Being nice, at least for a little while

There are days when I think the next person who says to me, “So, the countdown is on!” will be on the receiving end of a kick in the shins.

This “countdown” thing is usually expressed as a statement rather than a question. A given, they think, that a person who has set a retirement date must naturally be “counting down the days.”

No countdown. Not counting. Just enjoying it here at work until the middle of next month. Doing what I do now. Then I’ll be doing other things. Lots to do.

But they feel compelled to ask: “What are you gonna do?”

This, often, in a worried tone, as though happiness or even life itself must surely be coming to an end. You know, the “is there anything I can do to help?” kind of inflection, spoken with a suitably sombre facial expression.

I’m pretty sure this aura of concern about what poor ol’ Mel is going to do with himself comes from knowing most people have made no plans for life after work.

They plan retirement in terms of time and money — close to 40 per cent of people in their 50s, for example, are now convinced they’ll have to work past the age of 65. The benchmark for retirement used to be 62; in 2012, the average retirement age is 63. It’s expected to reach 67 within a few years.

I waited until 68, not because I planned it that way, but because I decided a long time ago I would keep working until I didn’t want to anymore, and then I would do something else.

I ran into a former colleague of mine the day before yesterday who has been retired for quite a few years now. Not long ago, he checked the Falklands off his bucket list. He’s a bit of a political junkie and history buff, and had always wanted to visit the Falklands; he enjoyed it immensely.

I have no bucket list, I have no schedule. I just have stuff I want to do — a lot of it. And I’ll start doing it the day after I officially retire from here on Sept. 14.

In the meantime, I’ve come up with a pretty good way of dealing with those “countdown” comments and “what are you gonna do?” questions. I head them off by being nice — it totally throws people off stride.

I started it here inside the Daily News bunker. If I sense that retirement is going to come up in the conversation (which it pretty much always is), I might tell the person he or she is looking very nice today, or thank them profusely for handing me a memo, or respond enthusiastically when they ask me to help them out with something.

“Of course I can do that,” I told a co-worker from the opposite end of the building the other day. “I’ll be right there!”

She was surprised, and a little suspicious, when I appeared at her desk promptly.

“That looks perfect!” I said brightly after checking over her work.

“What’s going on?” she wanted to know.

“And may I say how much your work is appreciated around here,” I continued. “What you do has value.”

“OK, Buster,” she said. “I’m calling the cops.”

See what I mean? Being nice can be quite entertaining. I wonder what Crankypants would do if I said something nice about him.

Maybe I’ll find out, because I’m going to keep on being nice right up until the 14^th of September. Have a good one!

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca