Then the thing that would never happen happens. The thing that was only joked about in gallows humor. Or messed up that clip when Basil Fawlty in "Bang in the Building", stares blankly ahead and mutters: "Zzzom! What was that? That was your life, mate."
People around you start talking about the pension.
I usually change the subject quickly, because if it were revealed how utterly ignorant I am of the subject, I would be put under guardianship. Or assigned to a good man. You can ask the question "what IS occupational pension really" once and hope to appear charmingly bohemian. But not five times.
As friends and acquaintances begin to check out of their professional lives, I have noticed two things.
One is that everyone seems happier when they've taken the plunge. Even those who were engrossed in their work, and who you worried about and wondered if they would hunker down or sit isolated on the TV sofa and wait for the delivery man. But not. The newly retired people dabble with interests that have been put on hold, travel, read and relax in various ways.
The second thing I noted is more somber, and may sound as if it is in opposition to the aforementioned joy - but it seems that the farewell to the employer is often done in bitterness. Especially for those who have worked for a long time in the same place.
But maybe it's not so strange. Possibly it is inevitable.
Stop for a moment and think about all that your work brings you. A context. An identity. Workmates. Professional pride. Food on the table. And as you get better at what you do, the food on the table gets better too, or should be.
Many of us have made the mistake of visiting an old workplace - it's always disappointing, often downright embarrassing
All good stuff, and more and more over the years. When you're past sixty, the scales are full of good stuff.
You might even start to think that you are your work. It's the first thing you mention when you meet a stranger and are asked to tell them about yourself. It comes before family, age, place of residence, leisure interests.
But let's take a look at the other scale and ask us how much you mean to your job. How indispensable you are in your workplace.
Not particularly, we are forced to realize. The other weighing pan is almost empty.
In short, it is a seriously unbalanced relationship.
Many of us have made the mistake of visiting an old workplace. The place we associate with so many warm memories, so many happy tans, so much obvious community.
The visit is always disappointing, often downright embarrassing.
When we were colleagues, we were so close that words were rarely needed. Now it feels like trying to keep a conversation going from either end of the Gobi Desert. The contrast is so dizzying that it feels downright hostile.
If you have made a visit like this once, you will never do it again.
Maybe it's that when we say goodbye to our old employer, and realize how uneven it is between our scales, we lose our footing and our sanity. It seems incomprehensible to us that the workplace that meant so much to us suddenly looks at us with a fixed gaze, as if it wonders what we are doing there. Have we perhaps gone wrong?
A friend told me about when they made cuts at his job and offered people severance left and right. One of the workplace's biggest stars accepted the offer, grabbed the money bag and left. But it wasn't long before he came back and was pissed at his employer that no one tried to persuade him to stay...
According to a survey, it takes an average of three months before your colleagues start to forget your name. If, against the odds, you were to speak, it would be with the words:
"Well he... with the protruding ears... what was his name..."
The train pulls away, and we remain on the platform. Soon you can't even hear the thump from the rail joints anymore.
A not too bold guess is that the departure from the old workplace is a feeling of death, and how everything that filled our life and gave it meaning - family, friends, work - will roll on. And if we were allowed to return from the realm of the dead, we would be met by those zeroed and slightly troubled looks. What are you doing here? Have you gone wrong?
Read more from Bengt Ohlsson:
"The election movement in 1976 was about employee funds and socialism"
"Torsten Ehrenmark touched his pain points like a feather"
