Four years ago next Sunday I retired.
I did not realise at the time how “exciting” my life would become, including a whole year having the house repaired after a fire which destroyed our sheds and caravan and at the same time undergoing treatment for cancer.
It is interesting that the National Health Service managed to diagnose, treat, operate and cure my cancer in less time than our insurance company could get the house fixed.
Today by chance I found the list of “thank-you” e-mails that I received on retirement, from my customers, colleagues and friends (mutually inclusive terms) in
Sweden, Netherlands, USA, Germany, Finland, Poland, France, Italy, Ukraine, Turkey, Austria, Russia, Spain, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, Norway, Portugal and Slovakia. I had not previously realised just how much my work as an IT trainer/support resource had been of use to so many others in so many countries.
I had a good career*. I was lucky. They say that when you find a job you enjoy, you never work again. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but boy – did I work! By the time I retired in 2014 I was the world expert in how to get the best use out of an IT system designed for the 1990s that simply refused to die…
My retirement was delayed by seven months while the Company phased out the system, but I heard last month that four years later it is still in use.
*Career: to move in an uncontrolled fashion, usually rapidly downhill.
General Whiskers' semi-historical wanderings 