LEAVING A SECURE JOB

 For many years Maree and I have been dreaming of travelling Australia in semi-retirement and utilising the skills that we have built up over the last 60 years or so on a working holiday.

Our original aim was to start the build up about 6 - 12 months prior to me getting to the retiring age of 65.

Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances with my current employer the opportunity has come about 18 months earlier than expected.

So rather than ponder on what has happened we have decided that now is the time to bring our dream to reality and start to live it.

The position that I have just left involved managing and leading a training and development team with a major bank which I have been doing for the last two years.

The most difficult part of the circumstances, mentioned above, is that I have to leave behind the people who mean so much to me and  who have been the best people I have ever managed, led and been associated with and to that end there is a hollowness in my heart.

However there is an up side to this also as over the period that I have managed this team I have had to be a manager and a leader to them and although friendships develop there is still that air of employer/employee that surrounds everything that you do and rightly so.

So the upside is that now these people can and will become our real friends without that professionalism built in and now we can fully concentrate on developing life long relationships as they are the best people I have known.

During a wonderful send off by the team we made a pact that we would keep in contact with each other so that we can now concentrate on friendship and long term relationship albeit mostly from a distance.

I will, with their permission, over the coming years talk with them and about them in this blog as we keep in touch and post new blogs and photos as we will be only as far away as the keyboard or the telephone.

So for now this is my first blog in hopefully a long series of blogs as we all come to terms with what has happened and look forward to meeting again at social functions.

Whenever I refer to my friends in this blog I will use their initials until I get used to communicating this way and develop our dialogue as this blog develops.