For more than two decades, I have been what you might call an office drone. I started working at an office when computers were but a curiosity and not standard equipment, and I am still working in an office when everything is done on computers and over the Internet. I consider myself lucky for having a taste of both worlds. However, I am nearing that age where I should be contemplating retirement. In less than a decade, I will finally be able to hang up my working shoes and go home with that well-earned gold watch.
Like all soon to be retirees, I dream of a much quieter life. Even though I have lived in a small apartment for decades, I can say that I still haven’t gotten used to the hustle and bustle of the city. Basically, I just tried to ignore all that while I’m working here. But when retirement day comes, I will certainly head off somewhere quieter, more peaceful, and with more breathable air.
With these thoughts, I have decided to retire to my parents’ old home in the country. When the time comes, I will be moving to the country and gonna eat a lot of peaches, as that silly song from the late 1990s says. In reality, however, I am going to eat a lot of vegetables, because I am planning to create a vegetable garden in the backyard. I remember my dad having a vegetable garden himself, and I intend to follow in his footsteps, so to speak.
So for the remaining years of my life, you can expect me to be dragging around the yard tools and fertilizer on one of those utility carts. It is as an idyllic retirement as any. Just thinking about it makes me want to retire already, but I still have a few years of office work left in me, so that vegetable garden will have to wait.
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A lot of people often mistake me for a married man and a family guy because of my age. I can’t blame them really, because I do look my age. I’ve got graying hair, a bit of a belly, and I talk like a responsible man because I am actually responsible, at least I try to think that way. When I tell them that I am actually a single man, I am often met by astonished faces, because they cannot believe that a man my age and a responsible one at that would still be single after all those years.
I will never ever understand why marriage is such a big deal. So what if I never get married? Look at George Clooney. We’re roughly the same age and he is still a bachelor. If he can do it, why can’t I? Granted, that I don’t look anything like him, but I still enjoy the dating life of a single man. At my age, I can still attract younger women, and I have actually dated a number of them in the past. I just never thought about marrying any of them simply because I have no plans of getting married. No childhood traumas and preconceived notions here. It’s just a plain old choice on my part.
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The advantage of being a middle aged single guy is that I am not under any pressure whatsoever to buy a big home for my family. I’m over fifty years old, yet I am still single, and I intend to stay that way. Marriage is something that I’m never really sold on, and raising a family and kids is just not my kind of thing. So I am going to live the rest of my life alone, but I don’t really care. I am happy just the way I am, which is alone. But I digress.
In any case, being a single guy means I don’t have to live in a place where there is much space. A small apartment will do, and that is exactly where I live right now. With the rent in the city, a small apartment is the most practical choice for a single guy. It isn’t bad really, living in a tiny apartment. I am small of stature, and that means I never feel cramped or suffocated even if I do stay the whole day at home.
Sometimes, however, I wish I had a bigger place if only for the sake of privacy. After all, I do have friends and family who come over every now and then. Sometimes, they stay over at my place, which is just fine because they can always sleep in the living room. My problem is when I’m working in one corner of the room with people hovering over me or passing right behind me as I work on my computer. However, I have already solved that problem by buying one of those room divider screens. Now I don’t get distracted anymore, even when my nieces and nephews run around my tiny apartment as I work. As long as they don’t breach the divider, everything is peachy.
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I am old enough to have begun working in an office at a time when office equipment was what we would call these days as ancient. At that time, the computer was more of a curiosity at work than indispensable office equipment. In fact, only a programmer, or what we call during those days as a computer expert, was authorized to operate the only computer in the office. The rest of us office drones were quite content with tapping away at typewriters whenever we do our reports and what have you.
Interestingly enough, I am also young enough to have continued working in an office at a time when computers were becoming standard office equipment. By that time, none of us can do much work without computers. Everything, from the reports we typically make to the PABX system, was done on computers. Nothing will ever be done at the office without computers.
Being the old guy at work, I am the one who often had difficulty adjusting to all that technology. In the first few years of using a computer, my eyes suffered so much strain that I began to have bouts of nausea. I eventually got used to it, but there were other modern equipment in the office that I have to contend with as well.
Take those automatic binding machines for instance. Back in my day, all we had to use for filing reports and making presentations were a folder and an old-fashioned puncher. We still have punchers at the office today and are still very much useful, but when it comes to final reports and presentations, machines have already taken over. For an old guy like me, operating the machine can be a bit complicated, even though it’s actually easy. It is nothing I can’t handle though. If I learned how to make a worksheet on a computer, I could definitely learn how to make a perfect report using that binding machine.
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I was lucky enough to be invited to be a part of a tasting last night. Long story short, a friend’s friend is opening a new restaurant, and in the process, he invited some of his foodie friends to give his new menu a try.
I must say, the food was nice, and my favorite was the cheese bread. Big surprise, right? Even though it wasn’t on the menu, had it been, I’d almost certain that I’d go for it. It was that good!
Thanks Andy for inviting me, I’ll hit you up for dinner next time.
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I had always been a big fan of cheese, ever since that I was little. Where I came from, cheese was rather expensive, and hard to come by, so my parents, the kind souls that they are, always created budget to get cheese for me and my siblings. These days, I can practically buy any type of cheese I want. I guess I really haven’t had enough from my childhood days.
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Today i am starting a new client-therapy regime. They are going to get counseled by me come hell or high water. I am not going to advise, I am going to guide, and educate. I promise to eradicate self-interest, in the hopes of getting some damn referrals. If I really hate door knocking and bell ringing and cold calling and selling my soul to the press then I have to go this way. I don’t see anything but referral business from now on. But even the warm referral has to be sifted thru to find the core intention and loyalty. They will get to choose to work with me or not on my rules of engagement. How many times will I save myself from the headache of the disloyal client who buys at an open house without my intervention. This is intervention counseling for a living here folks.
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