In December 2016, having agreed to attend counselling sessions and continuing to work from home, I gradually began to accept the idea that my life was necessarily going to change, and my mood gradually improved as the year end approached. I enjoyed a quiet Christmas and New Year which felt very normal. The thought of the operation still hung over me, and I had the strange experience that I was both looking forward to having the procedure, whilst simultaneously dreading it. The consultant had advised me that operations of that complexity, although common, were far from risk-free. The chances of someone surviving a double bypass operation were 99%, which sounded good, but it also meant that one out of one hundred people didn’t survive! That wasn’t a comforting thought. I told myself that the ones who died would be those with underlying medical conditions who hadn’t watched their diet or maintained their fitness so I would be fine. Even so, I really wanted it out of the way so I could resume my life once more.
In early November I was told to expect an 18-week delay for the operation, but also, that I might be called in early if there was a cancellation. This suggested a latest date of 9th March, which is a date that I clung on to. I hoped that I’d be called in much sooner than that so I could still go on a cycling holiday to Mallorca in late April. I’d booked the flights for this in October, which was either very confident or foolish of me, but the longer the delay for the operation, the less likely it was that I would be able to go, even as a non-cycling attendee. (I had told myself that I’d still enjoy going even if I couldn’t cycle – that was never going to work! I’d have been bored out of my skull). Heart bypass patients typically need 12 weeks to recover from the operation, and so I’d calculated that if I had the operation in January, I’d be fit to go by May. However, on 9th January, I was told that my date was likely to slip by a month, and so with that knowledge, I cancelled my Mallorca holiday and offered Emily my place and changed my flight into her name.
I was surprised how this made me feel. Whilst I was disappointed not to be going, the overall sense of relief was almost greater than my disappointment. Once again, someone else had made a difficult decision for me, and I was happy to accept it. Looking back, this seemed to be a turning point for me. Until then, I was fiercely determined that nothing was going to stop me from deciding what was best for me in my life. But in those last few weeks, more and more things were happening that I felt unable to control – Sharon had bullied me into accepting counselling, the nurses at Occupational Health had instructed me to work at three-quarter capacity, and Gordon had ordered me not to work on operational matters. So then when the health system had effectively told me that I could no longer go cycling in Mallorca, I just accepted it.
At this time, the priorities in my daily work were changing. As instructed, I was no longer doing the day-to-day stuff I used to do, but I had begun to accept that the operational activities were being successfully achieved without me. I was still involved in discussions with the Trailblazer group creating a Project Control level 4 apprenticeship although at this stage the bulk of that work had already been completed. In addition I was being drawn into the new activities required to develop level 6 (degree) and level 7 (master’s) apprenticeships. I often attended meetings at Blackpool and the Fylde College and took part in on-line discussions with other businesses across the UK, so my mind was fully occupied. I was beginning to develop a new niche where I could still demonstrate my value and so I was no longer feeling sorry for myself. I now recognise that my ego was being massaged with these events – I was still considered a useful member of the team which boosted my perceived self-worth.
To provide some background, trailblazer groups are responsible for developing occupational standards which form a key component of an apprenticeship. The role of a trailblazer group is to:
- develop a new apprenticeship for an occupation. This involves writing the occupational standard and end-point assessment plan and collating evidence to inform a funding band recommendation for an agreed occupational proposal.
- revise the apprenticeship as needed. This may result from a route review or change request.
I was still working part time (75% of my usual hours) and used this to my advantage on one occasion in late January. Without the usual rush to get things done, I felt no guilt one day in taking a hire car for a leisurely drive down to Oxfordshire arriving mid-afternoon, in plenty of time for a five-hour business meeting the following day. I was able to take Geraldine along too – the only cost was for an additional breakfast at the hotel. The next day, whilst I attended a trailblazer meeting at the Association for Project Management (APM) headquarters at Princes Risborough, Geraldine jumped on a train and took herself off to the Bicester Outlet Village for a day of retail therapy. Prior to this, I would have felt very guilty about taking such a leisurely business trip – I was always very conscientious, and careful to ensure that all my time was correctly accounted for, especially whenever I was away on business. My work ethic would normally insist that I rushed down after finishing work, only arriving at the hotel at bed time. Now, no-one objected to me driving to the meeting outside of the 75% when I should have been working.
