The Forgotten Employee

For the second time in my career my company has been acquired and being integrated into a much larger organization.  And while the gears of the large company grind to integrate the engineers, technology and roadmap, I have been forgotten until all the tech stuff is done, which will end up being about half a year.  This exact same thing happened to me about eight years ago.

I have a job, and am getting paid full salary and benefits, but I am not given much to do while this is all happening.  I literally have 3-4 emails a day to address, an occasional conference call, then I am done.  Since I work from home I am free to pursue what other interests I might have after about an hour of work.

This might sound great since it sounds like retirement on full salary pension and benefits, but actually it is a bit boring because I am not really retired.   While I have nothing to do it is not like I can take off to Hawaii or go on a two-week cruise and leave my laptop behind; I am tethered to email and a phone to answer the few items that are lobbed my way from time to time, so I can’t fully check out.  The down time does give me a chance to address a few health issues that I have been putting off, pursue a couple of hobbies more seriously, and start seriously planning for “real” retirement.

I do have to go through a variety of “on-line-training” for new BigCo employees.  I also had to attend in person “new employee orientation” at the US headquarters, and it was a bit humorous with me as a middle-aged guy near the end of his career in a company orientation with about a dozen new Gen-Z hires just out of college.  Talk about culture clash, and maybe I will write about that experience.

Supposedly after this interregnum I will become super busy once again with new products to sell from my previous company (now subdivision), a customer book assigned to me, and will back in Sales Mode with both virtual and in-person selling (so back on the road).  The issue then will be if I really want to go back into full work mode and the grind of present-day business travel.

The last time this happened I left the company and went to another start-up (my present company that is being absorbed) after the integration was complete and my down-time was over, but at my age and stage of life I may just go ahead and pull the chute for early “real” retirement this time around.