A couple of years after I retired, I published a blog post called Employable (Employable – Terri LaBonte- Reinventing Myself in Retirement.) I discussed what it felt like for someone to offer me a job at that point in my life. I sorted through a great quantity of feelings related to the offer, but my bottom-line response was that I didn’t want a job- even though it was nice to be asked. I had not considered starting a new career in retirement before the job offer. I certainly have not considered it since then.
Recently, a situation arose at church that involved a major re-juggling of administrative staff. Our parish administrator of nearly a decade planned to retire in mid-September. I initially agreed to help in the office one day a week to reduce the strain on our parish ecosystem while we transitioned to a new office organization. There were a few of us who were teaming up to cover basic processes for a couple of months. As the situation unfolded, however, increased complications bombarded the well-intentioned plan, demanding a more permanent and cohesive solution.
The church’s administrator (secretary/financial systems manager) semi-retired a few months ago. In her semi-retired status, she was concentrating solely on the financial systems. The parish hired a part-time secretary a couple of months before the church administrator was due to change to her part-time schedule. Unfortunately, as soon as the administrator officially started coming into the office only two days a week, the newly hired part-time secretary resigned.
Our parish administrator agreed to return to a full-time schedule while we found a new person to take on the entire full-time parish administrator job. We did find someone, but she had some pre-existing commitments that would limit her availability during part of the transition time. Our retiring administrator devised a plan to transfer skills in both the secretarial and financial administrator arenas between June and September. This succession plan also involved training me so that there would be at least one other person with a pulse who knew the mysteries of the church’s financial software.
I love plans at least as much as the next person. There are those who would argue that I take planning to an absurd degree. However, I also have my own little motto- “Terri proposes, and God disposes.” Such was the case with this transition plan. Despite our best efforts, there were a series of disastrous events that caused the plan to crumble beneath its own weight :
- The retiring administrator fell and smashed her elbow into a million pieces, requiring extensive surgery.
- As soon as the retiring administrator recovered from her surgery, her husband was hospitalized with COVID.
- One of the stalworth volunteers who had been helping to keep the train on track went on a boating trip and got stranded in the middle of some body of water somewhere due to mechanical problems.
- The rector was on vacation.
- The photocopier possessed (or is possessed by) some sort of evil, vindictive genius. It stopped working for nearly an entire week- probably in protest against the excessive number of revisions of the Sunday service bulletin documents that we copied the week before because we kept finding errors. It turns out that cutting and pasting changes into five or six separate documents is not as easy as you would think.
- I learned that my eyes are spoiled by the 27” computer monitor we have at home. The 23” monitors in the church office are just not cutting it for me, especially as I sit behind the new hire and try to coach her through different processes.
- The retiring parish administrator, overwhelmed by trying to keep the parish office operational, train new workers, and care for her husband, suddenly declared she was moving her “retirement full stop” date up by a month. Instead of disentangling herself from us in mid-September, she decided to leave in mid-August.
- Certain key passwords retired along with our outgoing administrator. One especially important system required that I get a new password through snail mail. I am glad our government is concerned about protecting privacy, but this particular system has the clunkiest password parameters I have ever encountered. .
During this period of limbo, I tried to use what I learned in the approximately 7 hours of training the original administrator was able to give me on the financial workings of the parish before destroying her elbow. It made me nervous when people kept saying, “Terri knows the financial stuff.” Terri knew the foam, not the root beer. My claim to fame was that I was putting money in the bank and paying bills. Beyond that, I was uncomfortably aware of the limited depth of my knowledge. People kept telling me, “At least you are getting something done- anything you are able to do is better than nothing.” I am not so sure that is true. After 30+ years working in a financial-related field, I am all too aware that a person can easily know just enough to be dangerous.
As time has passed and I have had the opportunity to complete the routine financial operations several times I feel much more hopeful. The retiring parish administrator was able to come back to work for a few weeks after her surgery rehab, so I was able to reality check some of the things I did in her absence. Despite my misgivings, I had not done anything lethal to my church’s financial system. The original administrator was able to resolve the hanging chads of work I had left over from the prior couple of weeks. I managed to expand the number of hours I was in the office while she was still working so I could sop up every last bit of knowledge from her brain cells. Learning from her tutelage increased my feelings of accomplishment and confidence.
When the retiring parish administrator was in the office, I did not get involved with the Sunday service documents. This was probably a huge relief to everyone involved, I know it was a huge relief to me. I was even able to take a day off and go to the beach with a friend. I called from a beach cabana to see how things were going and if they needed me to come in and help the next day. In my book, if I am calling from a beach cabana, things are good. They told me all was well and there was no need for me to come in the next day.
I think I needed to “act my wage.” My wage is 10 times more than most volunteers. However, 10 times 0 is still 0. That would imply that I should be investing $0 in worrying about or taking responsibility for any of this. Still… it is hard for me not to give my all. Predictably, it is also hard for me to give my all and not reserve anything for myself. When a friend texted me on Friday night to report that the bulletin did not reflect the correct person giving the sermon, I wish I had been able to react with more understanding, urgency, and courtesy than I did. Sadly, I may have “acted my wage” during that encounter.
Now that our former parish administrator is officially retired, the new hire and I have been on our own. I am continuing to train the new hire in the financial administration duties. This has often been of dubious benefit since I was only about a half step ahead of her in knowledge. I found myself confusing her because I still had so many missteps. I took a week or so to just do the work so that I could more clearly direct her. It is truly a case of the “partially sighted leading the blind.” That axiom takes on a whole new meaning when the “partially sighted” person is trying to read tiny print on a tiny screen from much further away than her eyes can accommodate. We spent half an hour of mucking about yesterday because the field I thought said “date” actually said “deposit.”
Despite the struggles of the past few months, we are making great strides, and I am proud of our little administrative team. While I do not believe we have yet produced a perfect set of Sunday service documents, they are getting better each week. The new administrator is picking up the financial tasks with agility. A volunteer who has helped in the past with the secretarial part of the job has kindly offered to take over some of the work for a few days so that our new administrator can concentrate on solidifying her knowledge of the financial aspects of the job. We are all working well together. We treat each other patiently and kindly. We ask for grace as we learn, from each other and from our “customers”- the God and parishioners we serve. People are more important than perfect procedures. We pray a lot.
You may ask why I tangled myself up in all this. Is it my inability to say no that has expanded that “helping out one day a week” to 20-28 hours a week? I don’t think so. I believe that we have the right long-term solution for the future administration of our parish. The process of transitioning to a new office staff has been wracked with many unanticipated complications. With God’s help, we can resolve the complications and move forward. Because of that, I am willing to invest in the solution.
However, even if I am employable… I still don’t want a new job.
Did you take a new job in retirement? How has that been for you? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.
Have a productive day!
Terri/Dorry 😊