Assessing a Career

It’s hard to believe that there are only 7 more days before “The Big Day” – first day of retirement!  I’ve been reflecting a little bit (okay a lot) on my 44 year working life.

It started in July 1970 with my summer job in the livestock office at Burns Foods in Winnipeg.  Back in the day they were still using comptometers as calculators.  My job was to calculate the combined weights of the cattle being slaughtered for the various farmers.  After the first week my father (who was the plant superintendent) asked my boss how I was doing.

“She’s still a little slow on the comptometer” was the response.  Or so I heard that night at the supper table.  Then my father told me the trick to up my speed.  Instead of going all the way up the scale to the 8 or 9 – add the 4 & 5 – my father was nothing if not an efficiency expert.  Sure enough by the end of the second week I was going as fast as the woman who had been doing this job for 15 years.  Invariable over the years I would talk about my job at the supper table and often I got some good advice from either of my parents on how to handle matters as they came up.

I’ve worked in a lot of different sectors but excepting my second summer job when I worked on the bacon line at Burns I have always worked in an office environment.  My first full time job was at an insurance company as a telex operator (does anyone remember those pieces of equipment?) but I’ve worked in manufacturing, furniture stores, charitable foundations, law offices, car dealerships, engineering firms and oil companies.  I can say that every job taught me something from new skills (telexing, splicing film, bookkeeping, payroll, computer skills, troubleshooting car repairs) but more importantly I learned to interface with a variety of personalities.  It was extremely rare for me to work with someone who I simply could not get along with, somehow I always managed to find some common ground, but there were a few times where it was impossible.  What did I do?  I quit. 

Common themes in my career were Organization and Friendship.  I still have friends that started back in 1978 from my first law firm but what is most amazing is that in the last 15 years I have developed so many more friendships than ever before.  Something that I have discovered in myself is that I really like people.  I honestly think that if that is the only knowledge to come out of my 44 years of working I walk away rich.

Thanks to The Man.

Questions that are asked

The number one question asked when a retirement is announced?   

“What are you going to do?”  Answers vary:

• Rest
• Finish projects
• Harvest
• Read
• Rest
• Craft
• Farm
• Rest
• Travel
• More rest

You get the idea.  One thing this girl is not going to do is “work”.  After 40 years and before that 12 years of school, well, it’s time to go back to the playground and just play, eat and sleep.  I’m kinda liking that.

Extracurricular Activities

It’s not all work, work, work even though I am extracting all my hard won knowledge to a diligent student.  I put on my entrepreneur’s hat and sent out a note to my colleagues inquiring if they would be interested in purchasing some eggs from a high performing team of hens.  To my amazement I had a resounding response of “yes, yes, yes” and I am sold out of eggs in one day!  Heavens, who knew?

Actually I must say that I am getting my money’s worth in entertainment out of those little Henriettas of mine.  Every day I find them more tame and willing to respond to my voice.  Certainly they are huddling t my feet, in submission but with the keen idea that once they are petted they are going to get a handful of bird seed (rightly figured out).  But they are so sweet and anxious as they hear me step out of the house or the car at night, anxious to have a visit from the seed feeder (that would be me of course).  When they are let out for their daily run they stream along the grass and look like nothing so much as those “weebles wobble but they don’t fall down” toys.

Any time they hear me call their name they come to attention (most of them) and rush towards me hoping for some treat or other.  Then we have the little rogues who turn a deaf ear and continue chasing butterflies, bugs or some elusive plant life just around the next stone, shrub or tree root.  When I come after them with the broom (known as the persuadercator) they eye it cautiously and then hop around it and head somewhat aimlessly towards a distance that might be “home”.  Most of the time they manage to swing around the corner of the garden shed and hit their coop run, but every once in a while one of them looses her head and ends up going in the opposite direction.  I am pretty sure that I’ve already lost 5 pounds just in running after hens!

