THE PERKS OF WORK


I've been asked many times over the past four years whether I miss work.  That would be the paying kind of work where a person shows up for predetermined hours, performs designated tasks and gets a paycheck for the effort.  As far as I know there is no way to retire from the non-paying-and-it-never-seems-to-end kind of work I'm still doing.


The short answer to their question is "no".  I drove to town to work for 31 years - that's half my lifetime - and I'm not sad to be set free from that.  But that's not the complete story; the last thing I would want people to believe is that I wasn't grateful for such a good job or that I didn't enjoy my time with customers and coworkers over the years, because I am and I did.  It's just that life is short and I had other things I wanted to do.


A more in depth answer is that although there were bad days (everyone has them) my years of working for a paycheck were, by far, a happy experience.  Conversations with both customers and staff kept things lively; some were happy and some were serious and sad but they built a connection with my community that I still feel today.  The opportunity to bond with my fellow Redversites on such a regular basis is something that I do miss.


The silly and sometimes borderline crazy moments we staff members had behind the scenes are some of the happiest work memories I have: taking a time out from the boredom of sorting fliers to dance to some music (eh Terry?), the private challenge I would set myself to get the Coop statements sorted even faster than last month (summer afternoons were pretty long and boring), and then there was that gift thermos of Christmas coffee that will go down in history (eh Rhonda?).  Good times.


And, this might sound strange to anyone who hasn't been a wife and a mother in a busy household, but that quiet drive to and from work, even though it was only seven miles, was a precious pocket of solitude I looked forward to every day.  You have to have walked a mile in those shoes to appreciate it but trust me, it's a real thing.  And if I hadn't had my job I wouldn't have had that; I guess you could call it a perk.


The advantage of a paycheck is obvious.  Having a job with a pension plan; likewise.


But yesterday when this prairie storm came howling in I was reminded of one of the best 'extras' my job in town ever offered - the impromptu holiday of a grownup sleepover at a girlfriend's place.


Actually it wasn't me who thought of this first.  The girlfriend I used to stay with called to say how much she missed having friends who lived in the country and worked in town, thus stirring up all kinds of memories of those happy times.


There are so many levels of being storm-stayed that make the experience special.  There's something about sharing a meal with friends - breaking bread together - that we humans value no matter whether the menu is a simple bowl of soup or a three course meal.  An entire evening of conversation can be so much richer than a simple chat over a cup of coffee.  The mini adventure of finding an extra toothbrush and something to suffice for pyjamas is its own kind of fun too.


When you wrap all of these things together, though, in a cozy house with warm-hearted people, when a storm is raging outside while you and everyone you love are safe inside, when to try to get home would have been dangerous or even deadly but instead you find yourself invited on a mini holiday: well, there's just not a better perk to working outside the home.  I hadn't thought about it until she called, but missing a storm sleepover is a definite downside to being retired.


So, to the question "Do I miss work?" the long answer is "kind of", especially at a time like this.