Well, here I am, Monday morning, January 16th, 2023. My first day after the weekend on my first day of not being paid or working for someone. Giselle went to the office herself earlier this morning but left the coffee on for me. I went back to bed and woke up around 8:00AM.
My last day at work was a bit of a letdown. We had a staff meeting to work out the final on-call schedule for the year. I was there but had no input as I will never be on-call again! YAY! My boss took me for lunch at the nearby casino, and that was that. I turned in my laptop, ID, corporate expense card, access card, and the keys to my service vehicle. I had to ask a coworker who lives close by for a ride home. There is no HR person in our office – she is in Calgary. Our regional general manager was in his office. I stopped in and let him know it was my last day. He had no clue… I guess that is the way it is today with very large multinational corporations.
I did manage to have my work cell phone number ported out of the system so I could keep it. Today I am still getting corporate emails and the IT department reloaded all the corporate apps that I deleted over the weekend, so they still have not removed it from their system, even though the phone is mine now. I wonder how long that will take. There is no ‘offboarding” procedure that I can see within this huge company. I will just keep deleting the apps until they stop reloading them….
I have been asked by several people over the weekend how it feels to be retired. I have no idea! I think I am in ‘vacation mode’ and it will sink in after a couple of weeks. For now, I will work on this website and get some more stories posted. There are quite a few left to finish on the website before I start on my next one. There are also a few things to get done around the house, WASH MY BIKE!
Giselle and I are heading to Ixtapa in February for a few days in the sun with cousins Dan and Rose Fisher. This will be my first trip to Mexico in over 14 years I think. Looking forward to it! At the end of February I will be heading back to Ecuador by myself for a couple of months. Sort of a trial period for me to be sure that is where I want to be in my retirement. Giselle will be joining me in April. All these travel plans are already booked and paid for, so not a hit on any retirement funds…maybe after all the travelling is done, being retired will finally hit me…time will tell.