Lemmings

I was on a cruise to the Mediterranean and we stopped in Casablanca. I had been constantly told that it was dangerous ‘there’. And I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the prospect of wandering off in the Casbah by myself–more about getting lost and missing the boat than getting assaulted and forced to buy rugs to fit into my suitcase somehow. So I signed up for a tour group. Tour groups are an interesting phenomenon in themselves. In who joins them, how they are organized, what you get out of such a package. In our case we packed a little van with overweight Americans with their secret neck pendant wallets and whipped through the streets.  The historically European quarters are wildly different from the Arab quarters and if not segregated, the differences are still disturbing. Then again, is the Casbah a cute slum, kind of like American Chinatowns? Rick’s Cafe was in the European section, which I should have guessed. I assume it came after the movie, kind of like a one-off Planet Hollywood Restaurant. 

Then we piled out of the van and walked through the casbah. I’m tempted to say we all stuck closely together, but that wasn’t true. We even got rather spread out–mostly I suspect because a lot of us can’t walk very fast. They had a number of helper guides to try to keep the various bodies moving the the right direction. It would be easy to get turned around and completely lost. I didn’t feel threatened but I didn’t feel especially welcomed either. Mainly because we were getting in everyone’s way and acting like tourists. I sensed ‘they’ were muttering ‘d*mn tourists’ under their breaths, much as I do in San Francisco when I’m stuck amongst the tourists.

Back again

I’ve been thinking of going back to work. Well, I’ve even sent my resume to a couple of places. Now is obviously suboptimal–looks like I messed up my retirement savings in downturn, hadn’t planned it right, I’ve been retired too long, about three years, which looks bad. As a systems analyst my job skills also probably look obsolete. 

And I could use a few extra bucks. Think is, I actually liked what I did. I liked the challenge of analysis, of figuring things out. I’m the kind of guy who gravitates to computer programming because I’m not the most socially adept kind of guy, so the people challenge of analysis was a fun kind of stretch. And from what I read the New Retirement doesn’t mean stopping work anyway. So we’ll see. Meanwhile I’m still working on a couple of books. One of them is about business analysis. It’s interesting what a little perspective looks like.

hi mom

 

One of my original intentions was to blog about retirement. Well, it’s been almost three years now and I haven’t written all that much about retirement. Because of the current financial mess many retirees, including myself, have worried whether our savings will last. If we have savings. I am fortunate that I’m in good shape.

But I have been thinking I should go back to work anyway. To shore up my finances, sure, but also to force me out of the house. But really, what is important to me? Retirement should imply resources and time to concentrate on what is important and wisdom and experience to know actually what that is. I may be in trouble.

 

My plan was to write a couple of books–a novel and a non-fiction book on systems analysis. I haven’t made much progress on either. Even in college I was known as a slow writer. But this is ridiculous.  So I need to rethink what I’m doing.

 

And one of things I’m doing is trying to spend more time with my mom. She’s in her eighties and still going strong. People tell me I should spend as much time as I can, they regret the missed opportunity. So there is that. And I have still more selfish reasons. I know so little about her life. What are the little details and incidents that illuminate her story? I am a thief, wanting to know this partly so I can steal it and make it into stories I can write. I am trying to expatiate my sins of being engrossed in my own life and not paying attention to hers. So I wonder, what was her childhood like? A farm girl. Did she have far ambitions? We are used to dramatic changes in our life. As children we take change for granted. But what was it like for her? I saw a picture of her a top a horse. Standing in front of Ford Model A. Such changes in her life.

 

What has it like to be a Japanese-American early in the twentieth century. I am curious about her life before the camps and after the camps. Sometimes it feels that with caucasians our whole history is confined to the camps. I am not the camps. She is not the camps. I am greedy. I want to know what her whole life was like.  Starting next week we’re off on a trip together and maybe I’ll have to courage to pry into her life.

Lately I’ve been thinking of going back to work. Mainly to force myself out of the house. I have lots of projects around the house–not fixing it up, I’m pretty good at ignoring chores and home projects. But novels to write and books to read and music to listen to. I’m by nature a loner but I realize that isn’t good for anyone, even me. I’m not good at hanging out in coffee shops or gyms and striking up conversations with people. So maybe I should go back to work and inflict myself on some unsuspecting productive member of society.