Yes, I am entertained daily by these little critters.  Who needs internet games or television when there’s wild life out there?

Imparting Knowledge

This week I begin the daunting task of imparting all my knowledge to someone else.  It has been said time and again that “no one is irreplaceable” and yet when one is trying to train someone it often becomes more like “molding in one’s image”.  The truth is that as much as one would like to think that the job has been done to the best of anyone’s ability, a new person will always put on their own stamp and make the job their own.  And that is as it should be. I can live with that, I can give up control of the position and the job. 

It has been a long time since I’ve trained someone to take over for me but the mantle of mentorship falls quickly around my shoulders.  There’s a feeling of pride in what I do and know and there’s a strong element of caring, of wanting the successor to succeed.  I try not to hover over her shoulder, I won’t criticize if the wording isn’t exactly the same as what I would do, I remind myself that she is making this her own.  The control freak is retiring.

As I begin the onboarding of my replacement I am also offboarding myself and that feels a little strange.  But am I feeling anxiety?  Not yet but I know the shoe will drop at some point. 

Day 2 towards Retirement

It’s back to work after my last Labour Day Weekend as a working girl.  Going to work today I recollect many firsts, all those first day of schools, the first days back at work after vacation, starting new jobs, traveling to new lands but I barely remember any significant “lasts”.  The only last day that comes to mind is my last day of high school, or rather, my last week of high school.  It was a very strange time for all of us, with the halls eerily quiet for hours at a stretch because a terrible event had happened over the weekend and we were all trying to cope with that.  Many of us simply went through the motions of studying for final exams, even writing the exams with a certain lethargy or unreality.  I can remember those days as though it happened last week.

What I worry about today is will I be doing a “mental checkout” at work in these final days?  Will I forget my 40 years of disciplined professionalism and not care about my work?  I tell myself to brace my attention to perform even higher than usual because it would be a shame to leave on any sort of sour note, however unintentional it might be.  I also coach myself to guard against being too comfortable on my drive because I sure don’t want to have an accident in this final month of driving.  

It’s typical of me to worry and its classic thought process for me to take the long view.  My life may be changing but it may take time (perhaps it will be never) for me to change my style of thinking.  Conscientious is my middle name.

Countdown to Retirement

In one month, 30 days, 20 working days, I will be ending a 40 year career, a working life, varied, mundane, energized, interesting, but ending.  In the days since making the decision and then making a public announcement I have experienced a growing sense of joy as the reality and finality of sunk in my brain.  I thought for sure I would be feeling regrets, anxiety, doubt and myriad other negative emotions but to the contrary every thought and feeling has been positive and given me more energy and delight as the days move on towards a New Phase of My Life.

How did I come to this momentous decision at least a year before my “soft goal”?  The stars aligned and the timing seemed right.  Over the last 11 months I have struggled to recover from a freak knee injury and it has become very clear that a large part of the delayed recover has been due to a very sedentary lifestyle that is caused by a 12 to 14 hour working life.  To use the old fashioned term I am a secretary, I am stationed at my desk for the biggest part of my day capped on either side by a 90 minute commute.  One of my therapists said that even though I am very flexible, in fact, because I am so flexible (thanks to 10 years of yoga practice) my muscles have worked against me in my recovery. 

With an aging mother now residing with me, with a body that needs a different lifestyle, and lastly, realizing that life is moving inexorably onward it just seemed right to think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life while there was still time to have a quality of life in which to do that living.  I asked myself “when is enough enough?” and concluded that come what may, the time was now.

I look forward to an active, interesting retirement from a structured working life to a time of adventure that includes flexibility with time and days filled with projects of varied interests.  I feel very fortunate to have so many interests that are fairly inexpensive to develop.  The question will be, what do I start on first?

Stay tuned as I start my countdown to September 30^th, my last day of work and October 1^st my first day of my new life.  Will I start to get cold feet, will the enthusiasm become so much greater that I burst out in song?  Can you picture me dancing down the halls at work singing “I’m free, I’m free, I’m free at last”?  We will see.

