Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

I have been at my company for more than 30 years, working my way
up from an analyst to a senior project director. I bring in hundreds of
thousands of dollars a year in net revenue to the firm, but the hours
and continual stress of deadlines have taken their toll on my health
and helped end my first marriage. Now have a new wife, a child on the
spectrum who needs more of my time, and enough money that I
could, as my wife tells me daily, retire today. I don’t want to because I
am senior enough that my firm will need at least three to six months
to hire a replacement, and the extra I could earn this year and as a
consultant for the next few years will help with vacations, extra
therapy for our daughter, etc. Can you help me with a script for the
boss (call him John) when I go in to tell him I want to hang up my
spreadsheets?

Tired of Thinking So Hard

 
Dear Tired:

The key to negotiating is to have something you bring to the table. In
this case it is not only the projects you have already won that have
been contracted with your firm, but your decades of name recognition
in the winning of future projects if you can hammer out an agreement
to keep some kind of consulting relationship. A couple points before
the script. Usually when a bid is submitted, staff substitutions are to
some degree with the approval of the client. Otherwise firms could bid
A-grade labor and substitute wet-behind-the-ear staff. So you have a
little leverage there. That goes too for letting them include your
resume and qualifications on future bids, for which you might want a
very limited role in the future—perhaps in project design or reviewing
draft reports.

 
The convo should go roughly like this: John, I want to review the
status of my department. I’ve brought a spreadsheet that shows the
work we’ve recently won, that gives a good summary of what’s on the
table for the next year plus. You know I’ve worked here for 30 years.

My wife would love me to return today, but I’d rather work with you to
develop an exit strategy that will allow you to hire someone with
strong qualifications to take my place on these projects. I’d also like to
talk about developing a role for myself in the long run, in a consulting
capacity without benefits but at a higher wage, for as long as you think
it would be good for the company to have access to me. I don’t expect
us to get the details completed today or even this month. But I want
to start the conversation with a goal of getting to closure by the end of
the year. Then shut up and listen.

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

For years I worked for an executive who was very high-powered and
driven. Over time he began to lose his ability to do his job well and
eventually sold the company to younger folks. Five years later they
have paid him off and bought him out and essentially retired him. But
because he doesn’t know how to do nothing he has come up with a
plan that he started out calling “middle class services,” a name I have
convinced him to abandon. His theory is that double-working
households need cheap labor to do all the errands and chores that
they don’t have time for during the week, so they can have some
quality time together. Great theory. But he wants to set up a college
dropout into business to provide the kind of services the kid provides
him to others. That means going head to head with established
concierge and care companies, of which I found several with excellent
reputations and lower prices than he is proposing, all in a two-minute
google search.

He wants me involved as the lemon-sucker and offering to pay for
my time. I think the kid is just nodding yes to the guy who pays him
now, and is too lazy to build a business upon. I don’t mind consulting,
but I do mind batting my head against a wall knowing it is going to
get bloody and bruised.

The Assistant (No More?)

 
Dear Assistant:

You can earn your keep as you did in the past: by being a truth-telling,
lemon-sucking consultant. Before anyone starts a business they need
several important thing. In rough order: an idea for a product or
service that people want; an idea that’s not already being sold by so
many people or so cheaply that there’s not room for more
competitors; enough capital to get the process going and to outlast the
start-up period; intelligent committed staff who are willing to work
extra hard without a guarantee of success; and sufficient
communication, bonding, and common vision among owners and
employees that the folks on the ground can tell the folks upstairs what
needs to change, and the folks with the money can decide how much
they want to commit.

 
In this case, either you or the proposed employee can research the
market and suss out who is already providing those services. The
would-be entrepreneur may falter at your news. If not, he should take
a couple pages out of the multi-level- marketing playbook. That means
identifying all possible people he could approach or the erstwhile
employee could approach in his name to say, Hi, so-and- so has been
employing me to so x, y, and z and thought you might want a personal
assistant too. If he can connect with enough folks who will pay for his
time to fill up the FTE he is willing to work, you’ll quickly be able to see
if he is cut out for marketing and working. But if he’s just looking for a
middle management paycheck, it’s a great time to learn that you don’t
get to the middle till you start at the bottom.

