I Guess I Got Retired

I somehow thought that there would have been more fanfare.

Maybe an email from a higher up with a fancy title announcing that after years of dedicated service I was trading in my laptop and cell phone for golf clubs and a beach chair. No more early morning meetings and evening events.

But, it didn't happen that way.

I only recently realized that I got retired when listening to my wife describe how I became involved in her successful real estate practice.

"After Hank retired," she explains to our clients "he got his license to work with me and be my Marketing Director."

I didn't think of it that way as I was being clumsily dumped -- on a Monday morning literally minutes after returning from vacation -- from a job I enjoyed. I had envisioned a more gradual transition to retirement over the next few years cutting back to more of a consulting role and training my successor.

I was told the my departure was part of a reorganization. At least I had warning. My boss, our Executive Director, was offed the previous Friday morning and given an hour to vacate the building because what was described as "temporary leadership" from a similar organization in a nearby community was meeting with our staff in two hours.

We were the only ones officially reorganized. But within a few months, most of our staff was gone. Some were long term employees, others were more recent additions, but all committed for the long haul, which we knew was needed to  move the organization from just OK to the community force it needed to be. We were starting to chip away at the obstacles we had to get through, including our volunteer leadership that -- with few exceptions -- was allergic to fundraising and even promoting the organization.

I was six months shy of my 65th birthday and replaced by someone younger. I toyed with the idea of making some noise about age discrimination, but decided it really wasn't worth the effort.

Ultimately, volunteer leadership approved a merger with the larger group folding our organization into a generic "....of Metro South," an ill defined geographic location that you can't even find on a map. Lost in the process was our organization's historic name and legacy as a founding member of the national group.

I'm not looking for sympathy. This kind of thing happens all the time. But that doesn't make it right.

A move like this must have been cooking for months. Yet, we went forward just a few weeks before with our annual meeting and appreciation breakfast complete with all the "its-gonna-be-a-great-year-looking-forward-to-working-with-you-guys" talk from folks, who had to be intimately involved in the scheme. Maybe it's me, but I couldn't be that hypocritical.

Fortunately, it  has all turned out more than fine.

My former boss now heads a regional office of one of the nation's more visible non-profits. She hobnobs with celebrities and just might raise in a night an amount that we would have been thrilled with for a year. Success can be the greatest revenge.

I've been busy since getting retired. In addition to working for my wife, I've fulfilled a bucket list item by being full time faculty again at a local university, where I continue to teach as an adjunct. I actually played golf on a regular basis this summer and took 20 strokes off my score. (Yup, I was that bad.) I conduct organizational communications seminars for a major Rhode Island non-profit and have been encouraged to offer my services to other agencies.

Is there a moral to this story?

One could certainly be cynical and say you should trust no one; watch your back, and git while the gettin's good.

I prefer to say be true to yourself and do the best job you can. If the people around you aren't exactly trustworthy, at least you'll have no regrets.

And you can sleep at night...