What I Miss/Don't Miss About Work - So Far

It may be a little early to visit this issue fully, but I thought I would share my initial thoughts after nearly three months of retirement, on the eve of the new fiscal year. Not enough time has passed yet to grasp the big picture, but it's been long enough to sense that something profound has happened.

First, the easy part - what I don't miss. Number one on the list is the need for urgency. The challenge at work was always how well I could do something in the allotted time. As those who know me well would attest, my first reaction to that challenge was to do whatever I could to get more time - plan ahead, start early, put time back in my calendar by pushing out non-critical items, and when needed put in extra hours. For the most part, these tactics worked well for the task at hand. But even the most proficient planning practices do not create more time. They only direct time to certain priorities, at the expense of other activities. So the cost for appeasing my reluctance to be rushed was to not get to other things that were fun and often more personally rewarding. In retirement, this problem has virtually disappeared. So far I have found that the need for urgency seldom arises. Of course, it never goes away completely. There are always family, health and safety issues that come up. But the percentage of time I have to putter my way through my various avocations at a preferred pace is enormous in comparison to pre-retirement. And it feels great.

Number two on the don't-miss list are the endless rules and regulations that govern behavior at work. Some of you may be wrinkling your brows at this admission as, it's true, I used structure in my working life like a tomahawk. Protocols, work flow diagrams, timelines - the dreaded Project Management Guidelines - I wielded like Obiwan's light saber. But in my defense, it was all driven by what I felt was the need to "get it right" and "get it right the first time" whenever possible. It was my way of reconciling the need for urgency noted above with the constraints of the work place, which in the Federal bureaucracy (and especially research) could be overwhelming. I would likely do it all over again the same way if life were rewound. But now, it's different. The only rules I am bound by are nature's, my conscience, and of course those negotiated with my Bride (actually, these should have been listed first :-) And this, too, feels great.

A third item I don't miss, at least in recent years, are the poor support services. I don't miss repeated efforts to get the same things fixed, without success. I don't miss lingering help desk tickets, the elevated listings of items not fixed by the help desks, or the meetings to create the elevated listings. And I really don't miss the time lost by me and my coworkers to perform all of these follow ups. Well, you get the picture. My apologies to those of you still fighting the support wars for even bringing this up. But I remain available if anyone needs help drafting a "nasty gram" to deal with an especially grievous breakdown in customer service. It's a skill set I'd like to preserve.

But enough of the dark side. What do I miss about work? Number one on the list - no big surprise here - the people. I miss visiting with my work friends, keeping up with their lives and just knowing that they are well. I still think about them (you) and wonder how people are doing. I get some updates from former colleagues that are still in my social circle (golf, music parties, lunches). And I do get occasional blog post comments, which are always welcome. But I would like to have more. I have email addresses for most of my old friends that I don't see any more and plan to work this issue a little harder from my end.

Number two on the do-miss list (and this was a surprise to me) is just being helpful. Not that I don't have plenty of home-based trade in this area, but that's different. I spent 40 years in the IRS, 33 as a manager. I learned to navigate the environment. I don't miss the administrative tasks. But resolving disagreements, sorting out the logic of a research challenge, managing client relationships - those were fun and rewarding. I actually do miss being in the mix, at least every once in a while.

And a third item to note - I miss downtown. Yes, the commute can be a pain, and parking is always a hassle. But just walking the streets, feeling the activity, noticing what might be changing - I sort of miss that. I have been frequenting downtown Detroit in one capacity or another since 1972. My final few years of working from home were a helpful transition, but even through that time I knew when I would next be cruising down Lake Shore and Jefferson, past the Ren Cen and "The Fist", and up Woodward to my office. I'm keeping my hand in by meeting friends downtown for lunch every so often. And I am enjoying those outings a great deal.

These are my sentiments so far. I'll take another reading of what I do and don't miss about work in a few months and see what else shows up. For now, even considering the things I do miss, I remain convinced that my decision to retire when I did was the right one.

