Life After Retirement

When I got a job as a sales manager in IBM, I inherited a bunch of youngish sales guys who would disappear off to pubs and clubs with astonishing regularity. I also had a much older guy, John, whose most obvioust act of anarchy was to sit down and have a coffee in the lounge instead of at his desk!

It was clear to me quite quickly that there was no point in allocating John the entrepreneurial accounts where the client wanted to be taken ‘out on the town’ at regular intervals. The Bank of England and government accounts were much more suited to his style of selling – and he was pretty successful at it too.

A few years later, when John was probably about 58 and only a couple of years away from retirement, I was told by my director to reduce headcount and with the incentives on offer, John was the outstanding, although highly reluctant, candidate. I remember to this day, asking John to come into my office and suggesting that he ‘consider early retirement’.

John loved his job and was quite devastated about the suggestion that he should leave, but after a couple of hours of looking at the numbers, it was clear to me that John could retire on basically the same salary he’d been on, at least until his normal retirement age of 60. To me it was a no brainer, he could end the stress of having to make monthly targets – to John it was the end of his highly successful career.

After John left IBM, followed by myself about a year later, we kept in touch. John and his wife, Jill, would send their regular Xmas card and I would see John at our annual IBM reunion. John and Jill also visited us in Tourrettes. It was during these infrequent bouts of contact between us that I came to learn that John was an authority on the architecture and restoration of church organs. Indeed, he’d written a book on the subject which came to be regarded as the ‘bible’ for those interested in this topic.

As each year passed and we met up in London at the annual reunion, it seemed that John was busier and busier being consulted on a variety of organ building and restoration projects, one of the largest of which, was Worcester Cathedral, a picture of which is at the start of this blog.

Now in his 78^th year, John is Chairman of the British Institute of Organ Studies, has developed a website, is just about to start work on the commissioning of a new organ in St Mary le Bow in Cheapside in the City of London,  is working on another in Leipzig, Germnay and is lecturing at Oxford University. Needless to say, his latest book is selling well. He makes me feel totally lethargic!

At the time, leaving IBM seemed to be the end of a career and an unwanted, enforced retirement, but in retrospect, I’m sure John thanks his lucky stars that he was just that bit older than the other guys.