Bezabor: Well, today is the long-awaited day. I retired this afternoon with nearly 29 years of service. When I signed up for this career path, I was expecting to last out the 'normal' 30 years but was very fortunate ... my employer was cutting back and offered me an incentive to retire early. An early retirement is both good news and bad news, of course. You get the freedom of retirement but at a price-- a hefty reduction in income when you switch from regular pay to a monthly annuity of about half that-- but then again, it's in some ways 'free money'. I've locked in that income and if I have to I can go to work somewhere else.
When you think about retirement, you think it's going to wind down slowly.... but in my case the last year was busier than ever-- particularly the last month. The same staffing cutbacks that allowed me the wonderful benefit of retiring early brought extra hours and a frenetic pace. And when the heavy vacation month of August rolled around, it looked like it was going to be busy just covering for my vacationing. But on top of that we had an extra measure of challenges-- quick-turnaround projects which just would not wait for all our folks to get back. Well, no matter now--- it wasn't all THAT bad--- just nothing like the vision of your waning days at work. I did not expect to work three hours of overtime the night before my retirement party yesterday. And I didn't expect to attend a long meeting on my last day at work (That even surprised some of the other folks on the conference call ("I thought you were retiring today. What are you doing here?" asked one. All I could say was "I can't go home till all my work is done".) But on the other hand, if I had made an early exit I'd have missed the opportunity to talk to some of the terrific people I work with. Several stopped by to wish me good luck and promise to stay in touch and two long-time work-friends took me to lunch. Pretty cool!
The bureaucracy is having one more bit of fun with me. It was late in the day and nearly everyone had left when I met with our Security manager about turning in my vehicle stickers and ID badge. He told me all I had to do was drop off my badge and decals in a drop box at the gate when I left. At the gate, I dropped off myh little package into the drop box, then noticed a sign on the box--- it said "Attention Retirees: Do not drop your badge and decals in this box. You must sign out in person. If you do not, you must return next business day to do so". So I spent the extra time to exit (there was nowhere else to go) and turned around and drove up to the guard at the inbound gate. I explained my situation and asked if he had a signout log for me to sign. He said "No, the guy who has the log left a half-hour ago and you'll have to come back Tuesday" (the first business day after Labor Day). The guard said he had been told by the signout-log guy that there would be a lot of retirees today and the procedure had just been changed and to be sure to pass the word to the other guards to not let us use the drop box. But he didn't (apparently) pass the word to the security staff that would be advising us of the new procedure! So, looks like I have to do my normal 40 mile commute to sign out on Tuesday. Ya gotta love it.
When you think about retirement, you think it's going to wind down slowly.... but in my case the last year was busier than ever-- particularly the last month. The same staffing cutbacks that allowed me the wonderful benefit of retiring early brought extra hours and a frenetic pace. And when the heavy vacation month of August rolled around, it looked like it was going to be busy just covering for my vacationing. But on top of that we had an extra measure of challenges-- quick-turnaround projects which just would not wait for all our folks to get back. Well, no matter now--- it wasn't all THAT bad--- just nothing like the vision of your waning days at work. I did not expect to work three hours of overtime the night before my retirement party yesterday. And I didn't expect to attend a long meeting on my last day at work (That even surprised some of the other folks on the conference call ("I thought you were retiring today. What are you doing here?" asked one. All I could say was "I can't go home till all my work is done".) But on the other hand, if I had made an early exit I'd have missed the opportunity to talk to some of the terrific people I work with. Several stopped by to wish me good luck and promise to stay in touch and two long-time work-friends took me to lunch. Pretty cool!
The bureaucracy is having one more bit of fun with me. It was late in the day and nearly everyone had left when I met with our Security manager about turning in my vehicle stickers and ID badge. He told me all I had to do was drop off my badge and decals in a drop box at the gate when I left. At the gate, I dropped off myh little package into the drop box, then noticed a sign on the box--- it said "Attention Retirees: Do not drop your badge and decals in this box. You must sign out in person. If you do not, you must return next business day to do so". So I spent the extra time to exit (there was nowhere else to go) and turned around and drove up to the guard at the inbound gate. I explained my situation and asked if he had a signout log for me to sign. He said "No, the guy who has the log left a half-hour ago and you'll have to come back Tuesday" (the first business day after Labor Day). The guard said he had been told by the signout-log guy that there would be a lot of retirees today and the procedure had just been changed and to be sure to pass the word to the other guards to not let us use the drop box. But he didn't (apparently) pass the word to the security staff that would be advising us of the new procedure! So, looks like I have to do my normal 40 mile commute to sign out on Tuesday. Ya gotta love it.
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 20:59
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