Pylortes, that sounds awesome. Can't wait. :)
I’ve seen a number of posts of people close to their retirement day who are struggling with stress/motivation. I can certainly relate. I felt enormous stress the last 6 months or so, and it did not get much easier for me even after I had given notice as I felt I had so many loose ends to tie up. I didn’t even end up getting everything I wanted to taken car of before I left, but you know what? It’s alright and I’m not worried about that stuff anymore. Just a little encouragement for others who are struggling to get to their end date.
I keep thinking that - objectively speaking - this is the least stressful period I've had at work in a while. And yet, I'm having a hard time with it. I think it's a combination of being emotionally done and ready to leave, and generally burnt out from the last few years so there's just not a lot of gas in the tank. I'm trying to minimize my remaining obligations and delegate a lot, which is helping...If literally all I had to do anymore was train people and update documentation, I think I could deal with that okay, lol. I still have some project work left to wrap up though, and for all that I'm trying to disentangle myself, I still care about the loose ends (and there are So Many).
I'm trying to better internalize and accept the reality that there are going to be loose ends left over no matter what, and that the people left behind will deal with them - I am not an essential piece of the puzzle, and the waters will flow in to fill the organizational gap I leave behind. Someone else will deal with the inevitable leftover loose ends, and if not, maybe they weren't that important after all.
My plan has been to work until Nov 4 without taking leave between now and then, and get an annual leave payout at the end - it's about a month's worth so it's a nice chunk of $. Plus there are some training sessions I want to run for people in October, and it'll work better to do it then rather than in September. This week I've started seriously considering taking leave for most of Oct and just coming in 1-2 days a week for the training sessions though...
You'd think that the closer you get to the finish line, the easier things would get. And in some ways that
is true, but it also seems to get harder to hang on when freedom is so close that you can taste it.
But I've promised myself that if by September I still want to take most of October off, then I'll go ahead and schedule it as annual leave. So maybe that means I really only have about seven weeks left! Plus a few training sessions, which, whatever, I can do most of that with my eyes closed. :P
(I am contractually required to give 4 months of notice. Based on conversations with past coworkers, it's not unusual for people to struggle a bit with that long of a notice period - it's a long time emotionally when you're ready to leave and you've made the decision to leave. Some people just leave and don't give notice at all, despite what their contracts say, but I've been treated fairly enough in my time here and don't feel that's justified.)