 

Hermione and Frederica

It was a wonderful weekend with sunshine and so I ventured down to finish the chicken coop stoop.    I turned to look at her and she continued making these incredible squawking sounds and so I asked “Hermione, have you laid an egg?”

I clambered up from my knees and peaked into the coop, looking in the obvious corners but I saw nothing exciting there.  Then I looked behind the door and sure enough, there was a brown egg a little larger than a robin’s egg.  I picked it up and found it very hot, it had only been out for a few seconds.  Imagine the thrill of having the hen produce 2 months early (according to some blog which I now feel is unreliable).  As I praised the hen her faithful friend Winifred stood by while all the rest of the sisters were out chasing butterflies.  There was nothing for it but to give the two girls some bird seed as a reward.

I then hurriedly finished the stoop and then began to clean out the chicken coop.  Now that the hens were going to produce it was imperative that the coop be fresh, clean and ready for nesting.  The nesting boxes had been used as a roost for the last month so I had to pull them out and give them a thorough scrubbing and then raise them up off the floor so they could be used for proper nesting.  I carefully laid fresh straw in all eight nests, patting it down and making a little nest for the Henriettas’ comfort.

There was no further action on Saturday but lo, on Sunday I had the thrill of seeing Hermione up in one of the nests, making a commotion, trying to settle herself down.  I carefully shut the door so she could have privacy to concentrate.  An hour later Mother said “there’s that special squawk” so I hurried down to investigate but there was the hen, still nesting.  Another hour passed and I heard the announcement.  Again I went down and lo and behold, two eggs!  Winifred had hopped up and nested in the same nest as Hermione!  Well, the girls were getting the hang of it.

Now the question is, how quickly will the eggs get up to normal size, and when will the remaining 24 begin?  And somehow I have a feeling I will run out of egg cartons.  Now what was a wishing for?

Vacation, Staycation, Workcation

A vacation is supposed to be a restful break from work but even when one travels it seems that there are pressures brought to bear to make for stress, things like catching planes, scheduling glitches, and then squeezing so much into each day that fun sometimes becomes a chore.  Then there is the “staycation” where one stays home and hopes to lounge around and just enjoy home life.  Instead chores around the home crop up, family arrives to be entertained, and before you know it, it is time to go back to the grind.

And then there is the deliberate “work-cation” where one plans to work through the vacation.  My experience with this first serious workcation resulted in overwhelming relief at returning to regular work and giving the safety moment “know your limitations when doing home repairs”.

No, we did not have any accidents or even any near misses thanks to all my efforts as ground crew, cleaning up daily all the shingles, nails, papers and wires that were coming off the roof as we tore off the old shingles and proceeded with building up the new roof.  Despite careful planning, timing the work to coincide with the typically nicest two weeks of the summer we were forced to deal with 3 weeks of excessive heat, two days of high winds and several bouts of thunderstorms.  So much for planning against Mother Nature!

One night I woke from my sleep to hear my mother calling me.  This is something that has never happened before so I hurriedly put on my glasses and ran to her room only to find her standing in the middle of her room with a towel and bowl, desperately trying to catch water which my startled eyes saw streaming out of the light fixture in the ceiling.  Good heavens!  All through the house the rain was pouring in through the light fixtures.  I kept Mom there holding onto a bowl while I ran around getting plastic table clothes laid on furniture, then running for yoga mats, pots, bowls and anything else that would hold water.  I finally managed to get back to her room to lay out plastic, garbage buckets and towels to save her bedding. 

Since we were only replacing the front roof my own bedroom was dry and I gave her my room to sleep in while I staggered down to the basement to sleep.  I was awake most of the night though as it is such an uncomfortable bed and finally I dragged myself upstairs to discover Mom had decided to sleep in her own bed so myself sacrifice was for naught.  Woe is me.

That was the high drama of my two week workcation!