And a couple of updates on previous posts.

The Purge - still going well. All the rooms of both the Grosse Pointe house and the cottage have been reformatted or defragged as appropriate, as have a fair number of the closets and other storage bins. Most noteworthy among these so far was the cleanout of the under stair storage off the basement rec room. Over the years a growing inventory of old electronics were strewn among several boxes of school-era memorabilia, bags of old photos from previous generations of Burks and LeRoys, an old library of reel-to-reel tapes, and at least a two-year supply of Wiser's Deluxe (actually found a case of this family staple that I didn't know I had). The photos, memorabilia and whisky are all now in their respective bins and ready for further processing. The reel-to-reel tapes are on the bubble. The bulk of the electronics walked "the concrete mile" to the curb (although as expected almost all were "picked" prior to the arrival of the trash collectors).  Next up - the pantry.

Lunch Poetry - today's offering. This little ditty was inspired by the melt down that was slowly taking place in the old District Office in 1997, especially in the Collection Division. It is set to the lyrics and music of Simon & Garfunkel's At the Zoo. Two notes. The term FOPI (pronounced fo'-pee) in Line 7 refers to a comparative statistical index on enforcement activity that was imposed by the IRS National Office in the mid-90s. The FOPI turned out to be pretty destructive to public relations and was a major contributor to the demise of the old district structure in 2000. The term QU in Line 14 refers to the Quality Underground, a small group of loyalists who met periodically after hours at the Lindell AC to have a few beers, commiserate and recharge. As it was a secret society, I can say no more on the advice of counsel :-) Enjoy.

At the Zoo

 

You should believe it.

I think it's true.

 

Our leaders search for honesty,

And act like they're sincere,

And the analysts are kindly

But they're bummed.

 

The FOPI's made us skeptical

Of changes in our data.

And the personnel selections

Make us numb.

 

Branch chiefs are reactionaries.

Managers need missionaries.

Support staffs plot in secrecy, and

The QU turns on frequently.

 

At the zoo.

It could be true.

 

 

Lunch Poetry

During one glorious phase of my work life, I was lucky to be a part of a special lunch group. It all started with a few trips down Michigan Avenue to the Taco Bell. The Bell, as we lovingly referred to it, is no longer there, replaced years ago first by a vacant lot and subsequently by a parking structure. Over time the group of Bell regulars grew to a dozen or so, meeting each Wednesday, with perhaps another dozen attending infrequently as guests of the regulars. It was a time of stress for many of our group as the proud edifice that had been the Collection Division was slowly and then more rapidly falling down around us. The lunch group served as an island of sanity and comfort, restoring our energy and lightening the mood for the balance of the work week.

There were of course many other lunch traditions of which I was a part during my work life. In my early training days there were regular trips to the Adams Family Restaurant (an Albanian establishment) for the weird chili. This was followed by almost daily trips in the early 80s to the Arcade Bar for a sandwich and a beer with the Collection Division staff, led by John Masson and Bill Bigby, rest their souls. There was the Cadena's era which saw many IRSers munching the best taco chips I have ever had to this day in a little hole-in-the-wall joint that was really a roofed-over alley between two other buildings. There were the Friday outings in the late 80s/early 90s to the Congress Cafe with my Bride and her circle for a fish-mac special. During the early 90s the entire Quality Office (both of us) made many a memorable journey to the Schnelli Deli where we enjoyed soup, a half sandwich, a side salad and a drink for under $4 (often followed by a stop at Otis' Bakery for a cookie on the way back to the office). And there were many other eateries - Lindell's, Leandi's, the Coneys, the Press Pantry, to name a few - that each had their place and time. Fond memories all. (It should be noted here that none of the restaurants named thus far still exist except for the Coneys. Wow.) But my fondest memories are of the Taco Bell era.

