Words
I used to write. A lot. I started when I was in graduate school (research and papers for conferences), continued early in my career when I was responsible for spreading the gospel of training delivered on a computer (how radical!) and then later in my career, mostly for enjoyment. Over the years I created conference presentations, columns for publications, chapters for other people’s books and collaborated with some very generous learning and talent professionals to publish three books. So writing was an important part of my life for as long as I can remember.
I also really enjoyed writing, and, unlike many others, it was never work for me. In many ways, it was an elaborate game. So instead of playing board games or cards, I wrote. For example, when an editor asked me to give her ‘800 words about…’, I know she didn’t really expect me to write exactly 800 words. But to me, that was the challenge. I would write the article and then spend way more time than was reasonable editing, and then editing some more, so that it was exactly 800 words. I actually found great pleasure in working with words to simultaneously convey a compelling message and to do so in the exact number of words that were requested. And even though I knew (for certain!) that no one cared but me, I felt a great sense of accomplishment if I was able to achieve that goal.
I was once told on a Thursday afternoon that I had to write a 2500 word article on a somewhat technical recruiting topic that was due on the following Monday morning. A sane person would have pushed back or, at the very least, felt both stressed and depressed by the thought of trying to write something of value on such a compressed schedule. I, on the other hand, relished the challenge and thought it would be great fun.
And then I stopped.
Since January of 2016 (the month in which I was retired) I have written a few times, but I have not been able to do what I used to do — sit down and write 500, 800 or 1000 words at will. It’s not that I haven’t tried. It’s that words just didn’t flow like they used to. And that has been both frustrating and surprising, because one would think that being unencumbered by the stresses of work would be liberating, not debilitating. But, clearly, that has not been the case. And then I figured it out: I used to write about my work, and I didn’t work anymore.
Throughout my career I was part of a professional community that faced the same challenges each and every day. We experienced the same joys, challenges, frustrations, successes and, yes, failures. We read the same journals, attended the same conferences and listened to the same speakers. And we were pitched to, hounded by, condescended to and insulted by the same vendors. Indeed, our little community of talent professionals had a lot in common. And for some reason, members of that community seemed to be interested in what I had to say.
To be honest, I was always a little suspicious. At my first job after graduate school I was expected to speak at conferences about computer-based training. This was in the early 1980’s, and since the field was relatively new there was interest in my subject matter. I would make a presentation, and, invariably, people would approach me after I finished to tell me how interesting it was and how lucky I was to be able to do such cutting edge work (and then, of course, most would ask if me if my company was hiring!). This almost always surprised me, because I never thought I was saying anything unusual or interesting or controversial. Over time I realized I was wrong.
Thanks to good genes, it seems that I have the ability to tell a good story. I was told that I speak in plain language, and that both my presentations and my writing are ‘conversational.’ People told me that I write exactly as I speak and that this was as appealing as it was unusual. They told me that listening to me speak and reading what I had written were easy; that is was just like sitting with me and talking. This was in contrast, I suppose, to others who were more academic and whose speaking and writing styles were more formal. What they said was probably more significant, but not nearly as easy to understand as what I was saying, and listening to them was more work and less fun than listening to me. After a while I became comfortable with the idea that my colleagues were interested in what I had to say, and so I just kept at it. Then, 35 years later, I just stopped. Since I was no longer working I had lost my audience, and there was nothing else to write about. And even if I had written something, I didn’t think anyone would be interested in what I had to say.
Now I realize that was pretty silly. I am still part of a community,albeit different from the last one. And I still see the world through the same eyes and speak in the same voice. So it is possible that there are a few folks out there who might enjoy reading an occasional essay. And what do I have to lose? With that in mind, I offer the first of what I hope is a series of essays on life as seen through the eyes of an aging, unemployed boomer with a definite point-of-view (for better or worse). I hope you enjoy them!