I began the counselling sessions in mid-January, seeing a lady in Wheelton for an hour every week for five weeks. After the first discussion I felt that the meetings were no longer necessary since I had begun to accept my new circumstances and was feeling much better in myself, but since the sessions were already paid for, I continued to attend them. After the second visit, I began to see more opportunities than blockages in my life and by then I had to concede that to my surprise, the therapy worked really well. At the time I told myself that I had thought through all the issues and reached a happy compromise in my work-life balance without any outside help. Perhaps some of this was true, but in reality, I had a great many people batting for my team although I didn’t realise nor appreciate it at the time. I used the counselling sessions to talk about my views on retirement and began to get that idea straight in my mind. Retirement had always been something way into the future, but after various conversations around that time, I decided that I would aim to retire at age 60. This pointed to a retirement date of summer 2019, less than two years hence.
Looking at this from where I now sit (retired for over 6 years) I have a different theory about how my thoughts changed during the period from November 2016 until about February 2017. I think now (and, in truth, probably subconsciously did then) that many people define themselves by their role at work, especially so if they are proud of what they have achieved. I was no different, and so when faced with the prospect of returning to work after the operation to a reduced role, my subconscious railed against this, and my depressed moods reflected it. As mentioned earlier, I am not one for ‘assuming the role’; I like to be appointed to a task and given the authority to carry it out rather than just taking it. I was enjoying my role of Early Careers Manager, especially since I operated virtually autonomously: I made the decisions the role required without needing to seek permission or approval. I foresaw that returning to work after several months, I would not enjoy taking a role where I saw other people performing tasks that once were mine. The job had defined who I was, and I probably felt that I would be personally diminished if I were to return to a lesser role. This, I suspect, was the underlying cause of my dark moods before Christmas 2016.
Due to counselling, I began to think seriously about retirement and had started to plan for it.
The concern I had about my ‘position in society’ began to recede since I knew that once retired, there would be no need for me to impress anyone. I would simply be a retired man who once worked in the field of Early Careers. I hope that I don’t, but now that I’m retired, I could quite easily gently augment the importance of my role when answering questions regarding my previous work. After all, who would be there to deny it once I had left?
Since retirement in summer 2018 (not 2019 as planned for reasons that will become apparent in chapter 13), I am occasionally asked by people who are still employed, how I am finding it. For the first six months it was too early to say, but once I’d survived winter (the most difficult period for an outdoorsy person such as me), my views became clearer.
My advice now to anyone considering retirement is to first understand and then accept who you truly are, and not to let your job define you. Once you’ve cleared that hurdle, retirement is wonderful. In retirement, you can simply be yourself: you don’t have a job title or a position in a formal hierarchy. You are simply you. It is very common (certainly in modern Western society) when first meeting someone to ask, “and what do you do”? Whilst in work, this was easy, you just give an impressive-sounding job title and watch the questioner realise how important you are. (OK, it might not be that extreme, but something like that does happen for people in certain positions in society.) Once retired, however, if you respond by saying “Oh, I’m retired”, this often stops that line of questioning dead, and the inquisitor moves on to explore more fruitful topics (hobbies, interests, pastimes…) On some occasions, I may be pressed further “But what did you used to do?” and I now find that I am no longer interested in going into detail about something that I have left behind and I fall back on the generic “Oh, I worked in Early Careers” or “I used to work for BAE Systems”.
An aside. If I respond with the latter, very often someone will say “Oh, my cousin/friend/ neighbour works there. Did you know him/her?” Anyone who works for a large company gets this all the time, but very rarely did I know the person mentioned. Or if I did remember someone, the dialogue in my head would go “So what?” I rarely say what perhaps I was thinking, “Yeah I knew him: he was a real pillock” but instead I’ll come out with some bland statement such as “Oh, yes, I remember so-and-so, we worked together on NN project”.