Tag: work

Employable

I learned a lot of good stuff while I was working.  I figured most of it would immediately become moot the day I retired.  That assumption is probably correct, but I’ve found I actually did learn some transferable skills.

Recently, I’ve been struggling to fight my way through the administrative jungle involved in applying for financial aid to help with my mother’s care.  After hiring one law firm to help, I quickly realized that my own background provided a much better machete for slicing my way through the undergrowth. For several months, I fought through vines and branches of internet research on my own, trying to understand the eligibility and documentation requirements.  I spent a lot of energy wandering around in useless circles without clearing much of the jungle out of my way.

It was exhausting, but even inefficient persistent activity can sometimes result in progress.   Using the experience and education I amassed during a 30 plus year career in bureaucracy as a basis for my analysis, I slowly began to understand what was going to be necessary and how to ask the right questions. A kind stranger also gave me a referral to a specialty law firm.  That law firm helped me trade in my blunted, bedraggled machete for an earthmover.  Working with the staff of the new law firm, I was able to work more methodically and spend my energy on the activities that were going to matter.  Rather quickly, I was able to see some light at the other end of the jungle.  I’m still whacking away at low-lying branches, but I’m getting there.

During that process, I met with the office manager of the law firm.  She did the initial interview, pointed me in the right documentation-gathering direction, and assigned a caseworker to help me.  In our conversation, she asked what I did for a living before I retired.  When I explained the progression of my career and what my role was when I stopped working for a living, she offered me a job in her office.  I could kind of see her thought process.  My career was actually very similar to the kind of work her office does.  On the other hand, her offer stunned me.

I never contemplated working after I retired.  That was never part of the plan.  While I was still in my job, people used to talk about how well I could do if I went into private practice when I retired.  I reacted to those comments with complete bafflement.  What would be the point of retiring if I was going to keep working?   In my mind, I would just keep my steady job with a nice income and benefits if I wanted to work for a living.

Yes, I understood that some people liked the idea of having their own business and being their own boss, but it always just sounded like a lot of extra trouble to me.  Yes, I understood that some people think they can reduce their hours and stress when they work after retirement.  I’m not sure I buy it, especially for someone like me.  I believe God gives us all talents and expects us to develop them.  My talent happens to be worrying. I have spent a lifetime learning to excel at it.  I’m not sure it matters how few hours I work.  I would be wor”ry”king full time.  Yes, I understood that some people are passionate about their work and can’t imagine giving it up completely.  I can almost get behind that argument. If there was some opportunity to get paid for working at some passion of mine, I might concede.  But battling bureaucracy?  I don’t think that’s anyone’s idea of passion.

Still, when the office manager asked me about coming to work for the law firm, my first impulse was to try to figure out a way to make it work.  My brain immediately stumbled over obstacles to device possible strategies that would allow me to work at a job (that I didn’t even want) while also taking care of my mother, doing the tasks necessary to keep my household running smoothly, writing the blog, maintaining my relationships, and trying to have some sort of fun in my “spare time.”

I think this process reveals a congenital defect in my reasoning ability.  At some point very early on in my life, I somehow bought into a pretty basic fallacy.  If someone asks me to do something, it must make sense for me to do it.  I spent a good deal of my career attempting to fulfill that fallacy.  I often didn’t consider whether I actually wanted to do a particular job or assignment or even if it was feasible for me to do it. I figured that, if someone was asking me to do it, it must be possible and it must be a good idea for me to do it.  I’m not saying that this was always a bad thing.  In fact, following other people’s plans for  how I should spend my time and energy was a good thing in some ways.  If I had stopped to consult my own preferences, I might have passed up some opportunities I ultimately enjoyed and from which I profited.  It is sometimes easier to stretch your capabilities when someone else is pushing you than when you try to expand your horizons under your own power.  Still, there were also other “opportunities” that would have been better left untapped… at least by me… and I would not have been tapping them if left to my own devices.

This time, though, when the office manager offered me the job, I managed to stop myself before agreeing.  I let myself live in an awkward pause while I did not immediately reply to her suggestion.  During that time, I am sure my face did express a certain degree of horror at the whole idea.  Initially, the office manager thought I didn’t realize she was serious.  She started reassuring me that the offer was real.  She extolled the virtues of the position.  I was still not responding.  She got the idea that I was either dimwitted or just not interested.  She looked kind of embarrassed and unsure of how to extricate herself from this particular line of conversation.  My mind unfroze and I bailed her out, explaining that I just didn’t see how I could take on anything else while caring for my mother.  The office manager seemed happy to let the matter go, but did mention that I should call her when I “got bored.”

I’m not bored and I don’t foresee myself getting bored.  On the other hand, part of my mind still keeps revisiting that job offer.  It was heartening to have someone validate my value on the job market.  I felt kind of sassy and swaggery.  The whole exchange was very flattering. I think part of me has always kind of felt that most of my success in my career was due to simple longevity.  The fact that someone wanted to hire me for a professional position to do something new and different makes me think that maybe there was at least some actual talent fueling my career success.

