Surprise Retirement

Happy Sunday!  I’m afraid that I will be pushing paleo out another week, because I am going to blog about my surprise retirement.

Just so you aren’t left hanging on the paleo topic, let me at least say that I have been dedicated to paleo--before I was kind of doing paleo, but not dedicated--I have lost 10 pounds.  Now that is 10 pounds from November 1st until now, November 22nd.  I would say that is pretty good, but I will blog about it more next week unless interrupted by something else!

Anyway, let me set the scene for my surprise retirement story.  I have worked for Enbridge for over 31 years.  They have been very good to me through all of life’s ups and downs, including divorce, single parenthood and my MS diagnosis.  I have tried not to have to be off very often for any of my challenges over the years, and in more recent years, I haven’t had to be off for any reason other than the usual cold, or whatever, but I have had to have accommodations made.

My most recent boss was so very understanding and would agree to almost anything, as long as I didn’t retire!  So, I progressed from, working at home on Fridays, to working from home Mondays and Fridays, to only being in the office a day or two a week--whenever necessary to attend meetings on site, although mostly, I dealt with folks in Calgary, Edmonton and Houston.

Then, we worked out this plan of 9/80, which I believe I blogged about.  It meant that I worked nine hours Monday to Thursday and the first Friday I worked eight hours and then had every other Friday off.  Of course, there are ten statutory holidays in Ontario, plus, we got one Scheduled Day Off (SDO) each month, and I had six weeks vacation, once I had 30 years of service.  So, my next progression was to take the first Friday off as an SDO, or a vacation day.  That still left me with several vacation days.

So, long story short, I was working mostly from home, nine hours a day, four days a week.  Enbridge has been kind to me.

That was working nicely, and then Monday, November 16th arrived and at 10am, I got the call letting me know that due to workforce reduction, my employment ended .  I will admit that it was a shock, but again Enbridge has been kind to me.  I could have retired in May of 2014, but continued on because my youngest was still in post secondary school.  I now have a full pension, and get to begin the next chapter in my life.  They were also kind with enough severance to allow me to continue to help my youngest until she graduates in April.  Life is good.

I now have the time to catch up on reading, writing, crafts and the many movies that are still in shrink wrap, that I have collected.  I also have other ideas in mind, but I will try not to overtax my MS.

So, I pray that whatever chapter you are in, in your life, it is working well for you.  God Bless!