Posts Tagged ‘workplace’
Work Dreams
After you retire, if you want to know how to start dreaming about bizarre work challenges again, just drive the commute to your old day job to walk through the workplace and visit all your former coworkers again. I did just that last Tuesday and was rewarded doubly.
I enjoyed the pleasure of seeing their precious faces again, while they applied their trade skills in a spiffed-up facility under new ownership and management. As a bonus, I was rewarded with a mostly unrealistic dream a night later, involving imagined situations I was supposed to play a role in, while having no idea how to proceed.
It was a treat to see them all looking as good as always, and have everyone still remember who I was. Of course, it helped that I brought a batch of Cyndie’s home-baked scones, fresh out of the oven, to distract them from any lingering memories of why they hoped to never have to listen to my lame attempts at humor ever again.
– Lynne, I’m sorry it took barely a few minutes before I came up with some snarky remark to poke fun at you. –
In the years since I retired, I haven’t noticed missing the work, but I frequently miss being with these people. We spend more time interacting with coworkers most weeks of a career than we do with our families. The folks I was lucky to be with for many years were a very special work family for me.
If only I could convince the staff that they should hold their next company picnic at Wintervale Ranch. I’m sure I could talk Cyndie into baking some desserts for the occasion. I would even promise not to make the manure composting area one of the main features I’d show off.
After a day up at the Wilkus’ cabin in the middle of the week, Cyndie and I have taken advantage of an opportunity to get away to her family’s lake place for the weekend. We brought Asher along, too, so we only needed to find coverage for twice-a-day horse feeding for the few days.
Since we prefer to wake up at the lake whenever possible, we drove up last night under the cover of darkness. I think it might have helped me avoid any more dreams about the old workplace.
When can I expect to start having dreams about weird situations of being retired?
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Lake Hangover
When the day-job is extremely Monday-ish, the struggle to get my mind back into work mode after a weekend at the lake with Cyndie’s family is doubly difficult. The dramatic difference of the sterile, air-conditioned atmosphere compared to the lush, warmth of the beach and woods was shock enough without the added stress of multiple challenging complications on the first day of the week.
I’m sure there is a balance between not caring at all and being overly concerned about keeping all parties happy. That’s an act that I have yet to master, swaying far past the center balance in my predilection to avoid the extreme of not caring.
Arriving home to a dog and cat who are both over the moon to see me again goes a long way toward purging any lingering angst from the work day.
With the respectable amount of heat and humidity lingering over our region, I was disinclined to jump right into a chore when I got home. Pausing to decompress in the recliner predictably led to an involuntary nap after I was done giving the cat all the scratches her stretched out body wanted.
Word from Cyndie and Jackie is that the chickens were given access to the wide open free range yesterday and they quickly made tracks for the composting manure piles to kick around and peck for bugs. That’s what they were hired to do, so I’m pleased as punch, even if it means I need to extend extra energy more often to reshape the resulting mess.
All ten were present for bed check last night, thank goodness.
Shortly after that, I was headed for my own bed, falling asleep to memory images lingering still from the glorious weekend at the lake.
Here’s hoping Tuesday at the day-job will be as soothing as floating in the water under the warm sunshine was over the weekend.
Well, a guy can dream, can’t he?
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Workplace Potluck
At the day-job we decided to split the difference between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and celebrate the season with a potluck lunch halfway between the two. Today is our day.
My contribution consists of having reported the scheduled date to Cyndie and providing creative support while we reviewed ideas for fun and festive possibilities. Then I provided moral support and took over all horse and dog/cat duties while she worked her magic in our kitchen.
The last steps are most difficult since she won’t be coming to work with me, as I will need to serve up everything she made in a pleasing presentation at mealtime. I can probably pull that off.
This year we started with tiny fruit pies baked in her mini-tins. I helped by testing a couple of them.
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Next, since we had so much fun making little bacon cheeseburger bites last Friday for the futsal gathering, we decided to throw some of those in, too. Why not? Cyndie put extra love into them for all the folks at the day-job. We hope they are a hit with the crew.
I don’t know how the staff will get any work done today. I do know that no one will have any excuses to go home hungry.
I will not be putting in a very thorough effort toward calorie counting until this day is over. One lucky aspect to eating extra calories… I can have more sugar! My goal is to keep my sugar intake to a daily percentage of my total calories.
More calories = room for more sugar. 🙂
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Work Friends
Other than feeding our animals in the morning and again when I got home, yesterday was not a Wintervale day. I drove into the cities to spend a little time at the old day-job, allowing me the chance to again be with the fabulous people with whom I was previously employed. As wonderful as it has been to spend my full-time days managing our property, I suffer a great loss by no longer being able to work with the people who, in many ways, had grown closer to me than family.
Working 8-hours a day together for many years, through thick and thin, sharing responsibilities toward a common goal, has a way of bonding a diverse group of people. I wish I could bring them all home with me to help manage the ranch.
When done right, a healthy response to problems becomes a work of art. During my visit, an issue was discovered during final inspection, which was calmly investigated, and a solution devised. I watched the activity travel seamlessly from person to person, with ease. It was a joy to behold.
In the end, I don’t feel that I contributed any tangible value to the output of product. I served as a second set of eyes to review a completed new project. In fact, I was more of a hindrance to getting things done with all my chattering and catching up. They ordered pizza and we had a company gathering for lunch. (Don’t tell Cyndie, but it was her favorite from Gina Maria’s.) What’s not to like about a ‘work day’ like that?
It means a lot to me to not have to drive that long commute anymore. Despite the stop-and-go afternoon traffic coming home yesterday, the trip wasn’t annoying at all, because seeing them again had been such a rewarding pleasure.
They are no longer my work-mates, they have become friends from that place where I used to work.
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Relative Something 