I have now been retired for about eight months and I must say this has been an incredibly happy, stress-free time. Once or twice I’ve found myself thinking about my last job, with the Council, and here are my top 5 things I miss about work.
- Agile working. This means you get a laptop, an iPhone and, if you want, an iPad with a snazzy keyboard. You can even have the biggest flashiest iPad ever made but you may have to be really important to get one (I don’t think I would ever have had the nerve to ask). The downside of agile working is you have to hot desk, providing you can find a desk with a screen and a cable which fits your laptop. Half the staff had Windows laptops, the other had Apple MacBook Airs; needless to say they used different cables. Mind you, even these desks were being replaced by breakfast bars, cafe tables and other snazzy furniture. Otherwise you could work anywhere, except a Council office.
- Monthly performance meetings. These went on all day, dissecting everything in tiny detail. Sometimes they would move at quite a pace, other times the meeting would stop and dwell on something if it was found lacking. Minutes were taken, pages and pages with all kinds of tricky actions forming a “to do” list for the next month. I only missed one in my 2.5 years but they still give me the creeps even now. I suppose, as much as I disliked them, they were quite effective (said in a slightly begrudging way!).
- Tickets. Tickets for almost everything. Seems to be the way of the world these days, especially when it comes to IT issues. All very well until your IT is so knackered you can’t even raise a ticket. Oh for the days when you could simply wander down the corridor, have a chat and a cuppa with the IT guys and your problem was instantly solved.
- Upward management is something I had perfected and, I like to think, benefitted both me and whoever my manager was. This even extended to the Chief at times. And yet in the Council I found my upward management skills were futile, it never seemed to work. My manoeuvres as a Sir Humphrey ended up being a disappointing effort. Had I lost my charm, my special touch or perhaps met my match? Yes, probably I had.
- My colleagues and a serious point here. I had had the honour of working with some fantastic people over the years, some who I became good friends with. I do miss that mental stimulation, banter and “togetherness” as we all worked for something we believed in (that was until Chris Grayling came shuffling along).
I could go on with quite a long list of things I miss about work, these would include the tea stations which were always serious health hazards, dodging Councillors and the endless red tape. Yep I actually miss quite a few of those things, in a crazy, warped kind of way!