Closure

[OldAgePensioner]

Have Funds,
Man, I'd pay excellent money to have been there with ya. Billy Cobham used to come by the recording studio on Sycamore Ave in LA and he'd have drumsticks the size of small baseball bats. The guy could play.

The clubs you mention remind me of the underground scene in LA in the 70's. We'd close the doors at midnight and play till dawn.

[BUM]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldAgePensioner EDIT: The more great works that I read/view, I realize that most writers had issues. Toulouse had way too many glasses of absinthe. I drank exactly one glass from a bottle that I paid $75 for and I gave the bottle away. Cannot imagine anyone enjoying absinthe.

OAP,

Your ticklin' brain cells I'd thought long dead. I had an english professor who was deep into old english verse and the absinthe. I'm guessing the $75 bottle was the commercial Logan Fils not the $200+ stuff that Hemmingway nearly killed himself with. Anyway we would drink this heady crap and of course the more you drink the better it tastes then the prof would read aloud by the fireside in the most wonderful old english style and accent:
As I was walking all alane
I heard twa corbies makin' a mane

Twa Corbies still gives me goosebumps. I went down that highway for a while. Thank god I got off at the first exit ramp



Anyway, OAP thanks for the memories.


BUM

[OldAgePensioner]

BUM,
No worries mate. Absinthe was banned from England since like 1890 or something. I got a bottle of HILLs in Prague and brought it home. I drank it with ice water and sugar. Quite a buzz, but it tasted like Nyquil.

I had a Middle Eastern history teacher who would invite a few of us to his office and serve us Turkish coffee and tell us stories about his travels in Syria. We would listen like children hearing a Pooh story. I enjoyed that time way more than the actual class.

[BUM]

Yep, me too. Just like having someone read you a bedtime story. The setting (visual) I think is as important as the words(sounds) and the coffee or whatever (tastes) all put together and POW! A feeling that lasts forever. I'd like to pass that along somehow.

[Kitty]

When I leave my job(in about a year) I have to turn in most of my gear my badge,gun, ammo, handcuffs, credentials, radio, bullet resistant vest, lap top, PDA ,cell phone, pepper spray and anyother gov. equipment that is on my records. My badge gets sent to be imbeded in lucite (at my cost of course) The final day I turn in my keys, passes to restricted areas, and I am dropped from the computer system, I should get a plaque and letter from the Commissioner; and if they haven't run out of them a fake gold watch with the gov. seal on it. If I am still in the good grace of the org. I will get a luncheon of fried chicken salad and cookies for dessert; oh yes I might get one of two things a framed poster of the building or six highball glasses with the building etched on them.
If things run true to course they will lose my badge, the watch won't work for more than a week and my retirement check won't get deposited on time or in the right account. Sigh* :-/

I want to take a hammer to the cell phone but they won't let me.
Kitty

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Fried chicken salad? Ewww!

[LEX]

I love the scene at the beginning of the film Cape Fear as Deniro walks out of the gates of his prison, and the guards ask him "what about all your books?" He replies with his smirk already read them....and keeps on walking out the gate.

The day I walked out of my office for the last day was kinda like that, at least for me.* That was all the closure I needed.* The office door closed behind me. I walked out of there knowing I will never have to worry about the filing cabinets and e-mail que full of what is now someone elses problems.

[Spanky]

I denoted all my white shirts, ties and suits when the company announced that the official business attire is causal.

[Spanky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kitty I want to take a hammer to the cell phone but they won't let me. Kitty

Yea. Destroying government property is a federal crime.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LEX I walked out of there knowing I will never have to worry about the filing cabinets...

When you turn over a Navy job, your relief is supposed to inventory the classified material and change the combination on their new (formerly your) safe. My relief signed for the classified material and I gave him the tools to change the combination, along with my double-sealed govt envelope holding its numbers.

Turnover in my old job was apparently kinda high-- three people over the next couple years.

I got a call last year, well over two years since my last day in the office: "Er, do you happen to remember the combination to your safe?" Of course it opened on the first try.

Good thing I turned in all my old office door keys, too...

[vic]

It will be a few years before I can walk out. I am already thinking about it. I would probably take two weeks vacation and mail my resignation letter the first day. That way I don't need an exit interview, full inspection of my bags or a fake farewell lunch. Any more unnecessary contact on the day out will probably result in inappropriate behavior from my side, including telling the boss what I really think about him in my own words.

In the mean time I am just wondering what my job is all about - and the whole cube farm in general. I see all these people on the phone, shuffling papers, making presentations and manipulating numbers in little boxes. Then they get all in a bigger box and present/show off/knock others down and establish their importance for the moment. See and be seen, work on visiblity. The cube farm sometimes feels like a different planet or so. What is hot there, is completely trivial only one step outside of that door - wouldn't it be nice to never get through that door again..... Aaah, few more years.....

I am watching the movie 'corporations' at this time. Very interesting, but not a real motivator to go back to work on Monday.