I haven’t done anything mad like calling back and asking for the job.  The bottom line is that I don’t want the job, but it’s very nice to be asked.

What do you think?  Have you ever considered starting to work again after you’ve retired?  How is it working out for you?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a pleasantly busy day!

Terri 🙂

Distance Lends Enchantment To The View. Or Not.

I struggled with writing this piece. The ideas seem to swirl around in my head without actually forming.  They tantalize, but, when it comes to pinning them down on paper, they morph and flit away.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it feels a bit disloyal or ungrateful to question whether or not what you did for a living for over 33 years really made a whit of difference in the general scheme of things.   

Recently, I was speaking with a friend of mine who is still working.  She was feeling a bit down in the dumps because of the way things were going on the job.  She despaired because she was working as hard as she could, but there didn’t really seem to be any progress or, for that matter, any goal.  She put out fires every day.  She knew, on some level, that she was doing something important.  What she didn’t know was whether anyone in her organization knew or cared what it was that she did.  One of the points she cited as evidence was the fact that she was still called by a title that had been obsolete for over a year. 

It may seem somewhat trivial to angst over a title.  However, the title issue begged a bigger question.  To my friend, the fact that the agency did not recognize that the title was incorrect made her wonder about her duties, responsibilities, and accomplishments.  Was the time and energy she was expending being invested in the right things? What was she really supposed to be accomplishing? Did the organization recognize and value what she had simply adopted as her new role, without benefit of direction, once the job originally associated with her obsolete title was done?  How was she to get support and championship for what she believed needed to be done on an organizational level, based on what she saw from her perspective?  And the biggest question…. could her considerable efforts result in any “big picture” change for the greater good?

I tried to be supportive and the conversation made me realize that I have undergone a huge metamorphosis since leaving the world of employment.   Yes, I have navigated probably hundreds of everyday changes in my life as I’ve transitioned into the retirement world.  However, as I explained to my friend, there is actually one change that dwarfs all of the rest of them.  My perspective of my job has undergone a massive overhaul.  I think, when some people retire, they tend to see the job they left behind through rosier lenses than what reality would suggest.  In my case, it was exactly the opposite.  In my rearview mirror, the job was considerably less important than I believed it was when I was occupying it. 

It isn’t that I think what I did was unimportant.  I do believe that I helped a lot of customers and employees.  I think, because of my understanding, technical expertise, and leadership, most of the people in my limited sphere of influence had a better experience in life than they would have had if I had not been there, at least for a little while.  I can recall some of my efforts that had relatively big, tangible, positive impact on a few specific people. That is enough to make me feel great about what I accomplished in my career.

On the other hand, I think much of what I did was largely symbolic.  I am as big a believer in symbolic victory as the next person, but I do like to think that symbolic victories open the door and pave the way for more substantive triumphs.  I don’t completely dismiss the possibility that there are one or two people out there who may have truly benefited, in a very real way, from my employment.  However, I think most of my value was in listening, talking to people in a respectful way, and framing ideas so that they made sense to the other person based on his or her mindset.  I do believe all that is important in that it keeps the world turning a little smoother, but, let’s face it…. It doesn’t really change the price of tea in China.  From a big picture standpoint, I was basically irrelevant.

When I think of the tears I shed, the nights I didn’t sleep, and the harshness with which I chastised myself as I went through my career, I am now amazed.  What I have learned since retiring is…. It isn’t that big a deal.  Shocking, I know.

When I was working at my job, my brain knew that there were many more important things in life than whether I was a career star. There were more important things than having terrific office metrics.  There were more important things than getting a refund to a customer a few days faster than it would happen without my intervention.  There were more important things than supporting the career and personal growth of my employees.  It wasn’t difficult for me to name some of those more important things… faith, ethics, family, relationships.   Still, at some gut-wrenching, adrenaline-producing, crazy-making level, there was an undeniable force that drove my every action, emotion, and response during my work life.  It was that force that propelled me close to despair when I was not successful, even momentarily, in any of the “not so important” things.

Yes, being good at my job was very important.  It was critical that I be good enough at it to keep it and make a living.  It was also essential, from an ethical and self-respect standpoint, that I did my best.  It was important that I justify the trust my leaders put in me and the salary that the people of the United States were paying me.   However, meeting or exceeding every person’s every expectation of me truly was not that important.  First of all, it isn’t even possible to go through life without disappointing someone once in a while.  Second, sometimes people asked me for things that were not legal or ethical or reasonable.  Third, and it has taken me some time to realize this, some of those people didn’t even expect me to meet those stated expectations.  People were sometimes communicating what they wanted in an ideal world, but knew that what they were requesting was not realistic in any world in which we all live.  Somehow, I internalized all those requests as a sacred mandate.  I felt actual shame when I had to tell someone I had not achieved what they wanted.