The trips to Taco Bell were originated by my good friend Jim Wyatt in the mid-90s. That was the beginning of my Research days. Each Wednesday Jim would put out an email or make a few calls and get the group together. In the beginning it was pretty informal, but as time passed the weekly "lunch and moan" became an integral part of the group's work week. Then a strange thing happened. Jim left. In an odd career move, he left the comfort of life in the Federal government for the greener pastures of the private sector, ostensibly to make his fortune. Rumor had it that the move was prompted by a fear of threatened layoffs. But it's hard to believe that James would have been taken out by that old dodge. More likely it was unmitigated ambition :-)

As you might expect, Jim's departure from the scene left quite a void in the Taco Bell lunch world. Who would take the reins? In a fit of desperation, I leapt into the breach. But I knew I had to take my game up a notch as it would be hard to replace Jim's affable style with my buttoned-down, plannerized approach to life (this of course was long before I became my current fluffy retired self). How would I get the group to show up? My answer was lunch poetry. Bait them with a little humor to take the edge off the day and get them out of the office. You have to remember that most of the members of the Taco Bell lunch group were in high-pressure, stressful jobs and often took no lunch at all so they could catch up on their in-boxes and emails.

Originally delivered through email then through "special courier" - there was a little hullabaloo about using official Government equipment for personal messages - was an individual invitation to attend each Wednesday's event. To entice invitees to make the effort the invitation was framed in the form of humorous verse. These were usually parodies of popular music or appropriate rewrites of well-known passages from pop culture. There was also a series of limericks about a working girl named Estelle who frequented the Bell to parade her wares. Some of the more elaborate offerings were actually delivered through live readings by the special courier (you know who you are), sort of lunch poetry as performance art. It was all great fun and, much to my relief, seemed to work. The Bell lunch tradition endured for several more years. And when the Bell was summarily closed without notice (we showed up one day and the doors were locked), the group sought out alternative venues, eventually launching the "pile into the van and go to Mexican Town" period, which had its own charm and will be the subject of a later post. But the lunch poetry continued until the demise of the old district office and the rise of the distributed organization early in the new century.

I am in the process of scouring my old files and day planner pages (I still have back to 1990) to reconstruct as much of the old verse as I can for the purpose of putting together a little memory book for those who were involved, and will share additional items from that material through this blog from time to time. For this post, I have included a few of the earlier invitations for your reading pleasure, and for some perhaps a trip down memory lane.

This was the first of the courier-delivered invitations, establishing the new protocols and assuring the group that the long arm of computer security would be overcome. It's entitled Insufficient Postage.

Email is for "business only".

Private thoughts send me not.

To keep us all from getting lonely,

Little notes are what we've got.

So little notes we'll learn to use,

Brief and to the point.

Takes more than this to thwart the muse

That haunts the taco joint.

This invitation was a re-write of the famous airport scene from Casablanca, penned in Bogart-eesh.

Over the lasht weeksh, we've shaid a great many thingsh. You shaid I wuzsh to do the reminding for all of ush. Well, I've done a lot of it shince then and it all addsh up to one thing. You're getting into that line at the Bell where you belong.

Now you've got to lishen to me. Do you have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you shtayed here? Nine chanshes out of ten we'd all end up in a shtaff meeting.

I'm shaying thish because itsh true. Inshide of ush we all know we belong there. It'sh part of our work, the thing that keepsh ush going. If the group leavsh and you're not with ush, you'll regret it. Maybe not now, or today, but shoon, and for the resht of the week.

I'm no good at being noble, but it doeshn't take much to shee that the problemsh of we the little people are all that count in thish crazy world. Shumday you'll undershtand that.

Here'sh looking at you, kidsh.

Here are a couple of the early Estelle limericks, just to whet your appetites. The idea of the limericks came from Linda Mathews, a charter member of the lunch group to whom I am greatly indebted. This first one introduced the "Queen of the Bell".

An unseemly lass named Estelle,

Use to troll for men at the Bell.

She'd grab the behind

Of each guy she could find,

Until one of them for Estelle fell.

This follow-up provided a little more insight into Estelle's world, entitled Estelle (of the Bell) Returns.

Of late, poor Estelle's had it rough,

Learning attitude's just not enough.

Seems the last man she lured

Of lusting was cured

When Estelle he beheld in the buff.

There'll be of more Estelle in future posts, but let me close this inaugural commentary on lunch poetry with these two items, both favorites of mine. The first is a rewrite of the Star Trek mission. Just imagine the voice of William Shatner as the starship Enterprise (that would be NCC-1701) wooshes down Michigan avenue.

Lunch, it's vital, fun and weird.

These are the forages for taco chips of any size,

Our continuing mission to explore strange new foods,

To sneak out to life in crude civilization,

And boldly go where no one should go, ever.

Except today.

And The Pledge, a somewhat disrespectful but heartfelt parody of our national mantra.

I pledge indulgence,

Not to brag,

But to unite us

In states of euphoria.

Until in public,

We cannot stand.

Satiation,

Oh my God, unforgiveable.

For sanity,

And just us.

That's all.

As noted above, there's more, much more, to share with you all from the archives of lunch poetry. But at the moment I'm hungry and am heading to....well....lunch. Bon appetit to all.


LDLR

LDLR - Labor Day Listening Room. 

In a previous post I described the basics of the Music Night organization, known officially as The Music Night Federation - MNF.  We even have t-shirts.  That post described the over 20 years of get-togethers to share music around particular themes and well, eat and drink.  There is another facet of the MNF known as a "listening room".  This usually involves a smaller group (4-6) assembling to share music more casually and yes, eat and drink.  Listening rooms occur on an ad hoc basis most often on Friday nights, do not involve a theme, and have very little structure.  They evolved years ago to address the needs of the more geeky members of the MNF who need a fix to hold them over between the formally scheduled Music Night parties.

With the acquisition of our family cottage in Greenbush, the listening room concept was taken to a new level with the inception of the LDLR.  This involves several families converging on Wiser Times for a long weekend (before all that renewal stuff - see previous post) to celebrate the end of summer with a mix of music, beach activities and yes, eating and drinking.  We held the 2012 version of the LDLR this past Labor Day, and it was a blast.

Things got rolling Friday afternoon with the arrival of two families, the Wyatts and the Reinharts (the latter with their rolling vacation home in tow) and our elder daughter Christy.  Once everyone was settled and the post-dinner cleanup was complete, the music got underway.  In previous LDLRs, the music didn't commence until noon on Saturday, to allow all participants to arrive.  But we were quickly informed that our thinking was so 20th century.  In the opinion of the representatives from the next generation, time was a-wastin'.  So the kids led us in a preliminary two-hour set Friday night.

An explanatory note is warranted here.  The way the LDLR works is that all attendees draw cards to establish the order of play.  Then in turn, each person is responsible for an hour of music of his or her choosing - no restrictions.  The music sets this year ran from 10:00 am until 10:00 pm Saturday through Monday, an extended schedule from the past.  And there are speakers in the living and family rooms, on the deck, in the gazebo, and for good measure there is a portable speaker to cover the beach or the barbecue area as needed.  The LDLR is not for the musically faint of heart.  You really have to want to be there.

The music resumed at 10:00 am on Saturday as scheduled.  Two more participants arrived in the early afternoon, Linda Crandall and her son Tommy, to bring our total to 11 counting three Burks.  The weather was fabulous with sunny skies, warm temperatures and a very swimmable Lake Huron (by most accounts only two ducks on the official four point duck system).  The day included studious creation of playlists by those whose turns were coming up, beach games, water sports and some rock hunting (as well as a lot of football and baseball watching in the background - volume on mute, of course).  We capped things off with a delicious barbecue chicken dinner with all the trimmings around the big table.

 

 

The music continued on into the evening, while a couple of our in-house photographers captured these shots of the beach just after moonrise.  

 

 

Saturday night wound down with a high-stakes game of Mexican Train (all 13 rounds) which sapped the remaining energy from anyone who had any left.

