Wednesday, I quit that job I hate.

I wanted the day to be over before it started because I felt so vacant emotionally about the place. There were few people I wanted to say goodbye to at all, and I dreaded any attempt some well-meaning person made to put me on the spot in some kind of staff-centric farewell.

I wanted none of it, a sad feeling and a strange one to me. Never have I felt so uninvested in a place of employment, even though three years of my working life passed in that building.

But that doesn't mean I was without emotion. As I drove in, some happy song came on the radio, and I felt tears of happiness fill my eyes.

Working at this particular place was, for me, like reliving the hell that was high school. There, I was unpopular, encircled by a small group of friends, but otherwise feeling shy, awkward and uncertain of just how to behave, and as though everything I did was wrong. That had all changed after high school, and since then, I'd been popular, a beloved member of every staff on which I'd worked. I was generally the social coordinator, putting together Happy Hours and birthday remembrances, quipping and bantering with my fellow co-workers, laughing loud and often with them. I was feted when I left those places with a love that was genuine, and I left them with an ache in my heart.

Here, I could not win for trying. I don't blame it on myself, but on the odd collection of personalities assembled there. Competitive, back-biting and issue laden. Some of them have not spoken to one another in years because of issues that, in some cases, go back almost a decade.

The reasons why this staff was so dysfunctional are multiple and difficult to explain, and frankly, not worth reviewing. None of them so much as said hello in the mornings. Most of them hated their jobs. Few of them laughed.

Months into the job, I realized I'd become just like them. Because few people returned my morning greetings, I stopped offering them. Quickly, I began to hate my job, too.

I hope that gives you enough to understand that I was not just a disgruntled employee with no basis for my unhappiness, although I've sometimes blamed myself, thinking there must have been something I could have said or done differently. But unhappiness runs rampant within those four walls, and a co-worker who is among my favorites told me the infighting goes to the very top. Since they cannot stop it at that level, she said, how can they possibly stop it here?

Others have told me it's been a difficult place in which to work for decades. A therapist whom I saw about a year ago sucked in his breath when I told him where I work. "Get out of there," he said. "That place ruins people. Leaving is the best thing you can do for yourself."

I tried to explain during my exit interview that the place had such a reputation, but I'm not sure I got through to the human resources director. She nodded and made notes, but her lips were pursed the entire time, as though my words tasted sour to her.

Nevertheless, I put in a good day's work Wednesday. My mind was on finishing my job and getting out, so it surprised me when my editor said I had to go to the weekly staff meeting. When I walked in, the rest of the staff already was there. I took in the chocolate cake, plates, plastic forks and a bright blue envelope with disbelief. Somehow, perhaps because I felt so little for the place, I'd expected nothing. It had never occurred to me that I'd get the same small sendoff departing employees before me had received.

I was horrified to feel tears spring to my eyes, and my face quiver while I fought for self control. Perhaps, I thought, these people cared about me more than I'd ever thought. Perhaps I'd underestimated them all. I felt a dozen pairs of eyes on my face, all of them watching with fascination to see if I'd cry or not. I did not. Instead, I focused hard on the cake, cutting and passing slices around the room. I opened the card, glanced at the many signatures, offered thanks for the Starbucks gift card that slipped out from inside it, and asked to be excused.

I all but fled the room. Awkward and uncertain to the end.

Later, a coworker told me that another reporter had organized the whole thing. "You really have him to thank," she said. "He did it all."

Clearly, that implied that no one else had thought, or cared enough, to do a thing. I wished I hadn't known, wished I'd been left to believe it was a staff effort, perhaps even a belated way of showing some regret for not being friendlier or more kind.

Now I understood that was not the case. The knowledge hurt, and much more deeply than I imagined it could.

I thought of how different this parting was from my last at a much smaller newspaper, where an entire community had turned out to say goodbye - judges, mayors, county commissioners, the district attorney, co-workers past and present, and friends collected during my nine years there. Where people had written letters to the editor expressing regret at my departure, something my publisher said he'd never witnessed in his life. I cling to that memory as proof that the problems here were not me, that these co-workers missed the boat by not taking the hand of friendship I repeatedly offered.

But the doubt still lingers. My self esteem has been bruised by these three years, and it'll take some time to rebuild it.

Most departing employees send a companywide farewell e-mail, something simple like, "Thanks for a great two years! Here's my e-mail address. Keep in touch! I'll miss you all." But I'd already said goodbye to the few people I cared about, and I couldn't think of what I'd write. If I spoke the truth, it would say, "Thanks for an interesting three years. I'll miss some of you." Sending a chipper e-mail like the first would have been a lie. So I did nothing.

When I left, it was nearing deadline, the most intense time of day in a newspaper office. I stood up and glanced around, prepared to do a general goodbye wave to everyone, but most of them were on the phone, or bent over their keyboards frantically typing.

And so, my box of Kleenex and Starbucks card in hand, I simply turned and walked down the stairs, and out into the sunlight of a summer evening - the beginning of a brand new day.