I’m Retired. Do I really need to keep working?
By: Julia Pollock
Tags: Leadership, Mental Health, Retirement Living, Work From Home, Employment

I have always worked. I worked from the age of 14. Saturday job, holiday jobs, temping for a year pre-university, vacation work as a student and then self employed after graduation, which, at the time, I thought would be my career for ever. Then, to help manage the ‘lean times’ when self employed work was scarce, I started a lecturing job (career number 2) which went from 12 hours, term-time only, to 12 hour days, full time. Even maternity leave was only 7 months off in those days but I went back part time for another 7 months until I landed the full time job that became my life for the next 20 years. I endured a couple of short periods of ‘signing on’ during career number 1 and the early part of career number 2 and hated every moment of it. It made me feel a failure, although that was a completely irrational reaction and I was one of the lucky ones who was going to get work after just a few weeks between contracts. I was also rubbish at being a ‘stay at home Mum’ as I missed the adult conversation far too much and felt very lonely when my husband was at work.

For me, work was always stimulating, challenging and an opportunity to learn more about myself and others. I was privileged to work mostly with people who were committed to what they did and we laughed together every day. It was simply great fun and someone paid me every month for this. The human contact has always been what I miss the most when I’m not working, although I always found uses for the money too. It shapes my day, gives me a reason to go to bed before midnight and. get up before 8, it probably even makes me a bit more interesting, but my work is more than a job. Work is also housework, hobbies and interests, future plans and dreams, I don’t discriminate and therefore I never resent any of it, except perhaps the ironing, which I gave up in the 80’s and haven’t done since.

Completely without any planning on my part, I stayed in the same organisation for 20 years. I became part of it’s history and it became part of me. I was appointed by one boss as a head of department of one person, (me) which was a bit of a doddle as I worked really hard for me. The department grew to 6 people, (less of a doddle as they didn’t always like work as much as I did), and I was able to take a part time sabbatical for two years alongside it, visiting other similar organisations to share best practice, while all the time, nicking their best ideas for my own. After this I was promoted to manage several departments and a few years after that I joined the senior management team under a new boss. Three years later he left and the last of my three bosses promoted me to his deputy, basically because he wasn’t keen on work and knew I’d do most of it for him.

During those 20 years and at least 4 different roles I generally thrived. I was supported to complete training and to train others. I recruited, appointed, mentored, coached many good people and even fired a few who were not happy in their work or just plain bad at it, but usually both. Until the last 18 months I was happy in mine, despite the long hours and constant pressure to be the best. It suited me. I was appreciated and I loved to see people doing well at what they do best.

Then it ended. With very little notice I had to start again on career number 3, travelling all over the UK working as a consultant and trainer. It took me a year to get established and find the work I needed and that needed me. I hated having to sell myself but during the next 5 years I was lucky to have a few periods of working in one place, alongside great teams of people who welcomed me into their organisations as a friend as well as a colleague. The rest of the time I parachuted in and out of places, trying to build the rapport needed for people to trust that what I was saying would make their lives better.

Then this ended too. Although this time it was because my husband, the man who had always known he was 3rd in the pecking order after my daughter and my work, became ill and died. I stopped work to look after him and after he gave up fighting I started again for a third time.

After the funeral and the readjustments, came the finding of new friends, the rediscovering of old ones I’d lost touch with and some of the passions I used to indulge in 30 years ago. Then I started to need something more on top of the travelling, the folk singing and theatre trips and even the love and friendship of a new partner. I needed to work again. I turned to new roles in the NHS and online assessment work for a management course. I learnt new things, honed old skills and developed my knowledge of new areas. It gave structure to my week, made me feel I was still learning, gave me something to talk about when people tired of my travel stories. It connected me, to myself, to my past, to the big world of working people out there, which was essential when the first lockdown started and we all disconnected from each other.

So do I need to work? Yes, I think I do, although the concept of ‘work’ is a very wide one for me. Planning a road trip around Slovenia or Cornwall is ‘work’ to me. Researching songs for a production with friends is ‘work’ to me. Spring cleaning, gardening and even catching up with Facebook posts or having a rant on Twitter is a kind of work, because it is all part of my daily schedule. It’s not just the paid stuff that counts as work, and I love it all. I don’t think I will ever stop.