On Sunday, the festivities picked up right where they left off and hit their peak of 14 players with the arrival of the Dyles and their "adopted" son Reza, visiting from Germany.  I also accompanied three quarters of the Reinhart clan for our annual nine holes of golf after which the kids, Justin and Miranda, tried their hand at "white water" lake kayaking, as shown below.

 

 

Not to be outdone, Jim Wyatt and I did our best to defend the honor of the senior generation by flashing our canoeing technique.  But we had to make a beeline for shore when the capacity of the canoe was overcome by the foot-and-a-half rollers multipled by the on-board tonnage.  We took on a little water, but we made it although we were stroking so hard our life vests came unzipped (that's our story and we're sticking to it :-)
 

 

 

Sunday evening flowed into Monday with the music, food, drink and fun continuing.  By late Tuesday morning, the music was over, the food and drink had been consumed and the players had headed back to the big city.  Wiser Times had morphed back into its old serene self.  

 

But it was fun while it lasted.  Thanks to all who attended and made the weekend a huge success.  I'm already looking forward to next year.

Labor Day Renewal

Periodic renewal has been an important part of my life, and I think it is in the life of most. The chance to knock the dust off the recent past or perhaps reboot more serious matters helps us move forward, create desired change, and adapt to our ever-evolving life situations. That might seem a strange notion for a person like me who enjoys living in the past as much as he can. But upon closer examination, it shouldn't be surprising at all. The trick to keeping the best parts of the past alive is to understand what makes them important and find ways to integrate them with what is interesting and relevant about the present. To me, Labor Day has always presented a natural opportunity for this type of renewal.

The popular notion is that January 1st is the traditional time for renewal. But I submit that even with its focus on New Year's resolutions (including the usual avalanche of fitness schemes), more change actually takes place with the passing of Labor Day. This is certainly true for anyone even remotely involved with formal schooling, but there are other forces at play here as well.

The weather is a big one. It is easy to sense the change in the air as we take the quick slide from Labor Day to the autumnal equinox and the decrease in sunlight and temperature that it brings. (I'm obviously talking as a Michigander here. This slide may be less dramatic in other parts of the country, but my guess is it still exists.) This necessitates a renewal of wardrobe. Tee shirts and shorts are abandoned in favor of long sleeve sweatshirts and jeans. Deck shoes and sandals are replaced by sneakers and hi-top walkers, and in the Pointes sock drawers are cracked for the first time in months. Jackets and coats are hauled out from summer storage and associated with appropriate and matching hats, gloves and scarves, to make sure any needed replacements can be procured before the clothing stores shift to spring wear (which is usually about the first of November). This in turn results in serviceable items that are no longer fashionable being bagged and carted off to secondhand stores, to pass on the chain of renewal to other segments of the economy.

Sports also change around Labor Day. There is the seismic shift from baseball to football with games of our favorite teams becoming less frequent but more important, accompanied by renewed hopes for bowl appearances and victories over traditional rivals. (This has special meaning for those of you who, like me, live in a Green and Blue household.) College football has always been a big favorite at our house and sets the agenda for many fall Saturdays. In Detroit our professional football season usually only lasts about a month, until the first puck is dropped in the NHL. But this year our normally hapless Lions appear to have a decent team and are actually threatening to extend the season at least to Thanksgiving. And of course, Labor Day traditionally marks the time our Tigers begin to fade into the sunset, finding ever more creative ways to escape the playoffs and avoid scheduling conflicts with the Red Wings. (I admit to the faithful that last year was an exception, but this year our local boys of summer seem to have returned to form, despite our hopes to the contrary.) From a neighborhood standpoint, Labor Day brings a steady diet of high school and travel league soccer games, as the Grosse Pointe North soccer field lies just the other side of our back yard fence. It's always been a great treat that we could pull up an Adirondack in our back yard or slip through our gate to the bleachers to watch and enjoy the local kids giving their all.

