Four weeks from today I will begin a new journey, retirement. I have spent over 26 years as the secretary to the superintendent of our local school district. My school district actually. The one I attended and both of my children attended. I have been an Ardmore Tiger all my life. I have poured my blood, sweat, and yes tears into this job. It has been anything but boring. It has been challenging, rewarding, stressful and at times unbearable. There are so many aspects of the job I dearly love, but just as many in the end that I just couldn’t handle anymore. Can you say “burn out?” I’m there.

I have had the opportunity to work for five different superintendents and 19 different school board members. You know they say “change” is a four-letter word. But if you can’t roll with the change, you are in the wrong job. Sometimes change was good, and sometimes change was hard. Sometimes it was a breath of fresh air and sometimes, it was tough coming to work. Regardless of who my boss was, my job stayed pretty much the same, assisting the superintendent with their vision for the school district. I did that to the best of my ability and I’m proud of the things I accomplished while in that position.

So here I am at 62 years young and I’m retiring. I never planned on retiring at this age. When COVID hit here in Oklahoma and the country shut down, including all schools, my husband and I worked from home a lot. Some days we went in to work and some days we could just work from home. We spent an enormous amount of time together, just us. We went for walks, rode our ebikes, played pickleball by ourselves, cooked meals together, watched a lot of Netflix, and spent some quality time on our back patio. I absolutely loved it! Just me and my best friend in the whole world. I began to think that I could do this every day. Then I began to yearn to do this every day. I finally said out loud, “I think I might want to retire.”

So I have had this vision in my mind about getting my office ready for someone else to come in and take over and getting someone trained. I began preparing notes and a “things to know” notebook, getting files straightened up, and just preparing to hand everything over and to have closure. Well three weeks into the countdown, my boss had to take an extended medical leave. That changed the trajectory of everything. He was out of the office for six months. Unsure of whether he would get to return or not, nothing was done about looking for a replacement for me or a timeline that we would. Ok, I’m not panicking yet.

We worked through a very difficult six months in the office when the boss returned in mid-January. While we were all thrilled to see him, we knew pretty quickly that his health was probably not going to let him continue in his capacity as the superintendent. Because the “powers that be” weren’t sure if he was staying or going, putting off posting my job and finding my replacement continued. Panicking a little now…..

In my boss’s absence, our assistant superintendent became the acting superintendent. We all knew that if something happened and “the boss” couldn’t return, she was fully capable of doing the job. And what I didn’t know at the time, was that if she did become the superintendent, her intention was to bring her current secretary with her. To make a long story short, the “boss” did decide to retire and go enjoy his life without the stresses of public education. Hey, that’s what I’m going to do too!

So now I know who is going to do my job and she just works down the hall. She has one of those jobs where she never gets to see the light at the end of the tunnel. She meets herself coming and going. Taking over my job will probably be a welcome change. But because she can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and everything she does has timelines and deadlines, she hasn’t been able to do any training for her new job. Panicking a lot now! THIS has me massively stressed out. Not only will she be learning my job probably after I’m gone, but she is also going to have to train someone new to do her job. Did I mention that I am retiring four weeks from today?

For all of you out there that have already retired, you may be able to relate to my next topic; being superfluous. Since this is my first and only go-round with retiring, I have no experience with this. What I have been feeling didn’t have a name until about a month ago, when my husband named it for me. “You are superfluous,” he said. I knew he would understand because after he announced his retirement at his J.O.B. the same thing happened to him. I remember him coming home with very similar stories as mine. I saw how much it hurt him at the time, but I didn’t think that it would happen to me.

So what do I mean when I say “I’m superfluous?” It means I am no longer necessary or needed. Did you find that after you announced your intent to retire, you were no longer brought into the inner sanctum of discussions? No one told you anything anymore. Your opinion didn’t matter because you were retiring. You are no longer on a need-to-know basis. Now I am saying all this and I have every confidence that the people who are doing this are not doing it intentionally. They probably don’t even realize they are doing it. Nevertheless, it hurts just the same. I have been a vital and critical part of this district for 26 years and should continue to be that until I retire in four weeks. In talking to others I know who have retired, this is not uncommon, but I don’t have to like it.

So today I begin the countdown to my last four weeks. My job now is to just “let it go.” I need to be OK with not knowing everything. I need to be OK with the high possibility that I won’t get to spend much if any time training the person who will take my job. I need to accept that I may not get the closure I so desperately wanted. While I will continue to do my job to the best of my ability, my focus is on June 3 when my top priorities become my husband, my family, having fun, traveling, playing pickleball, and BEING RETIRED!