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A friend and I were talking today about those awkward final weeks and days at work, and I wondered if any of you have good stories to share. I had a doozy of a last month. I was the supervisor of a small, highly specialized office. The super-dupervisors had decided that effective on my retirement date, the office would disappear, and the employees would be dispersed to the various offices that used our specialty. So that already was one oddity that month. All the employees knew where they were going, and were already coordinating their work with the people who would become their new supervisors, making my management role superfluous. Any direct assignments I was handling either were wrapped up or had been transferred. Mainly I was organizing my files, both digital and hard copy, for archiving.
Then with a month to go, there was a fire in the next building in our large complex. My boss came to me apologetically. A bigwig had been burned out of his office. Our little group, due to a need for confidentiality, was among the few in dozens of buildings that had been permitted to have real offices with real walls, as opposed to open cubicles. So the bigwig wanted my office. I was a lame duck and had no good argument against it. When I lost my office, all my hard copy files were hastily either sent to whomever would need them, or archived. My office computer was reassigned to the bigwig, and since the computer people had been informed I was retiring, when they set up the computer for the bigwig, they mistakenly deactivated my employee account at that time. So I couldn’t even log on to another computer. My boss suggested that during the last month, I show up and find a cubicle where someone was on leave that day and work there. “Work on what?,” I asked. He had no good answer.
So my last month was spent drifting from one cubicle to another, making lists of things to do for retirement, reading library books, and taking long lunch hours. I started going to the gym just for something to do, so I guess that was a good outcome. It was odd going from being busy sometimes 12 hours a day to nothing, while still wandering around in the office for that month. Realistically, I suppose finding something truly useful for me to do in that situation would have involved more effort than anyone wanted to spend on someone who, in their minds, was already gone.
A friend and I were talking today about those awkward final weeks and days at work, and I wondered if any of you have good stories to share. I had a doozy of a last month. I was the supervisor of a small, highly specialized office. The super-dupervisors had decided that effective on my retirement date, the office would disappear, and the employees would be dispersed to the various offices that used our specialty. So that already was one oddity that month. All the employees knew where they were going, and were already coordinating their work with the people who would become their new supervisors, making my management role superfluous. Any direct assignments I was handling either were wrapped up or had been transferred. Mainly I was organizing my files, both digital and hard copy, for archiving.
Then with a month to go, there was a fire in the next building in our large complex. My boss came to me apologetically. A bigwig had been burned out of his office. Our little group, due to a need for confidentiality, was among the few in dozens of buildings that had been permitted to have real offices with real walls, as opposed to open cubicles. So the bigwig wanted my office. I was a lame duck and had no good argument against it. When I lost my office, all my hard copy files were hastily either sent to whomever would need them, or archived. My office computer was reassigned to the bigwig, and since the computer people had been informed I was retiring, when they set up the computer for the bigwig, they mistakenly deactivated my employee account at that time. So I couldn’t even log on to another computer. My boss suggested that during the last month, I show up and find a cubicle where someone was on leave that day and work there. “Work on what?,” I asked. He had no good answer.
So my last month was spent drifting from one cubicle to another, making lists of things to do for retirement, reading library books, and taking long lunch hours. I started going to the gym just for something to do, so I guess that was a good outcome. It was odd going from being busy sometimes 12 hours a day to nothing, while still wandering around in the office for that month. Realistically, I suppose finding something truly useful for me to do in that situation would have involved more effort than anyone wanted to spend on someone who, in their minds, was already gone.
Why didn't the company just enable your user access again since it was removed in error? I wonder if it was not in error but was mandated by a big wig who didn't want you accessing company files any more.
Honestly, I would have retired once I could not log in.
I worked second shift weekends (alone-only one person )
the boss was very relieved I said I'd work it as it was regular weekend.
just said goodby the nightshift tech when she came in and out the door for thelast time.
Nothing fancy for me either. Logged out, turned in the access cards, went home midday Friday. Closed on sale of the house and rolled out of town Monday afternoon.
I'm going through this now. My manager told me to train my replacement a few months ago and she started taking over half of my work to learn how to do it while I was still there and could check her work. But now I don't have much to do because she's doing half my work. I almost feel I should quit now even though I'm supposed to have another 2 months to work.
Nothing fancy for me either. Logged out, turned in the access cards, went home midday Friday. Closed on sale of the house and rolled out of town Monday afternoon.
I had a similar experience 5+ years ago - no drama or stress. My last day at work had been planned for months. I had a good work environment, good boss and coworkers. They took me out to a low-key lunch a few days before I left. I was busy trying to finish off a bunch of projects so I would not have to leave partially-complete tasks to others - that was good to keep the last few weeks moving along - otherwise I would have been bored watching the clock tick.
I moved out of my expensive apartment in Orange County, CA a couple of days after leaving the job and moved to Tucson, AZ. It took me a week to find a new place to live there, but my transition was pretty easy.
