I was going to make a trip down to the Florida Keys to escape the damn snow that was forecast. The temperatures haven't been higher than the thirties during the day for the past couple of weeks and dipping down to single digits at night. I've had enough and recently made the decision to take an early retirement and get out of this God forsaken weather once and for all.
I'm Bill, fifty-two years old and have worked for the same company for almost thirty years and my pension along with my investments will let me live fairly comfortably as long as I don't go wild with expenses. I didn't want to retire early but the weather finally got the best of me and the company was offering the employees golden parachute type of inducements for early retirements. I gave up skiing ten years ago and might as well give up golf as bad as the weather is in this part of our country. I am talking about upstate New Hampshire and for the past several years we have had snow on the ground from mid-October until early April. This isn't living; it is more like just existing.
Leah, my extremely competent and brilliant secretary has been with me for the last twelve years and while there has never been anything other than a boss-secretary relationship between us I am absolutely certain I would never have enjoyed the success I have had in my job without her. She's in her mid thirties, attractive and has what looks to be a decent figure. She lost her husband just about the same time my wife passed away back about six years ago. I had no idea how she was going to take the news.
It was going to take me a little time to wind down from my job with all the things that were still going on that needed my attention. The company has been far too good to me over the years for me to just walk out the door and leave those things undone and put them in that kind of a bind. I'd still be here for the better part of another month.
Now that I had made the decision I had one major unpleasant task in front of me and that was to tell Leah of my plans. As I said, I wasn't sure of how she was going to take the news. Her work area is directly outside my office and I got up and walked out to her desk and said,
"Leah, will you please tell the switchboard to hold all calls to you or me and then please come into my office."
"What's up Bill? You are sounding so mysterious."
I didn't answer her but just turned and went back to my desk and she was right behind me.
"Please close the door Leah"
She did and when she had seated herself I said,
"I have some news that I don't know how you will take but the only thing I can do is to tell you. I have decided to take the early retirement package the company is offering and I wanted you to be the first to know."
She threw her hands up and covered her face with them and said.
"Oh God no. When will be your last day?"
"Today is the second and I'll finish out the month. I'll be going up to tell the CEO of my plans when you and I are finished talking and I think he will appreciate that I am going to finish up all the things I have been working on before leaving."
She blurted out, "Oh Bill, I'll never work for anyone else," as the tears poured out of her.
I joked, "Leah the next guy will never have all of my faults. You'll have it a lot easier."
"Now you are going to have to wipe your eyes and put a smile on your face, regardless of how phony, and not let anyone see you like this."
She dropped her hands saying, "I don't give a shit what anyone else sees me doing."
That took my breath away for I had never even heard her use the word 'damn' in all the years I had known her.
Getting up and coming around my desk I put my arms on her shoulders saying, "I'm going to miss you too. My life will never be the same without you in it but I'll just have to make do."
"I know, I'll feel the same way. I guess I knew that you would retire at some time but I always thought it was way out in the future."
Gently lifting her to her feet I put my arms around her pulling her to me.
"Leah, this is going to be a huge change for both of us but somehow we'll manage."
She threw herself against my chest and really began to bawl.
Oh hell, what do I do now? There is a box of tissues in my desk drawer and I leaned down and got them for her.
"C'mon, we'll get through this together. You and I are going to have another one of our trips that we will be taking before I leave and we are going to have to get ready for it. I am going to need all of your brains and thoughts about it."
She and I made a trip about once a month to clients and prospects all around the country. The trips would usually last several days and I'd bring her into the meetings where she would take down everything that was said of any importance in shorthand and then type her notes up on her laptop after the meeting was over. Frequently we would fly into the first city on a trip in an evening, get a hotel room and then get to the client's office the first thing the next morning. The meetings would usually last until lunch and then we'd be flying to the next meeting getting there in the early evening and get ready for the next mornings meeting with another client. Leah would be typing her notes from the first meeting into her laptop while we were in the air or driving and then after my review, and possible changes, would Email them back to the home office that night where they would be printed on company letterhead. One of the secretaries there, who did a good job with my signature, would sign the letters and get them in the mail. The client would generally receive the letters before Leah and I actually made it back to the main office. Talk about hectic!
