It's a whole new world

Recently had a birthday. My second since retiring. Life since leaving the corporate world to completely devote myself to God, family, friends, and writing, in that order, is completely different than I imagined. Absolutely, I miss by work buddies like crazy. I miss the set daily schedule that kept me focused. Even miss being depended on to ensure a daily productive, efficient, cost effective, drama free, fun and welcoming office environment. You know, the easy stuff.

With all the other retirement stuff to think about, no one warns us that leaving means losing the IT guru who daily saved our working life. We find out the hard way: there is no help down the hall. No extension to dial, nobody to track down in the break room, grab their hand and drag to your office with incoherent mumbles of panic. I never thought about all the things to connect and actual correct buttons to push. Suddenly, there was no one to save the work that got lost in space. Or in the cloud, ocean, meteor shower, whatever it's called. There's no help desk on this earth who speaks in simple enough terms for this Boomer to be trusted setting up, recovering or fixing computer stuff. Once you're home and on your own, it's gone, baby. Hopeless tears and all, might as well walk away from the computer and sulk off to Black Rifle to drown the outrage in caffeine before starting over. I've lost books, editorials, and all forms of writing projects in the black hole of computer h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

So, if you're retiring and you're at the age where people don't even try to put the appropriate number of candles on your cake anymore, I might can save you some heartache. First, if you don't have grandchildren, borrow some. They've been computing since the age of three and are your first responders. Experts against hackers, crashes, downloading and recovery, they're worth their weight in birthday and Christmas gifts as well as afterschool treats. Keep them on the payroll at all costs.

Not as desirable but better than the alternative: I screen shot every page I write. Sometimes every sentence if I've been writing particularly well that day. I don't "lose" work, but yes, sometimes I do have to type it all over again, but lesser of two evils. I print it off my phone, send it to myself in an email and pray over it like the devil himself is out to steal my words and give them to J. K. Rowling to claim as her own.

Us Boomers, the "fix it" generation are smart. Many of you have done just fine in this high tech world. Some of us aren't wired that way. All in all, retirement really is a wild ride on this beautiful planet. Even if it is a whole new world out there.