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

When I worked I was everybody’s go-to confidante. I’ve been retired
for six months and my life feels very empty. I know my stories but I
miss being involved with other people. I definitely don’t want to work
again, but I miss the camaraderie of shared enterprise, the
competition and the challenge, but mostly the sense that I am on a
team and that people value and rely on me. What’s the best way to
get that back, if I’m willing to invest ten hours a week, not forty?

Benched

 
Dear Benched:

Virtually every community newspaper runs a column called some
variation of Volunteer Opportunities where the non-profits in the area
run enticing little summaries of the chances to do good and help out
fellow citizens. My guess is that if you look there or google non-profit
+ the name of your city, you will find a range of places that would
welcome your ten hours a week, or even five, and that would afford
you a chance to do everything from help in animal rescue to food prep
for the homeless. You’d be working along side other volunteers, retired
and not, and have a chance to engage with them in improving your
hometown. You could also volunteer your skills at the city’s senior
centers, where there’s always classes in everything from crocheting to
tax assistance. Whatever you are good at, someone else wants to
learn to do better.

 
If you prefer the intimacy of one-on- one contact, visit the care
coordinators of the various live-in retirement centers. Virtually every
one will have seniors older and needier than you whose children or
other relatives live far away and who are lonely. You can drop in or
give them excursion treats, to a concert or even take them shopping
at the mall. You’ll have to provide some bone fides so the folks in
charge don’t think you are some kind of predator. But once you
establish relationships you will discover a world of need that’s waiting
for your time and attention. Regardless of where you choose to help,
the more you give, the more you will receive.

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

I worked long and hard before I retired. I was the administrator of a
small company and wore many hats. Over the decades people
acquired the habit of “Just ask Susan!” whenever they had a problem
that needed some, hell any, intervention. I played the role of human
resources manager, contracts manager, marketing manager,
administrative manager, executive manager, and on and on. Some of
the roles were what I actually got paid for but more were because
people became increasingly dependant on my ability to cut through all
the bull**** and use common sense to stop problems. Ever since I’ve
retired I have gotten lots of whiney phone calls. Not as often as when I
was M-F 8-5 but enough to disrupt my exercise and recreational
routines. I like these people but they need to grow up. What should I
say?

Mama’s Left The Building

 
Dear Mama:

You can deal with them one-on- one or as a group. I’d start with one-
on-one, but in a very consistent manner. If your former company is
like most others, there are groups of allies and cliques and as one
person from each circle approaches you and gets a similar answer, the
word will spread. If necessary you could send a group email, but it
seems like overkill for the short-run. But of course it’s not my phone
that’s ringing with needy whiners.

 
Caller ID is great. Let people leave messages rather than delivering
the no thank you news voice-to- voice. Then respond with an email:
Dear ____: Thanks for the call. I’m sorry you’re having a problem with
______. I’m actually retired, but here’s my two cents about where to
start. Use your common sense. Talk to the person on the other side of
your problem directly. Ask what’s they key issue preventing closure
and be prepared to disclose your own. Keep talking until you identify
an option that’s acceptable to both of you. If you can’t, go to [Big
Boss]. Either s/he can fix it, or you can suggest hiring me. My new
consulting rate is $50-$100 an hour. I have faith in you to choose the
right solution.

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

I have a plan to retire after thirty years of supporting myself as a
single parent and a working wife. Though my husband’s teaching job is
officially temporary, we think he’ll eventually get formally hired. To
hedge our bets I have made a deal with my boss to allow me to go to
half-time this summer, and take a year to train my eventual
replacement. I know there are a zillion unemployed people. How can I
winnow the flood of applicants I expect to receive?

