Plotting The Escape

I almost always get in trouble when I don't listen to that still small voice. Just that month it had urged me to go home- not to stop at the supermarket. I ignored it and my car was crashed into. Still, I hedged my bets. I did what I call my acid test: Ask yourself: What happens if you do this? What happens if you don't? What happens if you stay? What happens if you go?

 

The thought of staying - the very thought of it- filled me with something akin to terror. Leaving with all its uncertainties and years before I really felt I should - the thought of that calmed me down. As events unfolded, I realized. My still small voice was right. It was time.

 

When you've been working as long as I had and have as many hours of leave as I did, you have to negotiate your retirement (or as I had started thinking of it: my escape). I had retirement leave and annual leave coming to me. Lots of it. I could roll my regular leave into a retirement account. But not that retirement leave. If I took the retirement leave in a lump sum, I'd see very little of it after taxes.  My ideal plan was to run out both my retirement leave and annual leave. In the current fiscal climate, that wasn't going to happen. I finally got the word. Yes- I could take my retirement leave. I would have to roll over the retirement leave into a retirement account. My last day after retirement leave would be January 10, 2013. I cleaned out my cubicle giving away a lot of what I had collected over the years (but not nearly enough) and wrote up my retirement letter. Around me, layoff and demotion meetings and restructuring conferences continued. I felt a mixture of relief tinged with survivor's guilt.

 

 

I always wondered how I would feel about leaving. I thought I'd feel bereft. I thought I might feel like I'd lost my identity. I thought there would be a library-shaped hole where my heart had been. While it took me over a month not to say "We" when referring to what was going on in the library, I realized that all the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, spirit-draining events and outrages that had happened in my professional life over the last 15 years or so had given me this gift: "Regret nothing. That was then, This is now.  You're a person too apart from the labels of caretaker, librarian, daughter, friend, employee. It's time to take care of yourself - way past time, in fact. You're overdue. Escape to a new adventure."

 

On September 28th, I was one of 500 city staffers who escaped to new adventures.

The Decline

It's been a long long time since I posted to this or any other blog. In the intervening year and several months:

•  I continued to have problems with my car. Bad trouble. Stranded at night troubles. Dead in the water on Riverside Avenue at rush hour troubles.
• My mother was in hospice.
• One of my cats was diagnosed with diabetes.
• I was transferred to a direct public service department at work.
• I got a new car.
•  My days were full of work, going  to see my mother and advocate for her, going home and care taking the cats, and zonking out on the couch. Repeat every single day.
• My mother got worse.
• I went down for the count with bronchitis.
• My cat came down with pancreatitis and went into the animal hospital.
• My mother died and dealing with what was left of the estate began.
•  It looked like my cat was going to die too. Instead, she to be fed via feeding tubes.
• The annual Summer of Uncertainties at work began anew. Layoffs were threatened. Anxiety rose, and rose, and rose throughout the summer. I felt the darkness of depression swirling nearer and nearer.
• Hurricanes and storms passed by and passed through. My roof started leaking both upstairs and downstairs. I needed a new roof.
• The Director announced the layoffs, demotions, staffing and hour cuts, and transferring of staff were now a certainty. I hadn't been in my new department a year. The Director said it would be even worse in the next fiscal year. Base pay would be cut again in the coming fiscal year. Proposed new schedules came out.
• My new car was hit by a woman who made a premature lane change and who is probably still telling people it's everyone else's fault, not hers. I was back in rental cars again for a while.

A still small voice inside me said: " Enough. You have worked in your job over 33 years, You can retire. If you stay on, you will only be more miserable, angrier, and sicker. The new schedule means you won't get to do all those things you wanted to do for the past 8 years." I hesitated. "DO IT!" screamed the not-so-still, not-so-small voice.

Three Forbidden Topics of Discussion in the Workplace or Why I'm Glad the Election is Over

My staff and I share a workspace with another department. When we talk among ourselves, we don't touch on the three celebrated forbidden topics of polite conversation: sex, religion, or politics. But the staff sharing our workspace 5 yards away from us, has- since we started sharing workspace- has talked politics for what seems like eons (since election talk never stopped after the last presidential election). They all seemed to share the same views but -if a staff member had an opposing viewpoint, I think he or she would be hesitant to join the discussion. It's distracting when we're trying to concentrate on our work or trying also to listen to customers on the phone. However, there's another consideration-- the door to their public area is always open. If we can hear them, the public also gets an earful. Should we have to put earphones on and block the noise- also blocking hearing colleagues that are trying to get our attention for work-related reasons?

It may affect me more than others. I've seen seemingly strong long-standing friendships and relationships fall apart over politics and witnessed that heartbreak at close quarters. Time and again I've seen politics get in the way of good government and good public service. I always looked as voting as voting for issues, voting for people who can make a positive difference- not voting for a party. In the past, when I've complained about the invective-laden and uncivil political discourse in the workplace, it's been assumed that I was objecting because I disagreed with the views being expressed- not because I thought that the discussion of politics had no place in the workplace. So, people incorrectly assume that they know what I believe. And they don't. Not - I suspect- that they're even curious.