retirement – bendingtheneedle

From Tech Writing to Dog Sitting

In December 2024, after more than 35 years, I stopped working as a technical writer.

I hesitated to call myself “retired” because I wasn’t sure that was true. I felt burned out but didn’t know whether the burnout would last. Maybe I just needed some time.

A month or so after I stopped working, I published a collection of essays, poems, and short stories I’d worked on for years in my spare time. That was fun. I worked with an editor, learned about self-publishing, and published my book on Amazon. The entire endeavor took a few months.

After that, I did a lot of sitting around—so much so that I considered reentering the workforce. I even took a few interviews.

Retirement taught me what I already knew: I’m not a “project guy.”

I don’t have a workshop in my basement, I don’t tinker with cars, I’m not a hobbyist in any sense, and I’m about as “handy” as Captain Hook. So, retirement became a bit of a vacuum for me – a lot of time with nothing to fill it with.

To make things worse, my wife retired shortly after me, and it turns out that she is a “project guy (or gal).”

Unlike me, my wife finds things to do every day. She’s in constant motion – organizing the basement, digging in the garden, putting up bird feeders. I’d be sitting on the couch, watching the news or Sports Center, and I’d look up and see my energetic wife in the yard, weeding, feeding, and seeding with purpose.

I felt like a lazy lump. She’d come in from the outside with a smile on her face and say, “It’s a beautiful day out there,” not necessarily wanting me to join her but wanting me to at least get off my ass.

Caring for our dog Pepsi kept us both busy during those early months of retirement. We spent a lot of time and energy helping Pepsi navigate illnesses and old age until that dreadful day when we had to put her down. It was a tough time for both of us. I’m thankful I was retired when all of that went down.

Though I miss Pepsi immensely and miss the joy of k9 companionship in general, it was freeing not to have that 24/7 responsibility for the first time in 12 years. But after a few months, I began to think it would be nice to have a dog again, leading me to Rover.

Rover is a pet-sitting, boarding, and walking service.

I thought to myself, “I love dogs, I know I’d be good at this, it’s going to get me off my butt, and we have a pretty good setup logistically (large, enclosed back yard with two dog-loving people who are home all the time).

I’ve been a Rover rep since January 2025, providing mainly boarding services, but I’ve also walked a few dogs.

Rover allows me to set my schedule, so I can block off weeks or months at a time in case I do suddenly become a project guy (unlikely) or if my wife and I decide to take a vacation, all while putting some spending money in my pocket.

Rover helped fill the hole Pepsi’s death left in my heart with an opportunity for K9 companionship while providing a service to pet owners looking for a warm, safe, and loving environment for their pets.

Honestly, it’s been a win-win.

So far, my clients include a loveable and playful hound mix named Cooper, a quiet and reserved basset/shepherd mix named Rene, a timid lab mix named Millie, a gentle geriatric bulldog named Tucker, and an enthusiastic, boundlessly energetic, and inquisitive German Short Haired pointer named Birdie.

I’ve had several Meet and Greets that have resulted in bookings through the Summer.

Each dog has its own personality, and it’s been a joyful experience watching them adjust to me and learning how to adjust to them. All of the dogs I’ve boarded so far have acclimated fairly quickly—they become comfortable in a day or two.

Our house feels more like a home with a dog on the couch or sunning themselves on the back patio.

I’m sensitive to the fact that every dog that an owner drops off is probably feeling some anxiety, at least initially. My wife and I do our best to give the dogs the space to explore our house and become comfortable with new and unfamiliar surroundings. I try to keep the house quiet (maybe some soft music).

I’m discovering that when a dog is comfortable with where they are, they become comfortable with me, and that’s when I can begin building trust by going on walks, sitting together on the couch, or playing fetch in the backyard.

When it’s time for my K9 guests to leave, I feel a tinge of sadness, but mostly, I’m happy that I could provide them with a loving and welcoming place to stay while their owners are away.