Don’t Want To Drown
Dear Don’t Want to Drown:

Set up a formal job description. If your company has a website, post it
along with the ad that you will also place on hiring boards and in the
newspaper. Specifically outline what are the minimum qualifications.
As you get applicants, winnow as you go. Those who lack the
minimum quails should go immediately into a No pile. Those with quals
and experience that are very far out of league ob the high end should
go into Maybe, because they night desert you if something better
comes along. Be sure to identify a salary range for the position, with
the note: salary based on experience. Request salary history along
with a cover letter and resume. Ditto a writing sample if it is relevant
and transcripts if a college degree matters.

 
Once you have a pile of strong Yeses, conduct a 5-10 minute phone screening
with each of them. Ask anyone who makes the cut to send you references,
professional not personal, and say you may prescreen those before the in-person
interview. If the applicants have too many jobs in a short time you may be
legitimately forewarned. Ask each person about each job, what did you like most
and least. Ask what their fantasy job would be and what they hope to be doing in
five years. For some, 5 minutes may be more than you can bear. For those you
like, 15 won’t be enough. If you get to 15 minutes and genuinely like the person
you are talking to, they get an in-person interview. In a situation like you are
describing, after actual qualifications to do the work, fit is all.

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

I worked for the same employer for almost thirty years. For the last
twenty I was the Human Resources Manager. That entailed monitoring
the emotional well-being of a staff of seventy-five, as well as ensuring
that shoot-from- the-hip executives did not land us in legal hot water
by making unenforceable promises, setting bad precedents, or hiring
disastrous applicants. I did a great job and was appreciated and well
compensated. I retired two years ago, but now realize that it would be
nice to have more money than I do. I have a chance to do some
consulting for a very up-and- coming business (in a completely
different industry) doing a survey of staff satisfaction and identifying
problems lurking beneath the surface. I seem to have parked my mojo
with my alarm clock. Do you have any tips fro finding or recreating it?

Pinch-Hitter

 
Dear Pinch-Hitter:

You’re like the actor who played only one role for your whole career
and fears you’ve forgotten that what works for that role will also work
for others. Here’s the bottom line: What made you good in your old
job will make you good as ac consultant. While you may have had a
network of established relationships that you relied upon in your old
job, when you walk in the door as a consultant you will be wearing a
cloak of competence and insight that will invest your presence with
authority. If the folks who own this new company are paying for you,
people will have an incentive to cooperate.

 
My suggestion is simple. Grab a clipboard and a bottle of wine. Spend
an afternoon/evening or two reviewing the highlights and low points of
your former career. Reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Which
situations you saved the company from harm and which were
intractable problems that kept causing hassles for the owners and
managers. These are not unique to one company, industry, or set of
people. Develop some simple checklists and questions that will help
you quickly get insights in the new company. Before you begin, ask
the manager who is bringing you in the door whom s/he considers the
most and least reliable sources of insight and information. Start with a
few of the best sources but don’t work all the way top down. Sprinkle
your interviews throughout the company. Keep them short and
informal, and let folks know you will be circling back. Promise
confidentiality so that people feel safe talking to you. Then tell the
manager what s/he needs to know. My guess is that you will love
doing this and have lots of fun. If not, do something else for more
money.

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

I’m semi-retired. I had a job I loved until the last minute of my
farewell party. Since then I have embraced retirement with gusto. I
have a happy mix of exercise and volunteer work, family and friends,
and enough money to be comfortable, if not extravagant. My former
employer is going through some major changes and they’ve asked me
(the former administrator) to consult with various levels of staff to
enable a smooth transition. My problem: the employees see things
that the managers do not. The managers are paying me, but seem
completely resistant to input they don’t want to hear. As my brother
used to say, The Nile’s not just some river in India. (Get it :-)??) I
wouldn’t mind earning the consulting income, but it feel like I’m
chasing my tail. What should I do?

