Even though my 65th birthday isn’t for another 3-1/2 weeks, yesterday I became Officially Old, I now have my healthcare through Medicare…and a supplement and a drug plan and a dental plan for good measure.
Also, my pre-bedtime TV viewing is reruns of The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour from the 80’s.
Plus my favorite comic strip now is about a grandfather – Pickles
Ran into an old coworker at the grocery store this evening. After listening to her talk about the changes that have occurred for the worse, and all the stuff that was supposed to make it better that now aren’t going to occur for a while, both Donna and I are sure glad we aren’t still working at the Valve Store.
That reminds me, I missed my retirement anniversary. My last day of “work” there was March 2, 2018. Time flies when you are having fun.
Seeing as the CTBNL hit the 65,000 mile plateau on Saturday, the other day when Donna went off to the gym, I jacked up the Miata, rotated the tires and changed the oil.
I was going to give the car a bath too, but after eating lunch I didn’t want to go back outside. Besides I did not want to violate Russ’s Rule for Retirement. To wit: Do one thing a day. You have all sorts of things you need to do and have been waiting until you more free time, there are all the things you want to do for yourself and then there is all to things your wife wants for you to do. It can overwhelming, so pick one thing and do just that one thing, don’t try to do too much.
Now you might think that changing the oil and rotating tires is two different items, but to me, I have always combined them. This is because to only real easy way to get to the oil filter in the Miata is to remove the right front wheel. And while I guess quite possibly you could jack up that front side and remove the one wheel, but then you would need to make sure the car is level to allow all the oil to drain out. That and you are now already 1/4 of the way to rotating the tires anyway…
If you take a trip after you are retired, can you call it a vacation?
I say yes.
I don’t remember exactly when, probably sometime around 12 or 13-years old, I decided I wanted to be more grown up. So I asked for a watch for Christmas. It was probably a cheap Timex wind-up one with a plastic band that looked a lot like the one on this Etsy page, but cost about one tenth what that person is selling that one for. The plastic band broke after about a year and I replaced it with a leather one and I probably wore that watch until I was 18 and joined the Navy.
Within the first few days of boot camp you are issued your uniforms. You then are taken to the PX where they gave you a very specific list of items to buy, a Gillette Safety Razor, one ten pack of blades for the razor, one 6 ounce tube of Crest toothpaste, etc. When you checked out, the total cost of what you bought was recorded and that money came out of your first paycheck. You then boxed up everything you came through the gates with, in a box and mailed it home, including your watch.
One of the items on that PX list was a specific watch, probably a cheap Timex similar to what I already had. Because the military has to run like a finely tuned machine its members have to be at certain places at certain times, the watch was required. If you never wore a watch before, too bad, you were going to be wearing one now. So I wore various watches for the next ten years while a member of Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club.
When I left the Navy I stopped wearing a watch. Partially to free myself from that very structured life and partially because there are clocks everywhere anyway, in the car radio, on the walls and, if you could program a VCR, right there near your TV. Bill Gates put one in the lower left of your computer screen and now your smart phone is always at hand, so who wears a watch anymore?
No matter, when you retire from ASCO (at least as a salaried employee) they are going to give you the traditional gift of a watch. When Donna retired last year she tried to get out of it, she doesn’t wear a watch either, she said donate the money to a charity or something. No dice. You get a catalog with about 10 or 15 styles of watches to choose and they engrave the back with your name and years of service. With the help of the HR Benefits person they picked out the most expensive ladies watch for her because she was going to sell it and donate the money to a charity. We have even gone so far as taking the watch to a local jewelers and for ten bucks had him buff off the engraving of her name. We have yet to sell it though.
When my time came to pick out a watch I looked at all the options and picked out one that I would actually wear. My thoughts were, the company was making a nice gesture, so maybe I would start wearing a watch again, look more grown up. On Saturday I pulled it out of the box, read the instructions on to set it and strapped it to my wrist. Man, it is a nice looking watch. But it feels weird down there at the end of my arm. Plus the band is a little loose letting the watch move around, so invariably the face it is always where I have to twist my wrist an extra bit to see it. I pull the strap tighter to get to the next hole on the strap. Now it is too tight, my hand will probably go numb after a few minutes.
At this point I remember the real reason I stopped wearing a watch once I left the Navy, I could never get one to fit right. Leather bands with holes (even adding an intermediate one in between existing holes), metal bands with butterfly clasps, whatever the closure method they were always either too loose or too tight. I bet I could still make this work, poke an intermediate hole, wear it every day for a couple weeks until I got used to it, but my heart really isn’t into it. I really don’t need a watch, I’m retired. Besides, remember smart phone, computer screen, car radio, wall clock, etc. I guess I’ll go get the back engraving buffed off and put a pair of his & hers watches for sale up on eBay.
Emerson, the large business organization that the Valve Store is part of, has an electronic directory of employees covering the entire corporation. It is each person’s responsibility to keep it updated, if you get a new boss, move to another department, changed job titles, etc.
A few years back, tiring of it not being 100% accurate, they implemented a policy where if you don’t update it they would start withholding services. First no internet, then intranet, then emails and after that they close and delete your account. It used to have to be done quarterly, but about a year ago, they decided to start doing it monthly. Not a big deal if nothing has changed, you get an email, you click on the link and click the big green Update button.
I received my email this morning telling me it was time to update my employee profile. As usual nothing has changed in a month. I’ve probably made less than a dozen changes on this page…ever. I have worked for 6, maybe 8, different direct supervisors and my job title has only changed three times in the 28 years I’ve been here. It started as Draftsman, then changed to Design Draftsman and then to its now current Design Draftsman/CNC Programmer.
Last month, because I’m sort of a smart ass, I thought I would change my Job Title to Retiree in Training. But I decided against it considering I work for a corporation and those sorts of entities don’t typically have a sense of humor. Well, this month I couldn’t stop myself, I went ahead and typed in Retiree in Training and clicked the Update button. I half expected it to not let me, but it did. I wonder if anybody will notice?
