Friday, July 31, 2026

Joining the ranks of the idle rich

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper
(T.S. Eliot, 'The Hollow Men')

I've already quoted this epigraph at the end of my MBA studies and it seems pertinent to quote it again today. I have now joined the ranks of the idle rich, although I'm not idle and I'm not rich. In plain language, I have retired from full-time work.

I sent the parting letter to everyone at work as well as to some outside people with whom I have contact. I received in return some warm replies, and the chairman of the board (who lives in Canada) even telephoned me yesterday afternoon to thank me for all my work.

My last day was subdued: we had set up a test server the previous evening and someone had forgotten to turn off the task scheduler, so in the morning I saw many duplicate reports in my mail box. Once that was fixed, I went over procedures that would send me emails, changing the destination of those mails. A few more fixes and that was that. I had forgotten to remove myself from all the groups to which I belong, which would mean that every day a multitude of reports would be sent to my (now closed) email address; I fixed this in the evening.

So now I become a contractor and it will be interesting to see how often I will be contacted and how many hours I can charge throughout the month. I suspect that there'll be frequent consultations in the coming week but then this should taper off.

I don't feel anything special at the moment, although as it is the weekend, effectively nothing is unusual. The first moment of change will be on Sunday morning; I am cancelling the alarm clock that would wake me at 5:30 am. The swimming pool is closed on Sundays so I don't even have to get up in time to swim.



This day in blog history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
27231/07/2010How things have changedLiterature
74531/07/2014Feral systemsDBA
105931/07/2017Mobile CPAPCPAP
197631/07/2025No more normal ... and how science fiction handles mental illnessPsychology, Robert Silverberg, Non-fiction books

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