Since this was undoubtedly going to be my last trip, I was going to clear up everything unresolved with a ton of clients. The trip was going to take us to Richmond, Raleigh, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Tampa and then ending in Miami. Some of these cities had multiple clients so we'd have enough time to take care of them on this one trip. All in all we would be gone for the better part of two weeks but I'd have cleared the board with everything needing to be done with all of those accounts.
Once again she made all of the flight, rental car and hotel reservations. We would fly into Richmond where we would pick up the rental car we would use to take us to the hotel and then on to the various clients offices for the rest of the trip. With perhaps one exception the distances between the other cities were too small to go through the hassle of flying.
We left on a Sunday night and the visits to Richmond and Raleigh went great. We solved all the issues that had been outstanding at both accounts and even picked up a large order from our customer in Raleigh. Leah was busier than hell entering all the info in her lap-top and was able to transmit it to our home office late each night.
The drive to Atlanta took longer than I thought it would and we didn't get in to the hotel there until after six. No problem ... We agreed to meet in the lounge in an hour and that gave us time to get a shower and changed into casual clothes.
She got there before me and had managed to get a nice corner table and had also arranged with the maitre de to save us a prime table in the dining room an hour after we arrived in the lounge. This woman does everything and does it well.
We had our usual drinks of scotch on the rocks and at first just clinked glasses and settled down to some serious conversation. It touched on every possible subject and she finally asked if I had a gal pal that I would be sharing the rest of my life with and I almost choked and said,
"Leah, my investments and pension will enable me to live a comfortable life but as much as that would be nice they weren't going to be enough to support a wife. Besides, who would want an old guy like me?"
"You might be surprised." She answered
We finished our drinks and ordered another and I told the waiter as he took that order that he could serve them in the dining room. He hustled over to tell the maitre de that we were ready to eat and then went to the bar to get our drinks.
Dinner was pretty good considering we were eating in a hotel. Some of these places don't go out of their way to serve first class offerings figuring that many of their customers weren't ever going to be frequent regulars.
I ordered a bottle of a nice Merlot to be served with dinner and we did manage to put a hell of a dent in the bottle. Our conversation continued, almost without any interruption, from what we had been chatting about when we first sat down in the lounge. She is one great conversationalist. We hit the sack around eleven and met for breakfast at seven the next morning.
We were only about a mile from the next client and we got there right at eight-thirty. We had been in their office a number of times in the past so it was like a meeting of old friends rather than a vendor and their customer. They were teasing Leah about looking tired and questioned her about boyfriends and wondered teasingly if that was the reason she was looking a bit run down. A few minutes of that and they realized that something was wrong and they might be treading on dangerous ground and they stopped the teasing.
After they got through teasing her they had a ball reminiscing about my last time on the golf course with some of them. It was a round of golf I'd just as soon forget. I couldn't do a damn thing right and it was the worst round of golf I had ever played. These bandits were never going to let me forget it but we all had a good laugh about it. When I announced that I was going to be retiring the room went deathly quiet. The teasing stopped and they all got very serious with their comments and best wishes and they let me know they would never forget the relationship we had developed over the years. Their CEO and I had become close friends and he got me aside and said to call if I ever wanted a job in Atlanta. He would reassign his present manager of marketing and put me to work the next day in that position. That was an unbelievably touching thing for him to offer. Leah heard part of it and broke down completely. I shook hands all around and said we had better be getting to our next appointment. Leah ran out of the place and jumped into our car and cried her heart out. I just started the car and headed for Jacksonville.
It was another hour before she regained her composure and apologized for her action. I assured her that it was a tough time for all of us and for her not to worry about it.
It was over a three hundred mile drive so we had to keep moving if we wanted to get there for dinner and that was kind of important since we hadn't had any lunch. Fortunately it was all going to be Interstate so we could make some good time if I just kept our speed at five miles over the limit.