Nothing fancy for me either. Logged out, turned in the access cards, went home midday Friday. Closed on sale of the house and rolled out of town Monday afternoon.
I have that beat for a bigger get-out-of-town-quickly story.
My last day at work was Wednesday March 3, 2010.* I walked out of my office near the Supreme Court at 1:00 or 1:30pm (I don't remember exactly anymore), went straight to BWI, hopped on a 4:30pm flight to Las Vegas, and never returned.
*Under the federal employees CSRS system, if you retired by the 3rd day of the month, your annuity began that month and your first pension check would be the first of the following month. However, if you retired the 4th day or later in the month, then your annuity wouldn't begin until the following month and your check would be a month after that. So, by retiring on Wednesday, 03/03, I received my first check on 04/01; if I had worked the rest of the week and retired on Friday, March 5th, I wouldn't have received my first check until May 1st.
There was a Saturday 2nd shift vacancy. I asked my boss if I could work it (it would be overtime for me). Left my key and my badge on my boss's desk, told the 3rd shift operator that I had filled the chlorine day tanks for him, and road off into the sunset (actually, I just drove home). I was pleased that it worked out like this. I could tell any future employers that they trusted me enough to operate the City's water plant by myself on my last day of work.
I decided to retire and talked to my boss about it 6 months before my actual final date. Admittedly, I'd had a very bad day/week/month, and I was in a bit of a frustrated snit. I told my boss I was telling him of my retirement date well ahead of time so that he could do what was necessary to post a position (a lengthy process) for my replacement. My job was a big "one off", no one else in the company was doing what I was and there were many disparate parts to my job. It's a lot to learn and turn over to a new person with no background, so I wanted at least a month or two with my replacement so we could go through the usual monthly cycle of duties, and so that they could learn a few complicated software processes.
Three months go by, and nothing has been done to post the position. I ask my boss when the posting will occur as there probably won't be enough time to go through the cycle and train properly if it's not posted right away. He says HE DIDN'T BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAID I WAS RETIRING!!!! Now admittedly I was a bit young to retire (51), but still met our age limits for retirement (over 50). He said since my decision was never in writing, he took it as me having a bad day. Now I'd been talking about my retirement with everybody around me for the last 3 months after telling him, so I don't see how he didn't take it seriously. I immediately typed out my retirement statement and handed it to him 5 minutes later. He dawdled, and management dawdled, and eventually they posted the position, interviewed, and selected my replacement. He began his training 3 days before I retired. I'd spent the prior month reducing the million and one things involved in my job into a manual of sorts, while still performing all the tasks. At least recording the processes while I was actually doing them helped me avoid omissions. Since I realized I'd never be able to train the replacement fully, I trained him on the manual, and gave him a list of the various people who could help him with the various parts of the job.
They gave me a couple parties, after I explicitly requested that they not do that, but you can't fight tradition and the rampant desire for conference room cake apparently. The last few days I packed my desk, "auctioned off" my cubicle equipment to my co-workers, wandered around the campus saying goodbye to the folks I'd worked with over my 21 years there, and attempted to set my poor replacement up as best as I could with only 3 days to train him in his new promotion. The last day was like floating in a dream. I knew I was leaving forever, but the work just went on around me like I was an invisible ghost floating through the workplace. People smiled, shook my hand or gave me a hug, then went back to answering their phones or typing away on the computer. It was a very odd and sort of lonely feeling as I walked to my car that last day and packed it full of my last boxes all by myself. I imagine life is like that when we die. We'll float off into oblivion, and the world just keeps turning without us.
edited to add: A week later my boss's boss called and asked if I'd work as a retired annuitant for 6 months of the year. I said no thanks.
My retirement & last days at work were as uneventful as a mirage.
The corporation offered a severance package to all employees with 10 years+ employment, but I estimated it was 2+ years before I'd have my "target number"of retirement savings and so I ignored the offer entirely for 6 weeks. I told my team, all younger than me, that I wasn't considering leaving at all. By the last week the chatter was unavoidable how many people were leaving with this, everyone with some gray in their hair it seemed, it was a fair offer.
I went home that weekend and crunched numbers: taxes/years before Medicare & SS @FRA/assuming the Market would not crash/etc.... not terribly accurate but good enough for a rough estimate and I realized could do it. Monday I told my boss, I had 7 days to change my mind, but didn't.
So then I told my team I was leaving at the end of the month (Dec) with everyone else, a last minute change of mind. It was already the second week of December and I had previously taken the last week of December as vacation. So I had about 9 days notice for them, & me, that I was leaving. Some of them were also taking days off for the holidays too so there was never any time where everybody was around, my last day was Christmas Eve, I typically worked later anyway, till about 8pm and nobody of the few left was going to hang around work late then, so I left 20+ years with not a bang but a whisper.
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