Monday Musings -- Pappy Plan

Have thought a lot about what retirement really looks like or is. I don't know if I will ever "retire". I don't want to either be forced out of being a productive professional or have to work hand-to-mouth until my time on earth is through.

When I was in college, I worked at a place long out of existence, Montgomery Wards. I was first working as a parts department employee, and later served as a dispatcher. I became the person who sent appliance repair technicians to your house and assigned repair jobs to technicians working in our back shops, like small electronics, lawn & garden, and appliances. I loved both of those jobs.

During those years, I learned a ton about responsibility, showing up on time, customer service, teamwork, being dependable, and one very important lesson I never forgot from "Pappy". Pappy was in his 70's when I worked there more than 30 years ago now. He worked in our in-house "white goods" repair shop. For those who don't know, white goods are washers, dryers, refrigerators, freezers, and stoves. The "big" appliances in your home that are a part of our everyday lives. He didn't really do much with microwaves or anything else that came into the shop. He was slow but thorough.

His productivity wasn't high, but as I recall, when he fixed something, it was fixed. Probably forgot more about appliance repair than most of the other technicians knew. Or those are the memory musings of the 17-year-old that started working there after graduating high school, then remained for several years prior to leaving for the Air Force.

The great personal Pappy lesson had nothing to do with repairing appliances. It was this. One day I asked him why he was still working and not retired. He said that he could only spend so many hours fishing, playing with his grandchildren, or rocking in his favorite porch rocker watching the world go by. He didn't want to simply be at home doing nothing useful and die.

He only worked a couple days each week, so he wasn't working because he needed to. He wanted to. He liked putting on his "Monkey Wards" (as we called the place) uniform, coming into the shop, tinkering on the broken appliances, eating lunch, sitting at his bench (where I imagine he sat for many years before I met him), and doing something helpful to others.

In this past Friday's Foundational Fridays LinkedIn post, I shared the full text of a short keynote I gave nearly ten years ago, opening a military retiree appreciation event. In that address, I challenged military retirees to Keep -- Moving -- Forward. Being retired from the military is the closing on one of life's phases, and the opening of another. Very, very few people I know who retired from the military fully retire. Overwhelmingly, the start a second career. I know many others who completed a second full career, retiring a second time, and still are active doing other things in the professional realm. Like Pappy, they are choosing to work a bit here and there, but still engaged and engaging.

All this to share, I plan on Phasing Out, not fully retiring. While I have no idea what that will look like in three years, or 30, and God-willing I'm still alive into my 80s, I plan on following the "Pappy Plan" and being engaged through my last breath.

Not Retiring, but ‘Phasing Out’ (kornferry.com)