Every pet owner I’ve dealt with has been great. I provide daily updates with videos and pictures and converse with them over the Rover app.

Being a Rover rep has been an emotionally uplifting experience while providing a much-needed distraction from the chaos in our country and the world.

Robots in Human-Skin Suits

I’m more than a bit dismayed that I still wallow in work worry.

At 60 years old, I thought that shit would have dissipated by now, but it hasn’t.

I still lie awake at night and stress out about work.

And lately, worry is partnered (weirdly enough) with a growing and sustained apathy, where even though I’m frenzied and panicked about my job, I struggle to find the motivation needed to push through the mile-high mountain of inane yet necessary Zoom meetings, team stand-ups, One-on-ones with my managers, deliverable deadlines, and new processes, procedures, and tools.

You know you’ve reached a saturation point when you can’t summon the energy needed to organize your thoughts and quell your work worry.

And I’m beginning to think that’s where I am – at the intersection of panic and apathy.

If I never hear another “let’s jump on a call” or “find some time on my calendar,” I’ll be OK because honestly, after 35 years, work has become an exhaustingly joyless and life-draining endeavor – a toxic and twisted nest of feigned interest and stress made worse by the fact that our daily lives are unfolding against a devastatingly bleak backdrop of worldwide calamity; from our crumbling democracy to the rise of authoritarianism to the climate catastrophe, humanity is in shambles – making it damn-near impossible to focus on two-week Agile sprints and software deliverable deadlines.

At least, for me, it does.

And so, I’m itchy to retire. I want to step off the “dread mill,” put my work worry aside, and use the surplus of time and onset of calm to focus on things that matter – family, personal relationships, health and relaxation, and preparing for the apocalypse.

And actually, it’s beginning to feel like retirement might be close at hand — I mean, after 35 years, the next step, the one where my wife and I get to relax and smell the roses, should be just around the corner.

Right?

I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Barring a catastrophic financial meltdown, I hope to retire while I still have some tread on my soul. But for millions of Americans, the high cost of healthcare, housing, food, gas (and just about everything else) makes retirement a pipe dream.

If I had to continue the rest of my days writing bland and drier-than-dessert-dirt descriptions of software features, I don’t know what I’d do.

I did it for 35 years.

I’m ready to stop.

To keep at it when I no longer care would damage my emotional well-being.

Humans are strange; we keep doing what we do, even when we’re dead tired, exhausted, and deflated by it. Even when it brings us no joy and turns us into stressed-out, fidgety, and fragile work zombies, we keep on with it. Maybe because we have to. Maybe because we have no choice – we work or get swallowed up and spit out.

And fear prevents us from stopping (even for a minute), stepping back, and considering another path.

The system that we’re part of has turned millions of Americans into robots. Programmed and cultivated by the carrot-and-stick, the pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow message of capitalism.

And so, we move ahead, expressionless, one foot in front of the other, until that final day when we stop and fall over into our shiny and perfectly polished coffins.

That’s no way to live, and not a good way to die either.

At Sixty

“I know I could do this if things would just slow-the-fuck down,” he muttered. Head bowed, sitting at a dimly lit kitchen table, teetering on the edge of a midlife meltdown.

With more than 30 years in the industry, you think he’d be brimming with confidence. For most, that kind of experience leads naturally to calm assuredness. But with experience comes expectations, and those expectations smother him like a blanket of boulders.

He feels incapacitated by his experience, not buoyed by it.

He fixates momentarily on his wife’s furrowed brow and imagines himself tiny, wandering through those deep valleys of disappointment.

At work, he’s surrounded by the young and hungry. Buzzing with ambition, their bright voices float on currents of frenetic energy.

Was he ever that exuberant (about anything)? He struggles to remember his younger self, but it’s like painting with numbers without the numbers.

In his cubicle, yellow sticky notes pop off the edge of his monitor. A sleek uninviting techno-flower, daring him to delve in – begging him to fail. Tossed to the corner of the desk, a coffee-stained and panic-scrawled legal pad.

