I had to decide what to do about my outstanding annual leave, prior to my retiral at the end of June. So, I decided to take a very long weekend off (Thursday to Tuesday – you could call it a short week), to use up a few days.
Today, Wednesday, was a research day – as usual. I finished drafting a research paper. With no deadlines today, I allowed the ‘intellectual’ work to merge into a bit of eBay searching at 5 pm, to find the perfect specimens for a couple of PowerPoint images. (It was a rather complicated operation, involving looking for recordings in a particular year, in the British Newspaper Archive, and then searching for those titles on eBay. Not as easy as you’d think!)
My Out-of-Office was set at 5 pm.
Now, here goes. Tomorrow is holiday. I should be researching tomorrow morning – and the new, semi-retired me will still be researching on Thursdays. In fact, I have a PowerPoint to prepare, but – tomorrow is holiday. I have to get used to not working even when it ISN’T the weekend.
Friday to Tuesday are, likewise, holiday.
HOW AM I GOING TO KEEP AWAY FROM MY RESEARCH UNTIL NEXT WEDNESDAY? A WHOLE WEEK?!
3 Challenges for the Nearly Semi-Retired Researcher
For my first challenge, I have to resist leaping out of bed early tomorrow morning. I have an audio book to finish – the Slow Productivity book – and a paperback about ultra-processed foods to continue reading, so I should manage this – providing I have enough tea to keep me going.
And my second challenge is to eat as little ultra-processed food as possible, so food prep might occupy me a bit more than usual. The trick will be to strike a balance between healthy eating and actually benefitting from more free time.
Lastly – might I dust off the bike? We’ll have to see about that.
‘Changing Jobs? It’s emotional‘, says Jennifer Ryan, Segment Editor at LinkedIn. I settled down to read her posting, which collates what a number of people have said about the challenge of leaving a job you’ve held for a very long time. A lot of their comments made sense.
Retirees, This is Not About You
But then, just when I was thinking, ‘this is helpful’, Ryan threw a curveball:-
It’s one thing to retire after a decades-long career, relishing a chapter successfully concluded, say authors Dorie Clark and Natalie Nixon, PhD. However, leaving a job you’ve held for years in order to start your own venture or go to another company is “a different emotional and practical experience altogether”.
However, I AM retiring. And rather than starting my own venture, I am just continuing part-time with the interesting research element of my job, that has hitherto been a partial secondment
Don’t Look Back
What I must do, I’ve decided, is STOP LOOKING BACK. Remember the Biblical story of Lot’s wife? She turned to look over her shoulder and turned to a pillar of salt.
Relishing a Chapter Successfully Concluded?
So, I need to make a concerted effort to stop kicking myself for opportunities I didn’t get, things I didn’t achieve, and disappointments I could do nothing about.
After all, I got a PhD whilst working full-time. I raised a family, ditto. I was a Fellow of CILIP, my professional association, until I decided to let the fellowship go, now that I’m ceasing to be a librarian. I’ve been an honorary Fellow at the University of St Andrews, and I’ve been elected an honorary Fellow of IAML (UK & Ireland) – my other professional association. And my second monograph is at the publisher’s.
Who cares if I’ve catalogued so many jazz CDs that my brain-cells have practically ossified? (They haven’t, or I wouldn’t be capable of writing books etc.) In five and a half weeks, it won’t matter how many of the things are still waiting to be catalogued, because I won’t be cataloguing them.
Maybe I should start repeating this mantra:-
Don’t Look Back (Boston)
(I was 20 when this song was written. And I only stumbled across it tonight!)
Coincidentally, a Twitter contact shared the perfect picture – a chained book at a church in Broughton, Bucks. When I think of myself being ‘unshackled from the shelves’, this is precisely the mental picture that comes into my mind! Irreverently, I’m ashamed to admit that the mental picture has a soundtrack: it’s accompanied by a line from a hymn, ‘And can it be?’ In my own defence, hymns have been a large part of my life, and I shall in all probability write a few more myself in retirement, so it’s hardly surprising that this line pops into my head!
My chains fell off, my heart was free …
Making Memories
Friday’s concert programme at RCS
The past week saw me attending two lunchtime concerts – the Strings Department on Monday, and a chamber music concert (two substantial pieces by Dohnanyi and Brahms) on Friday. I wasn’t familiar with the Dohnanyi, but it was a lovely discovery.
Another day, I had tea and a cake at Waterstones – yes, I did buy a book. No surprise there.
Improving Vision
It wasn’t all fun and merriment this week: I had a check-up at the eye department on Thursday. ‘Slow progress’ is certainly still progress, so I’m trying to feel positive about this qualified good news. But ‘fantastic, wonderful progress’ would have been more uplifting … I’m just glad the other eye more than compensates.
Vision for the Future: BIPOC composers
And on Friday, I got back to my efforts in taking steps to increase our coverage of music by historically under-represented composers. More about that in a later posting.
Chained book photo courtesy of Steve, @portaspeciosa, with thanks
Do you remember the old family memory game, ‘I packed my bag, and in it I put ….’ Each successive person has to remember the list, and add something else.
