‘I Believe In America’.
Watching it, I remember thinking at that long-ago time, what an odd thing to say!
Now I know. I believe in American capitalism.
Thank you, Ed Ludwig and Vince Forlenza for paving the way for an easier retirement.
and thank you, Wendell Weeks, for setting a policy to never walk a single colleague and their belongings out the door, in front of our collective, distressed eyes, necessitating on occasion, ‘a willful suspension of disbelief’.
You made it possible.
Flex time. Excellence Awards. Matching Gifts.
For this and more, I’m grateful.
So long. Gotta’ go.
Someone at home is waiting for me to take this sabbatical, and has been for a long time, and this has been long in the making. It was between this nice guy and you guys, and the nice guy won. 😉
If you made it, reading up to here, thank you, and I’d love to hear how well your adventure called Life’s Journey is faring.
Land (yes, we still have one of those!): 978.111.0000
Cell: 508.111.0000 (I promise to use it once in a while!)
mercymariamkoshy@hotmail.com. (if you reply, please include this).
Wishing every single day-occupant of this building my heartfelt wishes for ‘The Best of Times’, as I promise to be your most passionate cheerleader.
Make those GLW shares go up. My retirement depends on it. 😊
And oh, one more thing: please take care of our planet for me.
Remember, until we find H2O on another celestial body (the way Matt Damon did on Mars, although we haven’t seen a drop of it 😁), the one we’ve got is the only one we get to save.
May The Force Be With You.
Adieu. Aloha. Shalom. Salaam. Zai Jian. Choum reap sor. Mazel Tov. Namaste. Peace.
Mercy (your favourite co-worker 😜)
mercy's musings 