Living Retired #218- November 27, 2017
A RETIREMENT ROAD MAP
Everyone says the same thing: “You’ll know when it’s time to retire.”
For instance, when your boss walks into your office and you don’t even bother trying to quickly get the solitaire game you’re playing off your computer screen–you know it’s time to retire.
One word of warning: if your husband is already retired and the house looks like your kids college dorm room, be sure to tell him before you tell your boss. With a little luck he may decide to clean up the place; or, get a job!
Telling your boss you are retiring requires tack and sincerity. Just be sure when you’re leaving their office, don’t be jumping and running like do when your in-laws are pulling out of the driveway after visiting.
Next, return to your office and change the voicemail message on your phone…
“Hi. Please leave me a message. But don’t expect to hear back because I’m retiring next month AND I DON’T GIVE A CRAP ANYMORE! DID YOU HEAR ME? I DON’T CARE!”
The next step–and this is covered in the Employee Hand Book right after the section for Vice Presidents: ‘How To Oversee The Office Football Picks’–is to tackle three very important tasks as you prepare to cap off your career and make a smooth transition over to your successor:
1) Erase all evidence from your computer that shows you spent half of every work day for the past three years on Houzz,
2) Ensure that after you’ve retired that your name continues to be included in the departments weekly lottery picks,
#3) Call your staff together and politely tell them you told your boss what he could do with your job! Then, wish them well hanging in waiting for a buyout when the company downsizes. Ha! Ha! Ha!
The next thing is to prepare for life after work. The best part is not having to make important decisions that employees in your department counted on: who goes for their coffee break first and who gets to plant their face on the photocopy machine for the department Christmas card. Ho! Ho! Ho!
For what it’s worth, here are my suggestions on your new life. These are based on almost five years of having our house to myself all day–walking around in underwear, eating peanut butter from the jar and gulping milk from a jug…
Without doubt the biggest change retirees have to adjust to is not having to pretend to follow that damn corporate Mission, Vision, and Values that was hatched by the Human Resource Department at one of those offsite daylong retreats!
Yes, those all day retreats that start with scones and yogurt for breakfast; followed by an ‘icebreaker’ where you make an idiot of yourself in front of your boss. You won’t have to sit at a round table with an empty candy dish in the centre–buried up to your ankles in Tootsie Roll wrappers! Imagine not having to sit through another corporate retreat–where you plaster post-it notes on big sheets of paper stuck to the hotel room walls! Who care about everyone’s ideas on how to provide better customer service!
At home you’ll get up by the crack of noon–if you want to! Wearing those godawful tattered things called ‘pyjamas’ you can have whatever you want for breakfast: pop tarts, jelly rolls, cold pizza.
In retirement your Mission each day is to drink as much coffee as you can. The more time you spend peeing into the toilet the better! After all you’ve got WiFi in the bathroom so take your iPad and read the paper; even do the Sudoku.
The same goes with your ‘Values.’ In retirement your Values can be as pathetic as you want them to be! If you value spending hours on end every day swearing at all the telemarketers that call you with important duct cleaning offers, that’s just fine.
Yes retirement is everything it’s cracked up to be. Well almost…
Marriage counsellors are preparing a report: ‘Men & Women Living Together After Retirement: Yikes!’
