The Finishing Line

Today

This morning Paul commented on a couple he visited in the village. "When I went in, Lilian was making marmalade and Phil was repairing the rotor arm of a model helicopter. Isn't retirement wonderful?"

We have talked many times about retirement and what it really means. Many of our friends are starting other careers or handling a pretty full babysitting schedule, so they don't seem to be retired at all; they're just not going "out" to work any more.

I hazarded that it's something to do with speed; not having deadlines and timetables to follow or being a slave to the alarm clock.

In My Day

I'm no stranger to deadlines and can work pretty fast when I want to. In fact, I'm inclined to work fast anyway, which isn't always helpful.

I remember the district inspector at Eastbourne Tax Office "Speed and accuracy, Mrs Barrett, speed and accuracy." This was in the days when it was fairly normal for a tax officer to have six hundred pieces of unopened post on their desks and I was renowned for getting through it and often clearing colleagues' work as well.

The trouble was that, while nearly all of it was pretty trivial and cleared by merely ticking a box, there was the occasional knotty case and I was less good at slowing down and taking the necessary time to get it right first time.

Once I joined Flare I discovered the dizzy joys of the Local Authority tendering process. There was no scope for either carelessness or slowness. The deadlines were totally fixed; even postal delays wouldn't wash, let alone excuses such at "the computer ate my draft". You felt very much as though the authority was totally in charge and not as though this was a communication between equals. And you were expected to answer the questions as drafted, even if they were nonsensical.

Sometimes I would add another document which basically said "I've answered your questions, but I don't think that gives you a proper idea of what I'm tendering, so here's another document explaining it better". This put even more pressure on completion; many a time the final copy was churning off the printer while I frantically grabbed the pages requiring signature and the courier waited impatiently outside on double yellows.

 There were other deadlines such as new training courses, exhibitions and end of year figures. They all required a high standard of presentation and polish as well as accuracy.

This meant long days, sleepless nights and the tyranny of the alarm clock and I don't miss it one bit.

I promised myself at the start of the year that I would concentrate on doing everything to a high standard and not as though I had a deadline to meet. The trouble is, 2012 is shaping up as a year when everything has to work to deadlines. So I don't really feel retired, right now, and am just hoping to cross each finishing line on schedule.