So. Farewell then....

After a grand total of 41 years, 5 months 23 days of working in the IT industry – and, in fact, for the same company – I’m about to call it quits. I’m just heading into the office for the very last time to hand in my company effects – PC, phone, ID card and so on – and , I’m half expecting that they’ll rip off my badges and buttons, break my sword, and drum me out of the fort (those of you of a certain age will get the reference).

I will then meet up with a sizeable band of work colleagues to mark the passing of this particular milestone by drinking myself to a standstill.

And then the adventure starts….

Aha!! (and not in an Alan Partridge way...)

I had one of those moments yesterday, when I realised what it was that was causing me to feel a little anxious and unsettled about giving up work. Obviously, I will miss the people I work with (well, some of them..!) and the intellectual, commercial, contractual and logistical challenges that arise more regularly than you would think possible in the boring old world of corporate IT outsourcing, but I now know the one thing that will really leave a hole.

Being in demand.

Yesterday, I got a request to join one of our senior consultants for a day's workshop up in Edinburgh with a prospective client. As the day in question was the day before my retirement, I very politely declined and, in a very professional manner, found someone who could do the gig in my place. However, what struck me was the fact that I got a small (but noticeable) buzz out of the fact that I was being asked to attend purely because of my knowledge and experience. It may come across as being rather egotistical (those who know me well may be entirely used to this!) but it's the "we want you to help us because you're good at this" that I think I will miss way more than I thought. It's taken me a long time to get to "elder statesman" status and that's a big thing to relinquish.

So - the task ahead is to find something else (other than the boring old world of corporate IT outsourcing) that I can be really good at.......

The Finish Line Is In Sight

It’s now 10 working days to the fateful day, and (at last!!), my workload is really tailing off. Major milestones that I have passed since my last blog:-

·         I have finished my last ever monthly sales and revenue forecast review session (by my reckoning, I have done over 400 of these in my working life)

·         I have written my last ever performance appraisal for one of the team who work for me (I can’t begin to guess how many of these I’ve written over the years)

·         My inbox has a total of 4 (count ‘em – 4!!) messages in it waiting to be dealt with

·         My diary for next week contains the grand total of 7 appointments (that was the average for a single morning previously)

·         I’ve just dumped a couple of my work suits – I skipped my usual “buy two extra suits at the start of each year” this time around, and have been eking out my current set of suits, hoping they will go the distance. I noticed that two of them are a little worse for wear, and, courtesy of extended usage, have some additional ventilation in the “gentlemen’s area” so they have been consigned to history. The remaining three should see out my final days.  

Come the end of next week, I will have also completed my last visit to my client in Huntingdon (being as I live in Broadstairs, that’s a journey I will be immensely pleased to never have to experience again!), and then it will a gentle run down of tidying up some administration, tying up a few loose ends, going through the pointless farrago of an exit interview (I’m retiring because I’m old and my pension is sort of where I need it to be – what more do you need to know?) and being on hand to deal with any last minute queries before I finally hand in my phone, company credit card, PC and ID card (oh, and my last expenses claim!). However, the one thing I am really, really looking forward to is telling LinkedIn to bugger off and leave me alone…..

The Final Countdown

I am now into the final month of full time paid employment (14 working days to go and counting) – pension papers have been submitted, annual rail season ticket has run out, my two major clients are now in the hands of my colleagues and I have stepped back from my front-line role and am acting more as an advisor.

Having just returned to work after a week’s leave (Lanzarote – very nice, thank you), the idea of not working is finally beginning to transform from a vaguely understood (and more than a little mistrusted) wraith-like notion to a more solid reality. The balance between trepidation and excitement is ever so slowly tipping in favour of the latter.

Consequently, I can start taking my panic head off and put on my “so what will I do when I retire” head. To that end, I have dipped my toe in the water of the great wide world of stuff I really would like to give a try, and have compiled the following list. I’ll make a note in my diary to check back in on this list in April 2017 and I’ll report back on how far I’ve got (if anywhere!).

·         Instrument making – this is a real long shot, but I would love to have a go at making my own guitars. Starting from my base of zero knowledge, it may take a long time to get there, but time is something I should have a lot more of (I’ve also got a very large patch at the bottom of the garden that never sees any light, so a big boy’s workshop may also be on the cards).

·         The local chess club – as a musician and a mathematician, I should be able to complete this triangle of related activities and play chess. I’ve never had the time to get anywhere near understanding how the game works, so now is my chance.

·         Bread making – Graham, my fellow musician and band member, makes astounding bread (I’ve already nicked one of his recipes). I used to make bread some time ago and really enjoyed it.

·         Home brewing – now that you can buy virtually a complete mini-brewery, and brew beer from scratch, this is looks like a great candidate for filling up some more of the space in that huge workshop at the bottom of the garden (see  “Instrument making” above….).

·         Films – myself and the GLW are big film buffs, and I have “I must get round to seeing” list as long as my arm. We have an abundance of good independent cinemas near us (The Carlton in Westgate; The Curzon in Canterbury; The Palace in Broadstairs) that will now receive the benefit of my hard earned pension cash.

·         Play better! – my mandolin playing is based on taking my guitar playing style and transposing it to mandolin (which isn’t really the way you should do it – I really should unlearn all my guitar stuff and start from scratch). Similarly for Dobro, which is even further down the scale of “stuff I do reasonably well”. I’ve signed up for a bunch of instruction courses (Peghead Nation – well worth checking out) and, although I’ve said it every year for about the past 7 years, this is the year that I really get my act together!

That’s probably enough to be getting on with (and that’s ignoring the various charities and voluntary stuff that I am involved in, and the fact that the house needs quite a bit of TLC) – let’s give it a year and see how I get on……. 

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......