I keep running into old colleagues. People I’ve worked with five, ten, twenty years ago. At events like parties, weddings, wakes, and networking. When you’ve worked all over a particular region for the best part of three decades you are bound to run into people you’ve worked with on occasion.
How are you doing, how have you been, what are you up to these days, do you remember so-and-so? The obligatory small talk questions. You are caught-up in minutes. Years refined down and summarised in a few sentences. I’m fine I’m retired I make jam and sell it outside my home. Or I’ve had some health problems but I’m fine now. I took redundancy from my last job and I’m semi-retired now doing the filming for the occasional wedding.
I was surprised by how many were retired. Many younger than me. Others had changed careers entirely following their passions, usually after receiving an early pension or large redundancy payout. After calculating how much they need to reach their pension they declare themselves semi-retired and make their hobby a part-time income source. They seemed much happier.
Others are still in the game. Their words. Rising up career ladders, making a name for themselves in their respective fields, making money and investing in property, businesses, the next big thing.
All have stories. Over a coffee or chilled glass of wine we catch up. Has it really been X years? We each throw out names of people we worked with. Names long forgotten. So-and-so left company X and is now a postman. Someone else started their own plumbing business. Another died of a heart attack. Some I remember, some I don’t. People I worked with side-by-side for days on end, for months, years.
Time moves on. We all have lives with unique paths. I received a summary, a snippet of some of those paths second-hand as I slowly drained my glass.
Old colleagues.