Derrick Coyle
One thing quickly discovered after stepping into the world of retirement is the abrupt change to patterns of human interaction.
An office environment shared daily by dozens of colleagues is a forum conducive to both business exchange and social engagement. It also tends to cultivate allegiances that transcend the job relationship itself.
After all, we can spend more waking hours with our workmates in the course of a career than we do with our own families.
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Last weekend my wife and I had the pleasure of hosting a dinner party for a group of former colleagues and their spouses. Most had worked together for several decades and we grew to know each other’s mates and families through seasonal and social functions that come with a long career.
The guest list included co-workers who had witnessed many of each other’s life highlights: weddings, children (grandchildren), milestone anniversaries, promotions, and vicariously shared travel adventures.
As a teenager, one colleague babysat my firstborn in the days when I worked with her father, one changed jobs to undertake an ungodly daily commute to join me when I needed her help in Toronto, one retired a year after me and is now a Wednesday morning golf buddy.
It’s a group that has also helped one another through the tougher life events that accompany the years. The weight of illness or injury, the loss of loved ones in our respective family circles, eulogies for fallen comrades.
There have been times when the subtle support from these work friends was indescribably helpful in navigating the emotional tsunami any manager, with a heart, faces during times of corporate ‘restructure,’ and the associated job loss that inevitably finds a way into a long career with a large company.
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The evening together had me thinking about the notion of work relationships and the shapes they take. Looking back over a career – after nearly two-and-a-half years of retirement – I’ve come to believe there are three main subsets among the collection of people with whom we spend much of our adult lives. In some cases, it’s immediately clear where people fit. In others, the lines can be a little blurred, at least until the relationship undergoes a test of some sort.
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Collegial Colleagues – When I look back on a long, single-company career, this represents the largest group of workmates. These are the people with whom we enjoy working and whose career success and personal welfare are important to us.
Though the common ground for this group is principally the job, there is also an ongoing interest in each other’s personal circumstances and well-being. When the routine of daily interaction is disrupted with one’s departure, the relevance and priority of the association has naturally changed for both. And in the absence of a conscious effort to unite, the orbits are far less likely to intersect. Time is a completely different measure for those working and those retired, and the latter come to appreciate the distinction.
It’s great to see these folks from time to time, but even without an actual get together, today’s technologies provide a convenient conduit for continuing contact through social media: a birthday greeting, a word of support or condolence, an acknowledgement of a career success or life event, or to simply share some vacation or family photos.
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Cohorts of Circumstance – For most of us, this group is by far the smallest segment in the work relationship dynamic. These are the people with whom co-existence is more an exercise in toleration or survival. The eventual discontinuance of such working relationships is apt to generate sentiments ranging anywhere from indifference to elation.
Let’s face it, we’ve all worked with people whose attitudes, behaviours, or performance standards are a challenge. Try as we might to get along or to tune it out, there will usually be someone situated, up, down, or sideways in the organization, who adds undue grief to the job.
One near certainty is that the relationship in these circumstances effectively ceases with the work connection that put it together. While this represents a small portion of the network for most people, the relationship’s conclusion can be one of the positive by-products of a career change or retirement.
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Enduring Friendships – Among the hundreds of work relationships and friendships developed over a career, some are built in such a way that they endure beyond the world of 9-to-5.
The group of former colleagues invited last weekend have some notable consistencies:
All have long work relationships with me and most have worked many years with one another.
There has been a time-tested show of trust, support and loyalty in both good and challenging times.
While there may not have been complete agreement in all business matters, there was always a foundation of courtesy and respect for each other’s best interests, intentions and efforts.
Also in common for this group is the benefit of exceptional spouses who’ve been part of the circle almost as long as the employees. Mates that have stoically endured the waves of therapeutic venting that come with a career.
It’s a group that has virtually grown up together, from fresh-faced enthusiasts, to seasoned veterans heading into the homestretch of long careers.
For some of us the finish line has already been reached and we now explore new life phases of retirement, grandparenthood, and tackle recreational and creative pursuits, largely set aside during the work days.
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From outside the employment ropes, it’s always heartening to hear of the career and personal successes of people I’ve worked with in London, the GTA, and across the country. And I suppose one never really retires the solicitude and sense of melancholy when learning of paths having taken less favourable turns. It comes to be appreciated that giving up the job is also relinquishing the proximity to make a difference.
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After two-and-a-half years out of the fray, I still look forward to the periodic hook ups with the good folks from my London and Toronto work days. Whether that be an office visit, a catch up coffee or lunch, a dinner gathering, a game of golf, or a summer pool party, I guess all it really takes is a little coordination.
Until then, it’s back to writing the next great suspense novel.
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