Fortunately I’m also extremely lazy.  I take a nap instead.

Still here?

I still seem to be here. I’ve been retired/laid off/unemployed for a year now. I’m surprised how easily I got used to not working. But then I’m rather lazy. I do still fret that I don’t have enough money to really pull this off. After all, if I live to be 80, I’ve got 23 years to go. And if I think of what stuff cost twenty-three years ago, the reality of inflation is scary.
But what puzzles me is that several times in my life I’ve had turning points. Some big, some rather minor in the grand scheme of things, but times in my life when my life changed and I had a moment when I felt as though I were waking from a dream. All those assumptions slipping away and leaving me with the ability to see as if with a clarity that made everything that I saw before the disjointed forced perspective of a dream. But I have not had that moment since retiring. I haven’t felt that moment of waking up and being renewed. And that in itself is a little scary.

Rewiring my head

I’m convinced that your mind gets rewired to accommodate your thoughts. Working in data processing for twenty-five years has rewired my brain for abstractions and logic and utility and not for magic and mysteries. It is taking longer than I thought to rewire my brain back to where it was before I had a career. Twenty-five years doesn’t go poof! in a forthnight.

Backstory: September 30

I am writing this entry rather after the fact. Because of certain agreements I won’t detail where I worked or with will obfuscate some with whom I’ve worked. I’ve been a programmer-analyst for a little over twenty-five years. Almost all of that time at this one company. Before that I worked for a software house. I switched jobs with the intention of finding out what in-house programming was like. And then after a year I would go back to consulting.
For various reasons (do I need a reason?) I stayed. I worked on a variety of systems over the years, mainframe COBOL IMS applications, telecommunications front-end systems running on personal computers, voice response systems, inventory systems using bar code scanners. I took on a variety of roles, programmer, analyst, unix system administration. I got used to running my own projects though I was never officially a project lead. The last five years I concentrated on systems analysis for one project. I wanted to concentrate on analysis for a number of reasons. Partly because I think it’s hard and I like challenges. Partly because I had gotten a little tired of having to come up to speed with a yet another programming language.
The project itself was way too big. There were too many business rules to translate into code. The programmers had been working full tilt for years and were exhausted. The end-users were cranky. I was thinking of getting out.
When I started programming I had made a vow to myself that when it stopped being fun I would get out. Programming wasn’t my life. It was a job. Something to pay the bills. That it is fascinating and fun and doesn’t require an advanced degree or a license was a bonus. But it wasn’t fun anymore.
I had stayed at this place long enough that I could take early retirement and get a pension. I’m cheap enough that I could conceivably live off it. Or anyway, I would always get another job. I decided to plan as if I would quit at the end of the year. I needed to figure out what my realistic options were, to figure out what my finances looked like.

On Friday September 30th, K called me and asked me to meet him. [Names have been altered to protect the innocent but also because it sounds more Kafkaeque this way.] But not in his office, in someone else’s office. Not a good sign. I went over there and the secretary had an odd look when we exchanged greetings. K had a person from human resources in tow. So I knew I’m getting laid off. We went into a neutral office. K told me that my position was being eliminated as of the end of the year. He was really sorry, blah blah blah. I asked if I still had to go on that business trip to Birmingham next week. Hm, yes.
K ducked out and left me with the HR person. I talked briefly with the HR person. I would get an enhanced retirement package, five points added to the years worked (WooHoo! No, seriously this was a nice thing.) I didn’t really have any questions. I’m not good at thinking on my feet like that.
Then my project lead and I talked a little bit. He assured me it had nothing to do with my work performance. He said the entire analysis team was being disbanded. Some of the programmers were axed as well. We were over budget and the client wanted cuts.
Most of the team was out that day. They had just delivered a production release of the system. That was why I was going to Birmingham, to show the flag when the system came up on Monday. The programmers were having a well deserved day off. There weren’t many people who knew what was going on. So there weren’t many people to talk to. I noodled around a little bit, practicing being whimsical, then decided to call it a day.
R called that night. He was still at work. He’s probably my best friend at work. I can tell because he’s the only person I feel comfortable enough to razz all the time. I think he was more upset than I was. Of course, I was still somewhat numb and perhaps in denial. Now, I had been thinking of retiring for some time now anyway. The project was really toxic and I needed to get out. I was tired, burned out. T, the lead programmer on the project, and I had had private conversations about being burned out and becoming librarians in our next life. So in a way this was a good thing.But work is very much your life, very much your self-image. And there is a difference between planning on something and having someone else do it for you (or to you).

