Exactly six months ago, I retired… (part 3)
8/16/24
Exactly six months ago, I retired… and I don’t miss my job at all. In fact, I rarely think about it. I don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to think about it. But, I guess I do want it to miss me – to think about me.
Maybe I am missed there and just don’t know about it. I worked at some version of this job (for the most part) for more than 25 years and had many co-workers I was friendly with, some that became actual friends outside of the office. Before retiring, I worked from home for 9 years. There had been many changes over the years (from relocations of job functions, to selling off portions of the business, to changes in ownership of what little remained) and the very few of us that were still part of it locally worked remotely for the past 9 years. When I say locally, I mean within a few neighboring counties — within about 75 miles of each other. So, we didn’t see each other much, didn’t work in person with each other much, and didn’t mingle outside of work much. Many of the handful that remained were also newer hires – not part of the core group that I’ve known for 25+ years. So, I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say there weren’t many left that I had regular contact with – not enough interaction to bump into them outside work in the past few months to ask how things are going.
I have been invited to some team lunches at a local restaurant since retirement and I had a couple lunches scheduled with one of my remaining long-term friends (and my final boss). The one-on-one lunches didn’t happen due to some poorly-timed medical issues of mine (shingles and Covid, to be specific, as if these could ever be well-timed) and the team lunches either didn’t work in my schedule or I avoided them at the time. I skipped at least one team lunch for the reasons noted above – I didn’t want to miss my job and didn’t want to think about it. To be honest, I also didn’t feel that I had much to say about my retirement yet [NOTE: I’m foreshadowing for the next topic a little bit here]. But, mainly I didn’t want to hear a bunch of fluff talk about how they missed me and how they wanted me back. I didn’t want it to just be talk. I’m sure I was overthinking it, but the lunches I skipped were too soon after my retirement – not long enough for them to really need me back and I didn’t want to listen to them say it when they didn’t mean it. Also, (and this is contradictory to my comment above) I didn’t want to be needed just yet – meaning I didn’t want to be asked any questions about past issues that came up or how I would handle a certain situation that they recently had to deal with in my absence. I hadn’t been away from it long enough yet and didn’t feel retired from it long enough yet to want to field those kinds of questions. Probably more than anything, I didn’t want to hear about how I wasn’t actually needed and things were just fine – if that has truly been the case.
Now, six months after retirement, I’m ready for them to tell me how much they miss me. I think I’ve secretly hoped at some point I would be asked to come back (begged to come back even) – not jokingly but seriously. I wouldn’t actually go back, but I want to feel that my contribution for 25+ years was significant enough that they would realize they need me there a little bit longer. Coincidentally, I do have a lunch rescheduled soon with my former boss – just a lunch as friends, not to be begged to come back … at least I don’t think so. 🙂
next blog entry…
[8/16/24] Exactly six months ago, I retired… (part 4)
previous blog entry…
[8/16/24] Exactly six months ago, I retired… (part 2)
RetiredInIndiana 