I've put in about 16 hours this week. I'm making the usual newbie mistakes. I'm slow. I don't know the clients, or the employees. I don't know who knows what at the site. I've broken house rules about when to go online remotely. I've made a couple of blunders on the phone. It's nothing really new or unusual, these just-starting-out mistakes.
However, for the past nine months I haven't been in the business environment. I've been in the know in my activities. I have made my own rules or gone without.
It feels very weird to be a newbie again in the business world. I'm waking up early thinking about the phone calls. I'm stewing over how to make calls at a time when people won't be annoyed - that means not in the evenings and not on Sunday. I'd like to leave a voicemail with a brief explanation, the incentive, and my phone number. And I can do that on Monday, except that we're leaving on Tuesday for nine days in Santa Fe, and I'd really rather not be doing business when we're out of town. Oh, well. Life happens, I guess.
This is my choice, this part-time project. Now I remember, though, how it was in the working world for the last 20 years.
Hmmm.
13 comments:
I think that when life pulls us back to something we thought we were finished with...there's a chance for something there we might need to see or an opportunity waiting. Life certainly does happen.
I admire you for taking the plunge. I fear I am too set into my retirement ways to handle all the rules again.
Fortunately for you, you can do it part time and you are a boss after all.
After a year of retirement, I was given an opportunity for a month's work and I did it, with a renewed desire to just stay retired after that. It just wasn't worth it to get pulled back into the workforce. But that's just me.
It takes a while to get back in swing with any activity.This may tell you you like the no work even better. Volunteer is nice since you make your own hours.
The first month I was working after a 5 year retirement was miserable. I considered on a daily basis about whether I could do it. I really had no choice, because I needed to supplement my income, but I was feeling inept and worried that I'd lost my edge forever. In the past month, my 2nd on the job, things have begun to settle into a greater degree of normalcy. It just takes a while, whether the job is in a new company or a new position where you've been for years. the learning curve stinks, but you will not likely escape it!
You won't be a newbie for long. :)
This reminds me of how glad I am to be retired. Have a good time on your trip. Try not to think about business. It will be there when you get back.
Hooray retirement but how good that you're trying to contact folks to keep in relationship. Always a good business strategy.
I admire you for taking on a new effort, but I can imagine how hard it is to learn new routines and live by other people's rules (no matter how reasonable they may be).
I admire you too and just remember you don't have to do it forever.
I do some freelance work in retirement, and I enjoy it, but it's all by computer, and it's all for people I used to work with before. So I'm comfortable and secure, but sometimes wish I was meeting new people, doing different things.
I'm sure there are hassles and some stress in your new situation, but isn't fun to be connected, to a business and to other people, and feel like you're learning new things and contributing to a going concern?
I feel your pain. I also understand completely the pull to work again and to try things we've never done before. I hope you can put it behind you and forget it while you are in Santa Fe.
There's got to be a balance between retirement and working. I just haven't figured it out yet. I think I want a job that I don't have to show up until I feel like working. I don't have to get up too early and the job is engaging, with interesting and fun people. Oh, and it pays a small fortune. Does that job exist? Probably not, i better plan on just staying retired!
Have a great trip.
I think it's awesome that you're tackling this new project. And wonder if you'll find it worth the hassle.
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