I tried to explain this revelation to my friend, hoping that it would help her deal with her current work crisis.  She, of course, agreed with everything I was saying.  Intellectually, we all know these basic truths.  Hearing me say them didn’t make any difference to my friend.  It wouldn’t have made any difference to me when I was working, either.

Why is it that it is so hard to put things in proper perspective when we are still working?  When we are in the midst of the fray, it is as if there is some biological imperative to do what we are being asked to do that somehow overwhelms the good sense with which we were born.  We surrender our brains to the mercy of an overheated sympathetic nervous system.  Some people are able to wrangle those adrenaline responses.  They are able to balance those biological “fight or flight” reactions with the power of their innate reasoning ability.  Passion versus dispassion.  I wish I could have mastered that skill.   I might still be working today, if I had.

People often think that I am a fairly cool customer.  I come across as a logical, reasonable individual.  I think things through, probably to a fault.  I plan and strategize. I tackle things one step at a time.  I used to say “hope is not a strategy” and relied on an abundance of hard work rather than talent to succeed.  I believed I would meet my goals if I, like Dory, “just keep on swimmin’.”   I was always more of a plow horse than a race horse.  I don’t think I ever really saw myself as passionate in my career life.

As I write this, it dawns on me that maybe I was more passionate about my job than I realized.  Maybe the reason I have had trouble making this blog piece sit still is because I miss my job a little more than I thought I did.  Or maybe not.  Passion does exact a price.

What do you think?  For those of you who are retired, what do you miss about your work?  If you are considering retirement, what do you think you will miss the most?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  Have a wonderful day!

Terri 🙂

Taking the Plunge

Once or twice a year, something would happen at work that would stun me with its success. It might be that I’d solve some problem, convinced someone to do something that he or she didn’t want to do, got selected for some position I coveted, or just made a palpable difference in someone’s life. The improbability of the success of the accomplishment, as well as its elegance, would astonish me. I often exclaimed to anyone who would listen, “I might as well leave now and never come back because it’s never going to get any better than this.” I never really did leave and never come back, though.

Until today.

Today I retired and left my career as a mid-level manager for a major governmental agency. When I walked out of the building, I knew I was never coming back.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel. Everyone talks about needing to prepare oneself for the emotional transition retirement brings. But what will that emotional transition feel like and how does one prepare?

My mother was afraid that I might regret not being “important” anymore. First of all, I never was all that important. Yes, I worked hard and achieved a certain amount of success in my career. People in my industry knew and respected me. Still, I think my job would have been a whole lot less stressful if I was anywhere near as “important” as people seemed to think I was. If I was so important, maybe people would have done what I told them to do a little more often. It is a lot more work to influence than to control. I’m kind of looking forward to not being in charge of anything anymore. Maybe I’ll learn to do a little better being in charge of myself.

Some friends pointed out that, after over 33 years in the same line of work for the same employer, I might over-identify myself with my job. I might not know what to do with my time. They cautioned me that I needed to have plans to keep me from getting bored and depressed. Considering I am selling my tiny condominium in a relatively urban southwest area and preparing to move 3000 miles away to live in a house about three times the size of the condo in a “countryish” location in the southeast and then turning around and moving my mother to said “countryish” community, as well, and doing this all within four months of retirement, I’m not too worried about being bored.

Other friends cautioned that I might feel some bitterness, born of the mental and physical exhaustion I had been experiencing the last several years of my career. That exhaustion, caused by persistently trying to do the impossible and feeling like a failure when I did not succeed, was a key factor in my decision to retire when I did. Yes, there were things about the culture of my agency and things that happened in the workplace that I thought were unreasonable and depressing. Just like every other job in the world. I do believe, however, that the people with whom I worked and the people who made decisions that led to these conditions were operating with the absolute best of intentions. Sometimes, there just is no good answer. My reaction to the conditions is my own issue and, if I teeter on the edge of lunacy, that’s my problem. I have always chosen to be happy and grateful for the wonderful people with whom I lived my work life over the past 33 plus years. We all have days when things get us down, but my absolute sense of being blessed beyond all measure always has and always will overcome any tendency towards bitterness.

My only real concern has been the possibility of losing the love of the circle of true friends I’ve encountered during my working years. I know people often lose touch with their colleagues after retirement. While we meet many, many people with whom we are friendly as we earn our livings, I have crafted and nurtured a few true, solid, beautiful friendships over the past years. These are the soulmates whose loss would tear large, irreparable holes in the very make-up of my psyche. I will use the same skills I used to craft and nurture true friends out of colleagues to make sure I never lose them.

So, as I walk out of the building today, I feel no regret that I am giving up my work life and no relief that I have made it out of an intolerable situation alive. After having the most beautiful send-off a person could imagine, I leave with joy. I am blessed to have had my career and I believe that others were blessed by my presence in that career. I am astonished, awed, and humbled by the knowledge that I have made a difference to people.

My career is not who I am. Who I am is what made my career a success. And I take who I am with me into the next chapter of my life.