Today, I both literally and metaphorically packed my bag. At the end of the working day, I took home my thick lever-arch file containing Stationers’ Hall research notes. It used to live in the research lab until it ceased to be a working space for staff researchers. Then it had an honoured shelf behind my desk in the library. Then my desk moved to another office, I got a smaller desk in the new office, and lost all but one of my shelves. It’s time for my research notes to go home, one file at a time. Research is something that often lends itself to working from home, though I don’t know where I’ll put the extra files!
Mondays at One: Strings
Since this is a memory game – I also attended a lunchtime concert of the Strings Department, to give myself some more enjoyable memories of my final weeks as a librarian. I heard a fabulous piece by Schnittke for violin and accordion (Suite in the Old Style, op.80); Beethoven’s Piano Trio, op.70 no.2 and Suk’s Piano Trio, op.2. Unfortunately, I had to get back to work after my lunchbreak, so I missed Bartok, more Suk and – sadly – Mancini’s Pink Panther. Ah, well. I did gather some pleasant memories, and I hope I get to hear that Schnittke again in that setting one day. It really was lovely! The original violin and piano piece is very charming, but it was even nicer with accordion instead of piano.
Post Script.
Today’s treat was lunch and a book at Waterstone’s. Research files have all gone home. Bookshelves empty and desk surface clear. (Should I go now?!)
I’m only semi-retiring; I’m leaving the main part of my job, but turning the research secondment into a new part-time contract. The technicalities are one thing: fill in the appropriate forms for receiving your pension. Decide what to do about outstanding holiday entitlement. Set things in motion for a new contract. Wait. Start counting the weeks, and then the days. Wait some more.
As I said in an earlier post, you can try to inject a few fun things into lunch-breaks, to brighten up the days. (I’m grateful to work in a place where there are loads of performances going on.) Meanwhile, you’re still at work in the old job. You know, and everyone else knows, that in a couple of months you won’t be there. In my unrealistic mind, I’d hoped to go out in a blaze of glory, but I don’t feel glorious or triumphant at all. How are you supposed to FEEL?, I asked a considerably older friend. They looked at me in a way that said they’d never asked themselves that!
Clearing Clutter (and Treasures)
I sit cataloguing donations and glumly eyeing piles that everyone would like to be cleared out of the way before I clear off! A late night email (which I found the next day) seemed to hint at that. But if I haven’t cleared the piles of donations by now, working steadily, then am I reasonably going to get the whole lot out of the way in two months? Am I not working hard enough? It’s a bit depressing, actually. On the other hand, when I arrived in 1988, there was a half a rolling stack full of donated materials. I used to wonder if I’d still be needed once I’d catalogued them all. Of course, they were all dealt with decades ago. None of our donations are remotely that old; there aren’t nearly as many; and no, I wasn’t discarded when the original donations were all done and dusted! Maybe it’s unrealistic to expect a final, purging blitz on what’s there now. Leave something for my successors.
Occasionally I get over-excited about treasures that crop up amongst the more routine stuff. (Over 200 years old? How could I NOT be excited?! One of the joys of having two parallel careers is having research knowledge that illuminates historical library materials. Sharing that knowledge sufficiently so that everyone else is aware of the treasures – that’s another thing entirely. Who wants to be trapped by an old librarian keen to share stories about ancient scores and famous poets?)
Am I a Blot on the Landscape?
Busy things happen all around me, and I just go on cataloguing. Answering queries too, obviously – one of the best bits of the job. My departure will probably be a breath of fresh air for the department, making room for new ideas.
The Paranoia about Becoming Irrelevant – ‘Yesterday’s News?’
I feel distinctly old as I walk past our ever-younger readers, to get to the office. Do people whisper behind their hands that I surely must be past it by now?
I’ve been keeping a ‘handover document’ for almost a year now, and every so often I think of something to add to it. Often things occur to me after I’ve had to deal with something, and realise that maybe it needs noting down! ‘It won’t be your concern in a few weeks’, my older spouse tells me. It’s hard adjusting to the certainty that things will be done differently once I’m gone. Things that I think should be done one way, will assuredly be done differently, and that’s to be expected. Even the things that I value aren’t necessarily of the same value to other folk – that’s the hard bit! (Mind you, some of the things I value have historical AND monetary value. My valued things aren’t valued without good reason.)
On the plus side, of course, is my list of research things to investigate, calls for papers and articles and chapters. I haven’t run out of steam, intellectually – far from it. My second book about to commence the copy-editing process. A research paper to write for a conference in July. New adventures on the horizon – oh, I really can’t wait for some new adventures! (I’m not a dull cataloguer – I’ve just ended up backed into a wee cataloguing corner. Neither does everyone find cataloguing tedious, but I have really done too much of it!)
You get lots of advice about how to write a CV, how to start your career with a flourish, how to make your mark. How to get on in the world. How to progress. But it seems there’s little advice about how to gracefully bow out!
This isn’t something unique to me – retirals happen all the time. What do other people do? Do you set up appointments to say goodbye to people? (Hard, when I’ll still be around, albeit in a different department.) Do you try to set up one last workshop/seminar/whatever before you go? [Post Script: you don’t!]
Or just try to be inconspicuous until the Last Day arrives?!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 