Retirement blues
I retired two-plus years ago. Not exactly front-page news.
I don’t want to name where I worked. Years ago I posted on Blogspot about working holidays. It was upbeat and positive. What triggered the blog post was a highly trained professional who wasn’t known for their sunny disposition and Christmas just made it worse. The anger and resentment and “You’re stupid for working the holiday” message was a surprise for me. The rest of us just dealt with the day. In the post I elaborated about how we spent the holiday by being positive, lots of food and treated the day like a weekend.
Two days later I received “feedback” from higher-ups who had alerts set-up anytime the place was mentioned. I didn’t know that. Some of it was positive, others decided I needed to not air dirty laundry on a blog post probably seen by fives of people. I learned a valuable lesson!
I was going to post an emotion-filled post right after I retired. It’s a milestone in life.
I also wanted to kvetch about the morons I worked with, the incompetent HR people and the colorful individuals I’ve met. And include the sense of belonging and belief in the goals and successes there. My admiration for the dedication to helping people. A thousand people working together to improve the quality of lives of tens of thousands of people.
Miracles
I saw miracles every day.
Funny thing about miracles is they don’t follow a recipe. They can pass you by if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Up and vanish like a fart in the wind.
It took me a few years to learn to recognize them. Imagine being in a place where tiny milestones are literal miracles. Lots of milestones add up. Next thing you know, BAM! Miracle.
But miracles are like cats. Their own pace, their own schedule. Miracles are more generous. The only ask for hard work, a strong sense of commitment and belief in a power higher than yourself. That higher power isn’t capitalized. A friend has a blood-red, Chinese dragon carved of wood that’s their higher power. Each day their internal conversations, observations, prayers and problems are handed over to the dragon. I’ve known many recovering people who shun the traditional higher power mode. A dragon works just fine.
I saw people whose room was their higher power. Miracles happened within those walls. As soon as they crossed the threshold, things got better and it was space to practice their contemplations.
I think my car was a kind of higher power. Driving US 285 was always a prayer waiting to happen. There’s a bumper sticker that says, “Pray for me, I drive 285.”
I processed a lot on the way to and home from work. Trying to process the balance of miracles to morons. For every miracle I saw I dealt with five morons.
A person who called me old and triggered a state-level age discrimination investigation that doesn’t go away easily.
Straw-lover
Then there’s the kid who wrote me up because they left their open energy drink on my desk. That’s a big no-no. I tossed it. They complained because I tossed the drink and their favorite straw. I told them to fish it out of the trash and wash it. NO! I offered to pay for the drink. NO!
They wrote me up. My direct supervisors told him to ‘get over it’ but straw-lover had other ideas. The HR meeting was fun. HR explained that the energy-drink person was concerned about the environment and throwing out a straw was an abuse of the earth. HR tried to make me cry. Didn’t I care about the earth? Didn’t I care that I upset someone? I told them that if that’s their strategy, they suck at their job.
I came up with a solution: call security to walk me to my desk, I’d grab my purse and stuff, log out, badge out and they could escort me to my car and I’d drive away into the sunset. It was a Tuesday, 10 am and Target was right there. I realized I’d been given the gift of time. No, no, no, they said that wasn’t necessary. “I thought so,” I said. I went back to my desk.
Screwing with the meanest person in the room
Another day I was reading something I had taken off the printer. I was an important document and mistakes affect people. Ask the person who was hired to replace me and sent 8 people to the wrong locations for wrong appointments including appointments that involve sharp instruments and blood.
Anyway, I’m there, reading and a young person comes up and tries to push me over. Onto a concrete floor. To make me collapse like a sack of potatoes. I asked them what the fuck was their problem and their response was they just wanted to see if they could knock me over. They couldn’t. I outweigh them by 100 pounds and I’ve been trained in a dojo where such tactics were addressed and countermoves taught. I used my own countermove. I told them if they tried that again, we’ll have our conversation in HR with the morons.
Ears are for listening
I had a NOC person who every night they came in, they’d put their nose to the side of my face and breathe into my ear. Now they were the sweetest person you could every hope to meet. Kind, generous, filled with wonderful qualities that make them a marvelous human being. The bitch kept blowing into my ear with their nose. I asked them to stop. They didn’t. I told them if they did it again we’d end up in HR with the morons. They stopped blowing in my ear and started kissing the top of my head. I changed floors soon after that.
No boundaries
My first boss was one of those skinny, fast-talking types. We had an emergency and I was entering orders into the computer. Boss was standing right behind me and reached around my shoulders, pushed my hands off the keyboard and began typing the orders with me in between them and the keyboard because I wasn’t going fast enough. I pushed back in my chair. HARD. I told them if they ever touched me again I’d knock the shit out of them.
I can’t, you can’t
About a year after starting the job I had to have major surgery. Surgery as in this has to happen tomorrow, your life is in danger. Things moved pretty fast and I went to skinny, fast-talker boss to hand in the LOA paperwork. They told me I couldn’t have the surgery because they needed the same surgery and if they couldn’t have it, neither could I. I told them, “Watch me.”
I left and went down to the employee-support department and explained the situation. The safety officer told me to wait in the office. Fifteen minutes later they returned with the signed form and their face flushed with victory and the sheer joy of chewing out an asshole.
What’s in a name?
A very well-known professional and their group entered into a contract with our company. Cursory introductions were made. I learned their names as you do with new people.
A few days later I hear, “Hey!” Now that could be anyone. There’s sometimes 20 people in the area. Then again I hear, “HEY!” I guessed they were talking to me. I turned around.
The person was behind me and I asked if they were talking to me. They said yes. They told me what they needed. No please, no thanks, just “HEY!” I told them in a very pleasant voice, “I’m Barbara and I’m here and happy to help you.”
Their response was, “You don’t deserve to be called by your first name so just get busy and do what I asked you to do.”
I looked at him. My coworkers know that look. People started to scatter from the area we were in. They scattered like rats. They knew what was coming and NOBODY wanted to watch. Chicken shits. I’d pull out my phone, grab a snack and watch the saga unfold.
I looked at that person and said, “Say that again.”
They did.
I grabbed someone and told them to sit at my desk. They said no. I said sit and still be sitting here when I get back or I write YOU up for abandoning the post.
I search for my direct supervisor. Finally found them in a meeting that had just ended. That person and their boss and the top boss came out. I told my boss I needed to talk to them. The other two said, “You seem upset, how can we help?”
Both were new, one, it was their second day. I told them I didn’t trust them but I trusted my boss and I’m only talking to my boss. They looked surprised.
I told the boss what was said. They asked if others heard it. I gave them the names of people who were in the area and I KNOW heard what was said. I threw them under the bus without a qualm.
Boss looked thoughtful for a moment, then their eyes narrowed and they said, “Tell me the story again.”
They sent me back to my desk. The Blue Meanie was gone. The person I threatened with abandoning the post was still there. I told them they could leave and they lit out as if they were giving out free cocaine in the lobby.
From what I hear, the person who thought people didn’t deserve to be called by their first name had a lot happen to them: several follow-ups, meetings with a litany of higher-ups including the new boss now with three days tenure, threats to cancel contracts, sincerely written apologies, a behavior plan and general humiliation. I never got an apology from that person, only from management.
Waiting …
Anyway, I thought I’d wait to write the post when the retirement blues kicked in. It’s been 29 months and I’m still waiting.