Have Perspective

 
Dear Perspective:

Immediately sit down and write an interim report on your findings.
Submit it to the managers with section headings that go roughly as
follows: Corporate Transition Context; What You asked Me to Do;
Management Perspective; Staff Perspective; Issues Where Perceptions
Don’t Line Up; Options for Intervention. This last category should be
intentionally broad and hyperbolic, including the options of Fire
everyone who won’t do what management says to Change our goals to
what employees suggest. Only you can know if you want to commit to
making specific recommendations, I’d suggest that you do, if only to
make it clear that you have formed an opinion. Submit an invoice for
your consulting time so far and try to avoid getting sucked into more
work until you’ve been paid.

 
The hardest problem you will face will be deciding how much more
effort and time you want to invest in this venture. If you are truly
happily retired and don’t need the money, consider carefully how long
you want to be on tap for other people’s work lives and competing
perspectives. There’s an endless source of discontent in most
organizations. If management is willing to listen to your
recommendations, you should be able to train an internal person or
another consultant to implement them. If they won’t honor your
opinions, take your money and run.

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

I recently retired from a job of two decades. I care a lot about the
people I used to work with, some of whose lives are in major transition
(divorce, pregnancy, home-buying, etc). I’m not really used to
retirement yet, though I do have hobbies, a house that needs
attention, and a body that needs exercise. But I miss the regularity of
a daily schedule, the social networking that comes with the Hellos and
How are yous? of an office, and the updated news of the people I care
about. I’m tickled to have left behind office politics and deadline
stress. But my life feels flat and uninteresting. And I don’t want to feel
or become useless. I see long decades stretching in front of me. Do
you have any advice about the transition?

64 (But Who’s Counting?)

 
Dear 64:

The best advice I’ve heard given to the newly retired is not to make
any big commitments right away, where right away has been anything
from a few months to a year. I’m sure a year sounds long in your
case, but a bigger danger is filling up your life so quickly that you
never have time to reflect on how to create a new way of living.

A couple of simple suggestions: Keep in touch with the people you
care about from your former job. Talk about their personal lives and
stay in touch. But if the conversations turn to the who-did- what-to-
whom of office politics, put a quick end to that part of the
conversation. Set up a code word. Perhaps something absurd like
Tofu! That you or the friend can use if you skate too close to the edge
of involvement. It won’t last forever but will help in the short run.
Then set up a semi-schedule for your life. Book no more than fifteen
hours a week for things like time at the gym or walking with personal
friends, or taking a class in something you care about. Make lists of
the projects that are calling to you (or that you’re avoiding).
Everything from inventorying hobby supplies to planning a new
creative project. Separately, assess your house and home priorities.

Review your finances and see if you need to make lifestyle changes to
match your new income. (One common trap is to fall into shopping as
a hobby.) Leave yourself open time and space to read and take a nap,
and occasionally just be lazy. Slow down your life so you are not
measuring against deadlines. This will help encourage a long view that
opens up new possibilities. You might volunteer more, join a local
choir, acting troupe, or senior sports team. Look for ways to connect
with people you do not yet know, especially peers who are in a similar
phase of life. Virtually every retired person says after six months, My
life is so busy and full I have no idea how I ever had time to work.
Enjoy!

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

I&'ve been a cantor/rabbi for more than 30 years. You can imagine the
hours: 24/7 for decades. People asking for everything from weddings
and funerals, hospital visits, speaking at community events,
committee meetings, b’nai mitzvah tutoring, plus my regular duties at
Talmud Torah and services. My wife and I have taken some vacations,
including congregational trips to Israel, but now I want time for me.
Unscheduled, uncommitted time to figure out what I want to do more
of, which includes playing my cello and perhaps taking up watercolors.
I love Friday night services but don’t want to feel obligated (note: the
new rabbi doesn’t sing as well, sshhhh). How can I convert myself
from a public citizen into a more private one?