His “to-do list.”

After a full day’s work, that list somehow gets longer, not shorter.

Early in his career, he’d slide into a work groove and rip through his “to-dos” effortlessly, like a sickle slashing through wheat. But nowadays, he’s easily and willingly distracted. His ability to focus comes in short bursts only, and the mental elasticity of youth is frustratingly absent.

His focus is hampered further by a barrage of instant messages and multiple meetings a day. As a result, he always feels two steps behind in a mad dash to a deadline.

He wears his age like an ill-fitting suit, and he struggles to keep pace with his profession.

He lifts his head and speaks again.

“Honestly, I don’t think I can do it anymore. I’m sorry, because I know that puts us behind the eight-ball financially, but every day’s a struggle, and I’m barely keeping my head above water.”

He wasn’t being lazy. He was being honest.

He remembers how the quest for success propelled him early in his career. He remembers plowing through whatever work stress he encountered, because on the backside of that stress were people who depended on him. For 25-plus years, that was all the motivation needed to keep at a job he never truly enjoyed.

Now that his kids are grown and on their own, he faces an increasingly stark scenario. Deadlines approach, the work pace quickens, his ability to keep up wanes, and the desire and motivation needed to plow through it all has vanished.

He concludes that what’s required of him, and where he is philosophically (at sixty), have diverged irreconcilably. He feels this in his bones and in his gut every morning when he wakes.

And there’s a nagging sense of entitlement, that at this phase of life he’s earned the right to slow down — to take his foot off the gas — to smell the roses. He romanticizes about a job that doesn’t follow him home every night. A job that ends when the day ends and doesn’t occupy his mind ceaselessly.

At sixty, he has no interest in climbing the corporate ladder. Instead, he wants to set it ablaze, sit cross-legged on his cubicle floor, and watch it burn to ash.

At sixty, he has no illusions about discovering job satisfaction. That boat has sailed, and there’s no sense lamenting he never got on it. Instead, he’s looking for balance.

He’s looking for “just enough.”

Just enough to pay his bills and free up some time.

Just enough to sip coffee in solitude, and not worry about work.

At sixty, he sits at a dimly lit kitchen table, looking for a way out.

Morning Coffee

His alarm goes off a 6:45 AM.

He looks wearily from his pillow across the room at his desk, where two monitors and a Mac sit framed by a window that overlooks the side yard of his 3 bedroom, one-and-a-half bath cape.

He lays in bed with his dog for another 15 minutes, scratching her behind the ear. Finally, he lets out a heavy sigh before rolling over, sitting up, and lowering his feet to the floor.

His 11-year-old Pitbull watches sleepily, yawning and stretching across the center of the bed. He turns to give her one more pat on the head, and her tail thumps the mattress in warm appreciation. Then she lowers her head and closes her eyes. She’ll sleep another hour before heading downstairs to begin her day.

He heads down the staircase from the upstairs bedroom, emptying into the sun-splashed kitchen. It’s one of the things he likes most about the house, but he’s not sure why. He gives this some thought and concludes it’s the practicality of going from a room where sleep still clings to you to a room where the coffee pot awaits. That design makes perfect sense.

“That must be it,” he mutters to himself.

He gets the coffee pot going immediately. He opens the French doors from the kitchen to the cement patio overlooking the yard. The grass is still wet from the morning dew; he walks out, sits on a patio chair, and waits for the coffee to finish brewing.

He starts to rethink why he loves the idea of a staircase connecting the kitchen to the upstairs bedrooms, which has nothing to do with coffee and sleep. He thinks the design decision harkens back to simpler days when the kitchen was the hub of family activity. And even though that was long before his time, the idea of it sits well with him.

In another hour or so, he’ll be back upstairs at his computer, looking at emails and preparing for meetings.

He can’t wait for the day when sitting on the patio is not a prelude to work but rather an interlude to a day without plans or schedules.