Retirement. End of week 2

“So, how are you finding retirement?”

Heard this  so many times in the few short days since I finished. Not surprised -  and I guess I’d be asking the exact same thing. Truth is, I can’t really say yet. Still feels like I’ve taken a few days off to get stuff done around home. I’m rattling through jobs that I’ve been putting off for years but then there’s months and months of similar things to attend to that will keep me busy.

I noticed yesterday that, having decided that it was a gardening day, a couple of hours is more than enough. But then there was still time to go for a run, pop to the shops, read for a while....... just like a normal Sunday may have been. Time is what I wanted above all else and I reckon I’ve got that.

I’ve hardly thought about work at all. A little bit of guilt when wandering around Cromer on a bright morning when I’d probably be on a building site but not missing management directives, emails, Teams meets etc.

Be interesting to see how we manage financially now that everything is rocketing up. I’ve said to many folk that, if needed, I’ll happily go and earn a few £££, but I’d really rather not. Needs must.

January 21st 2022

 Another bright breezy Norfolk winters day. 

I’m officially on leave today but I am also now no longer a working man.  I ceremonially switched off my Dell pen tablet ( my workhorse) for the last time yesterday.

40 years work. Done.

If I count the days at Braggers Sports&Social club, where I started sorting bottles into crates at the age of 8 (20p/hour), that’s 50 years at work. Clearly working at OS has been my life. A very interesting job for a quintessentially British thing. Almost everyone I tell about what I do/did expresses an interest in our maps. It’s been a great way to earn £££ and from the get go, I never wanted to work indoors. A strangely solitary profession but wholly reliable on interacting with the great unwashed, I think it’s been perfect for me - happy to be busy on my own, happy to have the interface with people who, by and by, benefit from what I produce. Not many folk have every thing they create, everyday, published and bought.

Towards the end of my time at OS, I sensed I was becoming somewhat cynical of the way we were being managed. I strongly believe that this cynicism was born out of experience. Too many rubbish pay awards and an overall downgrade of work conditions for no apparent reason have tarnished the last few years. Maybe these thoughts have been enhanced by my departure. Without doubt I am immensely proud of my work and proud of OS maps and the rose tinted specs will get rosier as time passes.

A lifetime of friendships, a lifetime of getting by with some you’d rather not and a lifetime of measuring things. Strange what people do to earn a living.