But back to school for a moment, the big enchilada in the Labor Day change fest. New classes, new schedules, new teachers, trips for new school supplies, sometimes new schools or new post-class child care arrangements, back-to-school nights, college-prep fairs, the terror of parent-teacher conferences, the grind of after-school sports and music activities - you get the point. And during the college years it was moving kids back to new dorms or apartments, often toting more total tonnage than I carted into my first house. I remember one relocation to a dorm at Michigan that required five power strips to service the various media hubs.

When I was a kid, there was also the ritual of new school clothes, a concept that it seems has been totally lost in today's world. I remember with fondness the process of looking through the Sears catalog and picking (with parental concurrence) new pants, shirts, shoes and accessories that were suitable for wearing to school. These items were also to be taken off upon return from school each day in favor of play clothes, which often consisted of items from the previous year's wardrobe that were a little tired or did not quite fit anymore. During my middle and high school days jeans, tee shirts, sneakers and any shirt that did not tuck into your trousers were expressly banned from school. In today's world, things seem to be a bit less regulated, although there still must be some rules. I remember one back-to-school night when a teacher challenged the attending parents with the statement, "You don't think your kids arrive at school in the same clothes they left home in, do you?" Food for thought for those of you still engaged in the high school wars.

Though I have not had a kid in high school since 2003, our post-Labor Day weekday routine is still dependent on certain school events.  The most critical of these is the mid-afternoon exodus of teen drivers from the main entrance of Grosse Pointe North, which lies between our driveway and about any place we might like to go.  Picture the start of the Indy 500 only with people just tall enough to see over the steering wheel driving open-air Jeep Wranglers.  I know at least a couple of you dear readers are or soon will be spawning teen drivers of your own, and I wish you success.  My best advice for supervising this training is to lie down on the back seat of the vehicle with your eyes on the ceiling.  Have the driver-in-training tell you when the trip is over.  Then crawl out of the nearest door and kiss the ground.  This approach effectively removes the parent from the training experience (which the driver will like) and reduces the parent's need for high blood pressure medication (which your doctor will like).

During my working years (man, I like the sound of that), Labor Day also signaled change at the office. September was filled with exaggerated accounts of accomplishments from the fiscal year that was ending, to be surpassed only by the grandiose plans for achievement in the new fiscal year. There were appraisals to write and budgets to close out.  In flush years there was last minute training to schedule and attend.  In lean years, there was well-planned training to unjustify and cancel.  And there was a host of other tracking and reporting systems to tie up and put to bed by 9/30 (each to be re-birthed in updated and shinier form for the new fiscal year on 10/1). Even after 40 years of government service, so far I'm having no withdrawal pains from not being allowed to participate in this year's administrative stampede.

Of course, this Labor Day has special meaning for me as I recover from the continuous celebration that was July and August and begin to assess just what changes retirement will bring to my daily life. Recent experiences with the Passport Office and the Social Security Administration have more than confirmed that I am now on the other side of the bulletproof glass. Although both my exchanges with Uncle Sam worked out fine, I was clearly just another assignment in someone's automated inventory system.  Overcoming years of leadership and problem-solving experience, I quickly learned that my best strategy was to take a number, wait patiently in line and speak only when spoken to. Assuming my SSA interview responses check out, I should be getting my Medicare card before I need to order new tires for my Hoveround.

But the biggest change for me this Labor Day is how I will spend the inordinate amount of time I now have at my disposal. I have often in the past remarked pompously to others stressing over busy schedules, "You have all the time there is. What counts is how you choose to use it." Well, that advice has come back to haunt me. It seems that now I truly do have all the time there is (excepting the occasional chore - see previous post on this issue.)  Here's hoping I make good use of my new-found fortune, and that this year's Labor Day renewal turns out to be all I'm hoping it can be.

I'm sure many of you have Labor Day renewal sentiments and stories that we would love to hear. Please feel free to share. And Happy Labor Day renewal to all!