Don't Let The Door Hit You

My 28 year career in big business comes to a close today.  I got hired into a computer company called EDS (Electronic Data Systems) in November of 1984 then moved to Portland Oregon and started working on the Bonneville Power Administration account in January of 1985.

Over the years that followed I moved to Denver Colorado and finally to Dallas Texas.  I traveled to 49 states and countless countries spread over 6 continents.  I've worked as a software guy, operations guy, project manager, people manager, program manager, enterprise architect and technology teacher.

Four years ago HP (Hewlett Packard) purchased EDS and asked me to work from home teaching people how to do project management.  Later I started teaching them some hardware classes too (Servers, Storage, Cloud, that kind of stuff).

Today is my "official" retirement day.

Yesterday I crashed a lunch the Fujitsu account was having for my friend Bruce who is also retiring.  There were over 20 or 30 well wishers and I fondly remembered my days with EDS when we had many such events as people left the company.  It took Bruce a very long time to get out the door as the long stream of hand shakes, well wishers and slaps on the back ate up the better part of half an hour.

Today I got an email from my son.  It said "Happy Last Day of Work!".  It made me happy but it also made me realize that that was the full list of good bye messages.  Then looking at my HP email box one last time I saw I got a message from my boss.  I opened it up and rather than "have a nice life" it said I was to attend a manditory meeting on September 7th.  Apparently my boss doesn't know I'm retiring.  Maybe that explains it.  No lunch with my friends and colleagues, no string of messages from the folks I'm leaving behind.  Just that message from my kid, a handshake last week from a friend who works at another company, and some well wishes from a Canadian friend I used to work with back when we were EDS.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a declariation of sadness although there is a little of that.  The realization that prompted my post is actually one of a simple joy.  I'm glad that I could see it was time to move on.  I'm pleased that I had guts enough to take those steps.  Stepping away form 28 years of stability and walking into the unknown isn't a trivial move but the events of yesterday and today show me how right my decision was.

In about 12 hours they will turn off my email and HP will become a part of my past.  I expect I won't be looking back too much because it got dark back there.  It's hard to see into the dark with my eyes covered the way they are now.  You see, the future is so bright I've got to wear shades.