Retiring
A fictional short-short story
I finally had to face the truth: My decades as a career counselor have yielded a net negative: I made job seekers look superior to better candidates, not just putting their best face on their pockmarked work history, but sometimes giving a facelift. And in helping people choose a career, the predictive validity of career counseling is too low. Plus, I felt I had to work within my clients’ values and not superimpose my own, even when I felt mine were wiser. So, I retired, not a glide path — I jumped off the cliff.
But what was I going to do now? Sure, I’d sleep later, linger over coffee and take longer walks, maybe play pickleball. But I also decided to clean up my life’s messes: finally do my will, do a “death cleanout” where I gave away my lifetime of stuff to Goodwill, and, more difficult, try to resolve the decades-long estrangement with my son. Phone calls and Zooms failed, so I decided to drive cross-country to see him in Berkeley. On the way, I’d check out high school basketball games, botanic gardens, and okay, dive bars.
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Justin and I had been close until college, where he became radicalized. My mistake was to argue with him. I wish I had the restraint to let him find his path. But he continued, for decades now, to nurse his grievance that I had “denied his agency.” I suspect that more is going on but much as I tried, I could unearth nothing.
So, off I drove. When I finally reached Berkeley, I saw why he chose to live there, from the moment I entered the city — Its sign “Entering Berkeley” had “Ohlone Territory” underneath. (The Ohlone Indians were earlier occupants of the land.)
Of course, I was even more nervous when I knocked on his door, and his flat expression didn’t help. All the back and forth that followed reduced to this: He’s proud to be a leftist and derided my moderation as wimpiness — “Silence is violence!” — and an “assault on his rectitude,” even though I had avoided political discussion for 30 years now. We parted agreeing that we’d try again “sometime” although we knew that was unlikely.
I’m back home and bored. I may avoid the ethical worries I had about career counseling by coaching other seniors on how to wisely fill their days.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
Marty Nemko is a career counselor who is somewhat more positive about his career than this story’s protagonist. He is the author of 36 books including Work Stories and Relationship Stories. You can reach him at mnemko@gmail.com
