Time to Go: Ensuring Separation

How to know when it is time to leave?
The Great Works offer some advice.

"To hold and fill a cup to overflowing
Is not as good as to stop in time.

Temper a sword to its hardest and it is easily broken;
Amass the greatest treasure and it is easily stolen;
Claim credit and honour and you easily fall;

When the work is done,
and one's name is becoming distinguished,
to withdraw into obscurity is the way of Heaven."
      Tao Te Ching, Chapter 9

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"Man, who is born of woman,
Is short-lived and full of turmoil.
Like a flower he comes forth and withers.
He also flees like a shadow and does not remain."
      Job 14:1-2

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"Amid a place of stone
Be secret, and exult
Because, of all things known
That is most difficult."
      W.B. Yeats Responsibilities and Other Poems, 1916

A personal note: Today I retire.

This was a great gig for many, many years. It's been challenging and fulfilling.

I've been extremely fortunate to spend my time with bright, clever, engaging people who taught me so much, and I am grateful to them.

Increasingly, my little interior voice is telling me it's time to go. And you've got to listen to that quiet tiny voice.

Also, there's the Mayan 2012 end-of-the-world prophecy, and it would suck to not get at least a few months of retirement in before the denouement.



Just yesterday I read about Till Eulenspiegel, a German wit circa 1300. His métier was to find amusement by using alternative or literal interpretations of commonly used figurative language, and I think I may have something along that line.

Starting with an air traffic controller's blog post, Anticipating Separation:

Retirement is a great job but it takes a while to get it. Don't lose patience. Anticipating your own separation can be an agonizing process. Retirement, by its very nature, is a self-indulgent act. As it should be.

When my time came I was done being the team player. It was finally time to act in my own best interest, thinking only of myself and my family. As every controller knows, the sooner separation is achieved ~ the better.

When you start out, you want to get "checked out". You try to be aggressive and anticipate separation. The instructors teach you that while anticipating separation is good, what it's all about is ensuring separation.

I've been anticipating separation, today I achieved separation, and I went to the Admin Officer and checked out. Full circle in a way that Till Eulenspiegel might appreciate.

Experience, standing on the shoulders of giants, and camaraderie

Last Friday I had the pleasure going to a luncheon with the retirees from my day job. They've been meeting for years, first Friday of every odd month, 11:00 for lunch.

I'm not retired, so I'm not eligible to be among them. B.I. went in March and brought the word back that we're invited. I felt like it was an invitation from the Vatican, a chance to see the old lions, the guys with remarkable experience.




It was like being a bat-boy at an Old Timer's game for the Yankees, a team with a real impressive alumni group. Different retirees show up in different months, this one's in Florida, that one's visiting grandkids, so the mix is always different. You know that back in the day they had the same bumps and frictions that we have today, but they're all past that. They've got nothing to prove, and they're living the dream.

They all looked healthy and happy. These guys have seen it all, they've been through the times that I read about in school. The stories they told weren't war stories ("there I was..") so much as funny interpersonal anecdotes told in the spirit of bonhomie.

I knew most of them from the mid-80's, when I was a noob and they were in their last years, but there were a few that I'd never met. I met one man, F.G. that I'd heard of - my older colleagues always spoke of him with great respect, and it was cool to meet him. There was a elderly gentleman there who'd been a B17 pilot in WW2 before he came to work on the job, he's been retired a long time but it was awesome to see him there. He's been going to retiree luncheons longer than I've been working.

It was a genuine pleasure to see these men. In their day they probably weren't all giants, they worked at it like everybody else — yet somehow, over the course of their long careers and their significant experience they'd become giants. These are the giants upon whose shoulders my generation rides. They taught us our craft and, to a degree, their perspective.

Although the technology has changed, I think they'd be right at home in the current culture. Their expertise is beyond the equipment and software.

It led me to think about experience and camaraderie, and what walks out the door along with a senior person. Then on Sunday I saw the day's Doonesbury:




When I drove away (I had to go back to work, naturally) I realized this was my second-best day at work in 2009, after Bring Your Child To Work Day. I've been jotting down some thoughts on experience and hope to have a few entries soon.

Receiving Multiple Retirement Messages

Sometimes you realize you're seeing a lot of (something) in an unexpected cluster — neck tattoos, Cooper Minis, wrap-around glaucoma shades, etc. The things aren't remarkable in themselves, it's the density of their occurance that's significant. When I finally recognize an unexpected cluster, I wonder: what's up with that? Something new? Something I've missed? Something I should be thinking about?

The last few days I kept bumping into Retirement messages. Friday morning I met Robin and Cindy on the occasion of Robin's retirement; he looked healthy and happy. Cindy had retired a year ago, she was beaming, healthy, and happy.

Friday evening I went to West Mifflin on a bit of a fool's errand (look who they sent) and I was very happy to run into Laurie, a longtime colleague who retires in two weeks. She seemed very relaxed and happy to know that the brass ring was within easy reach.

In the last few days the media has chosen to sell some magazines with interesting Retirement messages. US News and World Report puts Pittsburgh in their Top-Ten Affordable Places to Retire. Forbes has just placed Pittsburgh in their Top-Ten Most Liveable Cities. (I would mention one concern: the Ten Most Miserable Cities list includes Buffalo and Cleveland, two towns we've not really that different from. Pittsburgh could become either of those places with a few key mistakes.)

And then I came across this:



Fill a cup to its brim and it is easily spilled;
Temper a sword to its hardest and it is easily broken;
Amass the greatest treasure and it is easily stolen;
Claim credit and honour and you easily fall;
Retire once your purpose is achieved - this is natural.
      Tao Te Ching (by Lao-tzu.)      (link)


And then, when I was fixing some bad links I came across the story of The Kid (Michael Karl Popper) in the Animatrix, who self-disconnected himself from a shallow simulation of life designed by other people, and self-substantiated himself in the real world. When I read it I wondered, is this a metaphor for voluntary retirement? Do you have to disconnect yourself?

And then, just now, my favorite bicycle cartoon character's retirement is announced with this :

Between the third and fourth frames, the trees/bike haven't moved, it's just that the trees have grown as time passes.