Vicky

[Kitty]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vic Any more unnecessary contact on the day out will probably result in inappropriate behavior from my side, including telling the boss what I really think about him in my own words. In the mean time I am just wondering what my job is all about - ]

The above quote could easily be mine.
I have to sit in meetings sucking on mints to keep from saying something true that would make my last year a living hell.

I know that once the doors close behind me it is all over and that anything I say won't make one little bit of difference one way or the other.

Kitty

[LEX]

Nords:

It must be gratifying to know you did the job well and you were not just some fungible Navy staffer so easy to replace any swabby could run your old traps.

I would bet there are many of those on this board that left gaping holes in their orgaizations when they ER'd, despite the typical smugness and general denial of their repective former mangement.

If one is competent enough to win the retirement game on their terms and schedule rather than the organizations they worked for they were most likely also good at other aspects of the job.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LEX Nords: It must be gratifying to know you did the job well and you were not just some fungible Navy staffer so easy to replace any swabby could run your old traps.

Thanks! It was great to be running a training department, and a lot of veterans end up doing that in their civilian careers.

Actually my goal was/is to have the job running so well that an untrained monkey could do it. Apparently it succeeded beyond my wildest dreams-- that approach was validated by the fact that it took two years for someone to realize that there might be something in the safe worth looking at. (It coincided with preparations for a nuclear-reactor training inspection.) The guy in the job now will probably have it for four or five years-- as I did-- and he's also a surfer converted to the ER philosophy so I have high hopes for him. We keep in touch and in fact today I'm taking some family/friends back to work for a tour. It's the first trip to the ol' office in three years and, now that most of the statutes of limitations have expired, it'll be interesting to see what kind of reception is waiting.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LEX I would bet there are many of those on this board that left gaping holes in their orgaizations when they ER'd, despite the typical smugness and general denial of their repective former mangement. If one is competent enough to win the retirement game on their terms and schedule rather than the organizations they worked for they were most likely also good at other aspects of the job.

Another take: Those competent enough to "win the retirement game on their terms" are also likely competent enough to either foster an organization strong enough to function reasonably well without them and/or identify and mentor a likely replacement for themselves. Some of us made it a priority to not leave a "gaping hole" when we departed, not necessarily to benefit former management, but out of respect for former co-workers (well, most of them ).

REW

[OldAgePensioner]

Nords,
When I left the US in 1985 I left a Mosler full of classified (all kinds of words top and bottom of each page.) Six months ago, I tried to find the safe through CONUS security and they said the safe was not on their records (discarded). Shows how important my work must have been to the bosses.

When I graduated it seems that everyone at work was either 25 or 60 because the end of the Apollo program led to lots of layoffs in aerospace early 70's in Los Angeles. I got to mentor/train with men who pioneered the space program. And, even more important, I was bright enough to listen.

There were lots of notes passed on to me when those guys started retireeing in 1980 and they were in that safe. Wow, just realized that I would probably have worked for free in my twenties for peanuts in my thirties, for a good wage in my forties and can't pay me enough in my fifties.

[Chris24]

Closure is personal. Everyone has there own way of walking away from their career , some better than others. My favorite in my work place. ... (airlines) .. was ... A Captian just came in from his "retirement flight" ... Cake ,coffee and a , "good luck, nice knowing you crowd" , were waiting around the table in flight operations. The Captian walks in , excuses himself to use the loo and no one ever sees him agian. The next person to use the Lav, walks in and notices a Pilots uniform in the trash can. The captian shed his skin and kept on walking. The folks in operations enjoyed the cake, and break from work.

Guess some jobs are easier to leave than others.

[KB]

I have already shredded every piece of paper related to my job, except whay I need for next Monday - Wednesday. My business line will be shut off on Thursday and I will ship my company laptop back that day as well. My last paycheck will be auto deposited on Wednesday. That should be it!!

I have a turnover meeting scheduled for Monday morning and I imagine I'll speak to my manager one of those days.
I've already cleared all my emails out and only have my hard drive to clean up. I'm ready !!

It will be very hard to pretend I'm working next week...

[Chris24]

KB .. i'm sure all will be done with the biggest you can muster. Congratz

[OldAgePensioner]

My last 2 years of work were the best of times and the worst of times.

I had a "true" single point failure job. Sort of like being the pilot on a single pilot plane and the next most qualified is a short oder cook passenger. So I had em by the short and curlies.

The new site manager was a petty bureaucrat with a knowledge veneer so thin you could see right thru it. His favorite technique was to hold up his index finger and say, "Let me tell you why my plan is better".

After he had been there 3 months, I knew I was leaving. He was literally afraid to speak to me for fear I'd quit. He finally asked me into his office and asked that whatever differences we had, let's resolve. I turned in my resignation a week later. RESOLVED.

I had to stay 8 more months to train a replacement. Longest 8 monts of my life but I owed it the few worthwhile coworkers not to harm them.