Retired

I’m retired, but I’m not comfortable with it.

My work life started in ‘67 when I mowed lawns and raked leaves for the neighbors. I have labored in fast food, retail, banking, accounting, financial analysis, system development, consulting, and sales.  I have been making dough somehow for over 51 years. 

Now, unless something changes, I won’t make a cent this year.  It was a good run, but I still hope to fool someone into paying me to do something.

I have considered offering my skills to the great big world via freelancing websites. The most common postings seek help with web or graphic design, business writing, teaching, social media consulting, and editing. There’s not much there for me, but then I saw a few accounting assignments.

Not accounting.  I would rather have every other toe amputated without anesthetics.  No one would want my help on their taxes anyhow.  I come from a “close enough is good enough” school of accounting.

Some of my other skills appear to be obsolete. I am good at folding maps, so they fit in the glove compartment. But who uses paper maps these days?  I can convert Fahrenheit to Celsius. I’m a pro at sitting and reading books in McDonald’s.    I can drive a car with a manual transmission, and I know how a carburetor works.

I thought there might be a future for me online, but nobody wants to pay a judgmental old guy.  I considered being a social media influencer, but I don’t know what that is. So, there’s that. I’ve heard that I could be a online star if I’m good at trivia. I have a decent knowledge of the plots of many Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.  Does the public need a purveyor of often-suspect historical facts like Lincoln was a great wrestler?  Would anyone pay me to sit and watch Law and Order Special Victims Unit episodes?  Let’s see Captain Benson nab another sicko. But I don’t know how to turn my vast knowledge into cash.

Here’s my path to becoming an useless old guy.

In ‘67, I began mowing lawns and raking leaves. I could start all my neighbors’ lawnmowers.  Each one had its quirks.  Mr. Baske had a fancy crank thing that almost started itself.  Mr. Mackey’s mower was an antique.  You had to wrap the pull cord around a spool on top of the motor, fiddle with the choke, say a couple Hail Marys, tug the rope a few dozen times, get mad, kick it, and pull the damn rope some more.  It only turned over once you had a blister on your hand from yanking.  I would siphon gas out of Mackey’s car by sticking a hose in the tank and sucking – but not too hard. You don’t want a mouth full of 87 octane; it doesn’t pair well with fish or steak or chicken. I know that from experience.

Eventually, I graduated from mowing lawns to working at the Dairy Queen, a grocery store, and a local bank.

When I turned 15 I started working at the DQ where I was treated as if I’d tortured and then killed the customer’s grandmother if I put onions on the hot dog when they didn’t want any.  God may have forgiven me, but those customers had longer memories.

I manned the checkout counter at the grocery store when I was 16.  In ’71, you manually punched in the price of each item into the mechanical cash register and slammed a button with the meat of your right hand to ring up the purchase.  You could easily enter the wrong price.  You had to figure out the correct change in your head because the analog machines were too damn dumb. Now I cry when cashiers need the register to tell them how much the change is.

On my first Saturday morning at the store, I had this exchange with Mrs. Burns, a hungover mother of eleven:

Mrs. Burns said, “You moron, ya charged me 35 cents for the can of cream corn.  It cost 15 cents.  Jesus.”

“Sorry.  I will get my manager to reverse it.”

I called the manager over and she fixed the problem, but four customers had lined up and were waiting for the tragic error to be resolved.  Now the manager wasn’t happy, Mrs. Burns was fuming, and the four customers agreed with her assessment that I was mentally deficient. I learned that a 20-cent mistake was worth more than my dignity as a human being.

At the food store, I was a member of a union.  I made more per hour than my classmates and had great medical benefits and a retirement plan.  I worked with adults who supported their families with those jobs.  I was expected to do the work of an adult.

I also worked alongside adults when I took a job as a bank teller. When I screwed up, I learned that Mrs. Burns was a pussy cat compared to her husband when I shorted him a buck while cashing a check. “You’d be lucky if I only break your thumbs,” he shouted. 

These jobs ground me down like a stone in a rock tumbler.  I started ignorant and rough around the edges and came out a little more polished and a bit smoother.  I was more fortunate than my peers who worked in factories or on construction sites.  At least I didn’t lose a limb or an eye or any teeth.

By the time I was 18, I’d learned my place in the world, like the turtle at the bottom of the stack in Dr. Suess’ poem story, “Yertle the Turtle.”  In this book, the lead turtle, Yertle, forced all the other turtles to form a pile with their bodies so he could get on top and see all the land he thought he controlled.  I also knew people are generally okay, but that there are some very unhappy and nasty folks out there.  I knew how to serve the public, handle difficult coworkers, and please crappy bosses.  Later in life, I met people who had never worked with the public as teenagers, and it showed.  They still thought they were special, and they never benefited from the rock tumbler treatment and being the turtle at the bottom of the stack.

I continued doing part-time jobs through college.  I graded tests as a teacher’s assistant and worked on the school’s grounds crew, where I shoveled coal and helped bury a monk on a cold Saturday morning.

After graduation, I worked at a tiny CPA shop in Chicago, a multinational medical device manufacturer, a mid-sized corrugated box factory, and owned my own financial analysis business. I finished my career doing anything-for-a buck consulting and audits.  Through it all, I experienced some things, had a little fun, made a decent wage, and committed more mistakes than just about anyone you know.

Now I sit on the sidelines watching the seasons change.  I fill my days with reading, delaying home maintenance, repairing old boats, puttering around in the garage, eating out of boredom, trying to remember the name of the actress who played Ginger on Gilligan’s Island, and wondering what clown would pay me to do anything at this point. 

But I’ll never be comfortable not making a buck today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or ever again?

Is the DQ hiring?