The Purple Banana

When I wrote my first post I expected to go in chronological order, but today/tonight/right now I need to open this box.

It has been two weeks since my retirement and honestly, it isn’t easy. And maybe I need to really start with how it ended and what lead up to me turning in my headset. (And I promise I’ll explain everything in between … the training, the first pursuit, the call that changed me, and everything else)

I wasn’t a supervisor that sat back and let you do all the work, I was the one that did extra because I didn’t want you to experience the things that I did. I knew what it was like to have that empty feeling, like you didn’t have anyone in your “corner” when horrible things, I did my best to make sure my team never felt that.

I had been out for three months, I was on FMLA taking care of my mother and when I went to approve the time card entries for the people I “supervised,” I was shocked with a negative balance in my sick time accrual. My mind was boggled, I had plenty of “sick” days and even had paid days off in my accrual, I just couldn’t grasp why I was at a negative balance. I then went and checked my emails, finding one from human resources stating i didn’t send some type of notification from the doctor…which, just one week before I was showing the my FMLA time correctly. I felt bamboozled, I have given thirty years of my life and seriously instead of you contacting me you deny my request and send me and email to my “agency” email?!?!?

As the Quality Assurance Supervisor, I was in charge of creating reports for CALEA (sorry, I don’t know what they are really called, but it’s the people that make sure the agency is doing thing properly and it helps with budgeting if you are accredited) for the past three months. When I pulled the reports and realized my “team” didn’t evaluate any incidents because I didn’t update the outlook calendar I was punched right in the gut. To think that I spent so much energy on these people and gave them everything they needed to know to make quality assurance an important facet of the job of a dispatcher sickened me. I honestly was so disappointed that I had created a dependent team instead of group of people that could had no honor for the program itself.

All of these things were running through my mind and then I took a breath, walked outside and had some nicotine. I sat in my car and thought “Why are you doing this?”, I contemplated so many things in that ten minutes and then I went back in my office and wrote my retirement letter. After sending the email to Human Resources, I sent a message to my manager explaining what I did and why. It wasn’t until the next day just before five o’clock did she call me (while she was driving with her children). I’m not going to lie, I did get choked up when I told her it was best for my family. She then asked me if I wanted a retirement party … you know, the one where sometimes the sheriff (or the head hancho) shows up and anyone else that wants free cake. I told her I didn’t want anything like that … no party. I didn’t want people telling me “we’re going to miss you” when I knew they were the first ones to say “Thank God!” when they read my retirement email (She did send an email to the Communications list in Outlook saying she was going to collect money and had a card for people to sign … yea, don’t have that card or the gift cards … After the six minutes and forty-one seconds conversation I felt a relief, like a little bit of pressure was taken out of my shoulders.

On my last night of work, I was driving in to get everything out of my office I snickered when I realized the time … 10:30 PM. Ironic is an understatement, I stepped foot into the dispatch center at 10:45 PM and was going to walk into my office 11,116 days later at the same time. (and yes, the 11,116 is important, that’s actually part of my ID #) When I walked into the building I ran into a dispatcher (who I went to middle school with her aunt … hello little town!) and after gathering all my things ran into her again. She was walking in as I was walking out and asked me, “Why do you have boxes?” I smiled at her and said “I retired.” We hugged and I went down to my car. I kept thinking, did i seriously say I retired to her? Like for real, those words came out of my mouth”

After putting everything in my car, I started backing out of the parking space feeling a sense of relief when I saw a figure walking to me. I for real tried to get out of there faster until the figure waved me down and then I realized it was someone from my framily. (You see, my framily knew what was going on before anyone else did…framily = friends that are family) I’m sure he will never understand how important that was to me, I left with the hug and love I never imagined I could have received when I walked into the “den” thirty years before.

I turned in all of my equipment (which included a cell phone I didn’t know the number to or the passcode to unlock it) and uniform shirts they didn’t have records of me ordering. I went to payroll, turned in my retirement information, and I even stopped off at Human Resources to give them all the unnecessary documentation I was an abiding employee for thirty years. I walked to my car and had a breakdown. For over 30 years … over half my life … the one thing I had to do was be a dispatcher. How am I going to adjust to every day life, how are my ears going to feel without a headset on them? Can I watch a TV show without playing on my phone because my brain needs to be constantly thinking of the “what if’s”? I know it’s a direction I have no clue where it’s going to lead, I just have to have the patience to open up these damn boxes one by one.