Retirement: Meets Expectations

Six months in, I’m learning that not everything needs to be optimized

Six months ago, I retired. And I have to say, retirement has been everything I hoped it would be.

We’ve traveled. We’ve lived in different places. We’ve stayed active, eaten an unreasonable amount of great food, drank an equally unreasonable amount of great wine, explored markets, taken trains, boats, trolleys, cable cars, Ubers, Bolts, and our own two feet.

We took a Panama Canal cruise, spent time with our kids, then headed to Europe. Here, we spent three weeks in Portimão and are now wrapping up a month in Porto before heading to Scottland.

So far, retirement has been great.

The only problem is that sometimes I bring my entire career with me.

For more than 20 years of my 30+ year career, I was in an executive-level HR role. Which means I developed a few executive-level HR habits.

Pre-retirement executive KC

And now? I no longer have anyone to “HR.”

For decades, I had employees, managers, and executives who came to me with problems. I helped them navigate conflict. I worked with them through difficult conversations. I explained how their behavior might be perceived by others, and coached them on leadership skills.

What I have now are 3 grown children. And sometimes, when your adult child tells you about a problem, they don’t necessarily want to hear:

“Have you considered the other person’s perspective?”

Or:

“Let’s talk about your role in this situation.”

Or:

“What could you change, that you can control, to get the outcome you want?”

In HR I could say:

“This is a coaching opportunity.”

As a mother, I (am supposed to) say:

“That sounds really hard.”

I’m working on it.

All that being said, there are many things I don’t miss about working.

I don’t miss the emails, the meetings, the meetings about the meetings.

I don’t miss being the person everyone complained to when something (or someone) was not optimal. Although I do still notice when things are not optimal. That part appears to be permanent.

And, of course, I don’t miss the worst part of HR, letting people go.

What I do miss are the relationships.

I miss the random moments of humor. The people who could make a stressful day better simply by walking into my office. I miss the partnerships built over years of working together; watching people excel in their careers, and seeing their kids grow up.

But I would be remiss not to mention that my only current co-worker (Shawn) is pretty great.

He is an excellent travel companion, an enthusiastic planner, and fully committed to the ongoing research project known as “How much great food and wine can two people reasonably consume?”

So while I may occasionally miss having a whole company to work with, I have to admit that my current two-person organization is excellent.

We always tell our kids: don’t commit to a long-term relationship until you’ve traveled with that person, preferably to a foreign country neither of you has ever visited before. You learn a lot about someone when you’re navigating unfamiliar places together. You discover how they handle the unexpected, whether they can compromise, and whether your ideas of a good time are even remotely compatible.

Fortunately, Shawn and I seem to have gotten that part right. We share the same approach to travel. We like to prepare, which for us means learning at least a few words in the language and understanding a little about the culture and customs. But we also understand that the point of traveling somewhere new is that it isn’t the US. We don’t expect the food, the schedules, the transportation, or the general approach to life to work the way they do at home.

Instead, we genuinely enjoy the differences. We seek out foods we’ve never tried, wander through markets, learn how people live, and embrace the occasional moment when absolutely nothing goes according to plan. We may prepare extensively, but once we arrive, we’re happy to let the place be what it is, and enjoy discovering it together.

Six months into retirement, I am discovering that the hardest part isn’t figuring out what to do with my time. That part is easy.

• Travel somewhere.

• Walk around.

• Find food.

• Find wine.

• Repeat.

The hard part is accepting that not every problem needs to be solved.

And not every conversation with a grown child requires an HR intervention.

Although, come on! With two parents who were HR executives for decades, how are they not CONSTANTLY asking us for advice? Seems like a missed opportunity.

But I digress.

I’m getting better. I think.

If I were giving myself a six-month retirement performance review, it would probably look something like this:

Employee: KC
Position: Retired

Performance Summary:
Has successfully avoided returning to work despite occasionally (frequently) identifying opportunities for improvement in all manner of operations and people.

Strengths:
Able to travel across time zones while maintaining a mostly positive attitude and healthy marriage.

Development Opportunities:
Not “HR-ing” her adult children, or husband, or anyone else who didn’t ask for it.

Overall Rating:
Meets Expectations

Employee Comment:
Would recommend retirement to others.

Manager Comment:
There is no manager.

Employee Response:
Exactly.

Six months in, I think I’m doing pretty well. I may still have opinions about how things could be optimized, but at least I’m not creating a PowerPoint presentation about it.

Yet.