Three months on from IBM

It's now just over 3 months since I retired from IBM and I can't believe how quickly the time has gone, how little I miss my old job, and how quickly I've forgotten about so many things I will never need to know again.

Before I left I was concerned about how I'd fill my days, as I really do enjoy being busy, but it hasn't been a problem at all. In fact I feel like I'm just as busy now with the big difference that I'm now doing all the things I want to do and not what somebody else says I have to do. Some jobs at home that I previously viewed as a chore I can now do with a degree of enthusiasm, even cutting the grass which I previously hated doing seems OK now. I haven't really started any major home projects yet, they can wait until after the end of the summer, but I'm kind of looking forward to the time when I do.

I used to think that I'd miss feeling part of IBM, being part of the 'process', and playing a part in getting products out of the door. Actually, the reality is that I have never given it a thought since the day I left. It's just something I used to do and that's it. If there is one thing I do miss it's the people interactions that I used to have as a manager as I still very much care for all the people that were in the teams I managed and count them all as good friends.


There are so many things that you have to keep in your head when you're at work. You quite simply have to remember a myriad of facts, faces, numbers, and commitments. You just don't realize how much effort that takes until you don't have to do it any more. The minute I walked out the door on April 5 all that stuff just started evaporating away and it felt great. Now my heads full of other stuff, the things that I want to be in there.

The big surprise to me though has been that I just don't seem to have anything like as much spare time as I thought I would. My time is filled up with many things that I didn't even know I'd be doing while I was still at work. Of course I now have the luxury of being able to make the simplest of things last for hours on end. But I can honestly say I haven't been bored once in the last three months - and that's something I definitely wouldn't have been able to say if I was still at work!