You Can't Quit, You're Fired

 Welp, it looks like I get to start enjoying retired life a little earlier than I expected.

If you’ll recall a post from three weeks ago, I informed my company that I’d retire rather than be forced back into the office, as their firm-wide commandment just commanded. I gave them 9/2 at the effective date, which was the first day we were supposed to return to the office.

Since then, I’ve been spending an hour a day training my replacement, which is woefully inadequate. There were some things I was able to cover once before moving on, but in a better world, that should be followed up with them performing the same task with me watching, and then totally solo. That takes time, though. All we had time for was one and done.

So, last Wednesday, when I logged into my weekly one-on-one with the boss, she had an HR person with her, which is never a good sign. Without fanfare, she let me know there was a departmental reorganization afoot and my position had been eliminated. Eight days before I was to retire. Then she said I’d get a severance package equal to 29 weeks’ pay. (Two weeks plus one week for every year I’ve been there.) THAT got my attention. At that point, I missed pretty much everything the HR lady was saying because I was trying to wrap my head around why they would give me a package when I was about to walk away voluntarily, with nothing. I didn’t believe that shit about a reorg at all. It sounded like they were afraid I was going to send my remaining days sabotaging the company from within, which was totally untrue. I’d been doing my best to train my replacement, keep up with my responsibilities, and clean out the electronic detritus amassed over 27 years… old saved emails, cartoons, awards, etc.

I had a couple of Goodbye emails already written, which were meant for various groups of people, but they warned me that following this conversation, I was to log off company systems immediately and never log on again. Not wanting to mess with the severance, I did just that, but was unhappy about it. I had some nice stuff I wanted to say. It wasn’t going to be a flaming farewell at all.

So, with that, I logged off, wondering WTF I was going to do with the rest of my day. I texted Sweetpea, of course, who I know wouldn’t see the email until later in the day, and then my brother, who had recently been “unwillfully retired” about a month earlier. I notified a couple of people within the company I was friendly with and whose contact info I had, then had lunch and a nap. (Retired life: so far, so good.)

Later that evening, I heard from one of those friends, who told me there actually was a reorg going on in my former silo. They cut loose a whole department of people, with plans to outsource their responsibilities. She said they probably had my name on their list for at least a month. She said they probably figured that if they laid off a bunch of people and gave severance, but let me walk away with nothing, it was grounds for a possible lawsuit. I don’t know about that, but I guess it’s possible.

But NOW it all made a lot more sense. All this time I thought I had them over a barrel, they were thinking, “Dude, don’t be a dumbass, just stay put for a few more days, and we’ll send you off with a chunk of cash!” I also figure that they’re getting rid of my whole area of responsibility, which is why they didn’t care how trained the next guy was. They must have determined they could live with short-term pain and shed the whole operation.

I thought back to my termination call and realized that my firing must have been the easiest and most pleasant one of the day. Once I realized I was getting severance, I practically tap-danced out the proverbial door. If this had happened at a time when I wasn’t ready and able to retire, I would have been devastated and pissed beyond belief. I’m guessing some of their other calls were more like that.

So, now I have to figure out how to be retired. I’m going to need some kind of new routine, lest I wander about all day wondering what to do next. I plan on expanding on that with future posts, probably starting next week.

I can foresee right now, though, that it will be a noisy couple of weeks. We had just signed a contract to remodel our kitchen and bath the night before I learned about the Great Office Repopulation, and work is starting this Wednesday. We could have canceled it within the period of rescission, but there really wasn’t an upside to doing so. We need the job done regardless, and delaying it wasn’t going to change anything, other than it would likely be more expensive. So, onward ho!