The Big Dichotomy

(And this is nothing to do with The Big Lebowski - I think...).

I am now just about to enter my final month of full time paid employment, having worked for the past 41-and-a-bit years in the IT industry (and, more specifically, all for the same company), and am currently enjoying a preview of retired life, having a week's holiday in Lanzarote. Despite being away from work (and having no access to work-related emails), my mind still keeps wandering back to the activities that were underway just before we left (including a bid for an 8 year contract at one of my clients).

So, here's the thing...

I'm absolutely certain that I'm ready to retire - I am at the point where I no longer want (or need) to dedicate the huge amount of hours, effort, energy and pure grunt work that is required for my job to be successful and rewarding (I am certain that most of you are of a similar mind to me - do it well or not at all). However, despite this, I keep getting feelings of anxiety and misgivings about the move away from the structures and formalities of work - I want to stop but I also know that I will miss it. I can see that, when 31st March does arrive (and it is getting ever closer), it will, despite my hopes and plans for a gentle glidepath, be a cold turkey event and then some.

That confused, bewildered (and, I guess, slightly hungover) person that you may see on 1st April - well, that'll be me....

This might take a while......

....I've been trying to speak to HMRC to inform them of my impending retirement, in a desperate (and quite likely, doomed) attempt to stop them taxing me up to the eyeballs.

It seems that they don't have the most efficient customer service desk in the world......

When all else fails, Dilbert has the answer......

The standard question that arises whenever I let any of my work colleagues know about my impending retirement is "so, what are you going to do next?", expecting the answer to involve some kind of continuation of my current work (part time consultancy or some such) or embarking on another bout of paid employment. Apart from a few notable exceptions, they seem to have difficulty adjusting to the fact that, come the magic day, I want to run as far away from my current employment world as possible. I also have some trouble in explaining quite why that is the case.

Fear not though, because, as ever, Dilbert manages to encapsulate my thoughts far more succinctly (and way more humorously) than I ever could....

(Also - please note that I've added a "follow by email" widget thing over there to the right of this column, so, if you feel so inclined, you can get electronically prodded whenever I add anything).

Well, here we go.....

Having worked from the age of 14 (I started with a paper round - I used to hate Thursdays when all the Radio Times, TV Times and other supplements were delivered) and, apart from holidays and occasional illness, having not been out of work, I am now 27 days away from retirement. This seemingly everyday event feels overly momentous, and (dare I say) more than a little scary. So, to help keep track of the many (probably too many) and various  things that I have said that I will try out in order to enrich this new phase of my life, I'll be posting an occasional retirement blog.

More importantly, I want to keep a track on my feelings as I move away from a world where I had some form of measure my "worth" (no matter how artificial and narrow) in terms of achievements in the work place to a new world that will be considerably less structured.

The big day is Thursday 31st March - between now and then, there's a heap of stuff to do - buy a car, sort the pension, handover all my work stuff and, most importantly, make sure I get to say goodbye to (a.k.a have quite a few beers with) a significant number of workmates over the country who have been putting up with me for years.

So, that's it for now - more details as the big day gets closer......