Sunday, I flew out to Birmingham. The trip was very strange, as if everything were ending and crumbling apart at the last minute. I was checking in at San Francisco. The airline self-service kiosk was kind of cranky and someone had to help me. The kiosk said the flight out of SF was delayed but I still had over an hour between flights. So OK. I check my luggage. Most people don’t anymore but I don’t like to shlepp luggage around airports. The ticket person looked at the tag and said this isn’t going to work. I didn’t have a hour and a quarter between flights. I had five minutes.
Another agent volunteered that the computer was screwed up. So it was GOOD to have a person in the loop. [Everything has a lesson to teach an analyst. Don't trust the computer. Include feedback loops. Let humans insert themselves into the process.]
The agent called around and got me rebooked on another airline. Oddly, I was booked onto a flight I had originally passed on because it was so expensive. Anyway, I fly to Dallas and find my coworker Bernardita in the lounge waiting for our connection. [OK, so maybe I'm giving up this Kakfa thing.]
So, has she heard the news? What news? She’s part of the analysis team. Since it’s disbanded she’ll be reassigned to some other team, some other project lead, some other task. She’s affected too, and no one told her?
Bernardita was taken completely unawares. As she later retold the story, I dropped the bomb on her then walked off to get something to eat, while her jaw drops to the floor. Sounds about right. Bernardita later found out who the others were. In my typically selfish way, I hadn’t pressed to find out who they were, I was concentrating on myself and my own predictament.

I wanted to use the trip as an opportunity to say my goodbyes to the clients. I had grown rather fond of them and liked the idea that I could take my leave in person rather than over the phone or through emails. There were complications even to that, which I’ll relate next time.

Starting and Ending

I plan to write about retirement, or getting laid off, depending on that way you want to spin it; and systems analysis. Intermezzo is the music between movements. While thinking about a title for this blog I rather liked the idea that although I would write about retirement, this is not going to be about the end of my life but a transition from a work-life to something else. I’m not sure what else, yet. So intermezzo sounds appropriate, if maybe too musical.

I was getting burned out at work and thought about getting out. When I first started computer programming I had made a pact with myself that I would only do it as long it was fun. I had not planned on a career in computers, I wanted write novels and screenplays. But programming paid the bills and it was fun.

But toward the end it became not fun. I was at a point where I could seriously think about early retirement. Or at least, use an early retirement package from this company to finance winging off in a new direction. And then they fired me anyway. But, since I got the early retirement package anyway (you can tell it was a gummit agency can’t you?) it was like a kick out of the nest, but with a parachute.

So my plan is to describe what it was like to leave, write about stuff I’ve learned since.

The systems analysis mentioned earlier is a separate theme. I found I like systems analysis more than programming. For non-techies, programming is telling a computer how to do something. Analysis is figuring what that something is. Roughly, programming is like flying an airplane. Analysis is figuring out you want to fly it to Cleveland (!??!).

While it is slightly “easier” in the sense of slightly better hours, it is very different because analysis is all about communication where programming is all about telling a computer what to do. But analysis doesn’t give you the high you get while programming. But anyway, it seems like we don’t do much analysis, we try to jump straight to code. There aren’t nearly as many books teaching analysis as teaching programming. And this is alarming. For reasons I hope to get into later. I was thinking of writing a book on systems analysis. And this would be the draft version. Or maybe I’ll write a blog about it. Something.

I have a bunch of notes to convert to entries here. In the future I hope to settle down and make entries at least once a week.