My Turn

 
Dear My Turn:

By learning to say some simple phrases like: I can’t commit to that
right now. I’m sorry, I’d love to, but I am practicing saying “Not this
year, even for you.” It’s the new rabbi’s turn. And so on.
The classic dictum for new retirees is to take the first year without
making any big commitments. Most people, fearing big stretches of
time looming, over-commit too soon and find themselves as busy after
retiring as they were before. Perhaps even more so. I suspect your
wife will echo what I am saying, as she’s probably sacrificed a lot of
family time over the decades.

Plan a trip for the two of you (and your children if you have them) for
shortly after you retire. When you return, tell people you are taking a
three-month absolute sabbatical and will make zero commitments when
it is over. As you ease back into regular life, spend some time each day thinking
about what you miss and what you do not. Offer to sing at services perhaps once a
month, so that you have access to that well of good feeling. Resist any
attempt to get you to commit to other regular commitments. Revisit
your priorities ever few months. The big picture will emerge and
people will adjust.

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

I have a protégé from work whom I really like. I did what I did for a
long time, with no one to train. I thought what what I did was not a
transferrable skill but it turns out that with someone with the right
personality and aptitude, and with changes for the better in the
organization, that I can bring her up to speed. I am being paid as a
consultant to do it, but not at the vast quantities of time she is
draining from my life. She’s bright and has good instincts, but is young
and inexperienced. Is there a way I can structure a downsizing
program for myself that will help them, help me, and help her?

Not Indispensible

 
Dear Not Indispensible:

It turns out that none of us is indispensible. That’s the good news and
the bad news. The really good news for you is that your old company
is willing to pay you to train the protégé/replacement. The bad news is
that she needs more help than they may pay you for. You need to set
up a weaning program for her, much as a mother has to train a toddler
that breast milk is no longer an on-demand process. The process
should be a lot less painful than for you than for a mother, because
you won’t have nights of crying and fussing.

 
I suggest setting regular access times for check in and sending her an
email every morning about we you are and are not going to be
available. Perhaps the company would pay for a block of time for you
to sit and make list of the primary responsibilities, and then she could
record you giving her advice as you go down the list. That limits you to
what others might hear, and you might prefer to be completely candid
about what works, what doesn’t and ides for change that you might
not have been able to implement when you had the job. But the really
good news is that you can pick up some pocket money helping out,
and enjoy the process of mentoring and empowering someone else.

Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

I recently left a job I&'d held for almost 20 years. Virtually everyone
who works there is someone I recruited and hired. I know and like
almost all of them. But it seems that without my presence human
relations and communications are falling apart. I&'m getting calls
weekly from various contenders in departmental dramas, all of whom
seem to think I can still fix everything. How can I maintain friendly
contact but not get sucked back into the reasons I left?

Ex-HR Director

 
Dear Ex-HR:

You have a responsibility to your former employer and to your ongoing
friends to be honest with them. To virtually everyone who calls with
tales of woe you need to say the same thing: I empathize. I
understand these are difficult personalities and issues, and that the
solutions seem as impossible and intractable as they did when I
worked there. But you need to talk directly to So-and- so. If necessary,
you need to call on [name of your replacement] to help.

You’re a well-established habit and, as we all know, habits are hard to
break. The problem is that if they continue to rely on you, either to
make helpful suggestions or to vent, that they will not be able to
develop new functional patterns within the firm. Complaining, whining,
and arguing all have their place as tension release in organizations.
But they’re also a way to perpetuate problems rather than resolve
them. Unless you bear ill will towards any of the people involved, or
the organization itself, you need to lay low and butt out. If absolutely
necessary send an email to each of the dialers that says I miss you all
but not the drama. I’m happy to talk about everything from the
weather to your love life to your kid’s latest achievement. But for the
next six months I am taking a moratorium on everything that’s about
the substance of work. You might create some distance in friendships,
but that’s a necessary part of the transition if they persist.