Confessions

It is time to finally put in writing the things I've always wanted to confess about.  Or, should it be "to confess to"?  At this particular moment in time it is with effortless eloquence that I am able to say, "Does it really matter?" That is, of course, a far more polite version of, "Who cares?"  What am I talking about here?

Well, I wanted to make the reader guess with a few tantalizing clues. For example, I'm still in my pajamas. What's so remarkable about that? Well, it's 10:00 a.m.  And it's Tuesday. I can't be.  What? 

If you're reading this instead of a memo from your boss, you need to stop now; or, if you're mulling over a packed itinerary for a dreadful business trip on which your boss decided to tag along because he wanted to meet with your clients, some of whom you're not on a first name basis with, or worse, some don't even really know who you are, then close this page; or, reading this instead of the latest packet from HR that is required reading for the next sensitivity training where your attendance is absolutely and unconditionally required, then perhaps you had better focus on the reading material.  That is because  you're still at work, and if you must insist on reading this, then you had better be bullet proof.  Otherwise, for now, make sure you remain employable. Or, at a bare minimum, try to keep this job. Remember that if it's Tuesday and it's 10:00 a.m. and you're reading this, it is the moral equivalent of a bureaucrat reading a subversive material in Moscow in the 1950s that could result in a hasty train ride to Siberia. Or, it could be more severely punishable if you were reading this during your 15-minute break at a factory in Guangdong during the Cultural Revolution.

You know why? You're at work and you need to stay employed.  By the way, "bullet proof" only means that you are fully vested in your pension plan and that your Individual Retirement Account is to be envied by any financial adviser worth his or her salt. And you're literally months, or better still - weeks - from getting that retirement watch or some kind of memento they dole out these days commensurate with your rank and seniority in the proverbial corporate totem pole. If you are that bullet proof, then keep reading.

To the other readers: If you are like me, and unless you're planning to go somewhere, PJs and bathrobes can be normal apparel till lunch time, slippers are optional accessories. That's because, like me, you too are retired.  

To all currently employed, you had a taste of this, albeit temporarily, during the Covid lockdown.  Those pajama days are now over. Time to get back to work and insure that Social Security remains solvent; at least, for it to stay afloat for the foreseeable future of at least ten more years.  That takes care of all of us - the first and last of the baby boomers.

But what's with the confession? Sometimes, it is about guilt.  I retired on the month of April (been years now since) - and it was a particularly rainy month.  One morning, it was probably 5:00 a.m., I woke up to some distant thunder that seemed to roll ever closer like a herd of stampeding buffalos during a Serengeti migration. Then, it started raining.  Buckets. I forgot to turn off the alarm radio - again - that is tuned to the local station. It was the weather report, "We have a weather advisory. It is unseasonably cold this morning in the mid 50s and wind chill in the 40s and we expect all-day rain and thunderstorm .."  I was still half awake and dreading the prospect of having to drive on a day like that.  Then, suddenly like a lightning flash that had been getting through the blinds, I realized I didn't have to go to work that morning.  Or ever again! 

Now, you know what it is to be both feeling guilty and ecstatic at the same time.  I warned you dear reader.  If you're at work reading about this, you were warned.  I felt bad that you had to go to work today.  Drenched. Miserable too because half your co-workers didn't come to work.  The half that heard on the radio about school closings and potential widespread flooding.  Oh, well.

But it is not all that rosy for us retirees. I have nightmares.  Other retirees have confirmed this phenomenon. The dreams are vivid. I am about to make a presentation where high ranking execs will be in attendance. I was not only unprepared, I had no Power Point slides or notes.  Worse, I had no idea what I was going to talk about.  Sometimes the dream is a business trip. There would be me and other co-workers  at the airport waiting area. We were about to board.  Everyone had their tickets and boarding passes. I didn't have mine. And I had no idea why. Then how was I going to manage getting one? Sometimes, it would be about a business trip where I didn't know how to get back to the hotel.  Of course, all of these are mercifully interrupted by waking up. I was in bed at home. To any armchair dream interpreters or retired psychologists, I am open to hearing your diagnosis. Not really. Well, you can send comments.

But, surely I must miss something about not going to work.  Oh, yes, naturally. I will enumerate them without being facetious. I mean, using the true meaning of "miss". I don't want to flavor it with "I don't miss" them stuff.

1. I miss the daily commute. I miss seeing my tax dollars in action  to repair potholes or  on never ending road repairs as I drive through them.

2. I miss the bad coffee at the office and the occasional birthday cake, or leftover slices of them later in the afternoon with   icing almost crusty and brittle to the touch.  I and a few hapless folks were at an all-day meeting when the joyous occasion occurred.

3. I miss the reminders for deadlines and the stress that go along with them. I miss popping the almost daily doses of Excedrin.

4. I miss searching for the misplaced restaurant receipt, the car rental and toll receipts, etc.  Come to think of it I miss filling out an expense report.

5. I miss those meetings and the drone of presentations, one after another. I miss feeling that the presentation I made was all that mattered. 😎

6. I miss the annual evaluations. And I still have a recurring question that to this day remains unanswered. Your direct supervisor makes an evaluation of your past performance. In turn he gets evaluated too by his own direct supervisor.  Your supervisor's own evaluation by his/her boss was kept from you like a state secret.  You didn't know how he or she was evaluated for competency in handling his or her direct reports.  So, if he or she  was deemed incompetent by the higher boss, would the former's evaluation of your performance be still valid?  It would be like solving a math problem via a series of derived equations. It is like using a previously incorrect equation to arrive at the following one to get to an answer.  So, you worked the following twelve months  on how to improve your performance on a faultily derived equation, rather, evaluation.  Well, it's not really that bad. The corporation you worked for is still there. The monthly pension check still arrives. But we can't help feeling fortunate because in some cases the faulty series of equations, okay, evaluations, were so rampant, we saw Enron, Lehman Brothers, Block Buster Video, many others crumbled from the weight of a faulty tower.  Indeed, some of those bosses I talked about did get to the ivory pinnacle to wreak the greatest havoc. But, I'm just musing here, not recounting personal experiences.

7.  There has to be a 7th, right? I miss the paycheck.  Well, if you did it right, thirty years of paychecks should have been enough to accrue dividends today to do or not do what your heart desires, right? And on a rainy Monday morning, specially in January, the pay is right - nil - to not have to go to  work. 

I leave it to the reader to add his or her own misses. I'm sure you'll remember a handful of them.

I started this musing yesterday morning - Tuesday - when I woke up to a rain of felines and canines - notice the fancy wordy substitutions; so you know these are all in jest - but I didn't finish it in time. Today is Wednesday. But seriously, there were Tornadoes in the eastern part of the state.

Today and for the next few days, it is going to be sunny.  Wherever you are and in whatever state of woe you are in, everything is temporary, and remember that behind those ominous dark clouds is a ball of thermonuclear energy 93 million miles away ever ready to cloak your worries away with warmth of sunshine. Blissful rays speeding towards you at the speed of .. light.

To my fellow retirees:

That is not a sunset.  It is just another sunrise. Another bonus morning.