Which is better: planned or forced retirement? That’s easy to answer, you say. But think again. Do you remember any of those trick questions in your school days which seemed to be asking what was so obvious and you rushed to answer them first only to be told by your class teacher that you didn’t get the answer right?
This is one of such questions. Now, don’t get into an argument with me on this. Just patiently read every line that follows. And at the end of it, you’ll see what I mean.
First, what is a planned retirement? It’s a retirement that you set a date for and put a time-table in place that will terminate on the date you set. And, having done that, you do everything you needed to do to ensure that you’ll be ready to take off when that date arrives.
And forced retirement? Well, that’s the one that you’re told about a couple of hours after addressing a group of people, telling them in glowing terms how you plan to take your division to a higher level in sales in the next two years and the standing ovation you got from the audience was still ringing in your ears.
Or the one that happens when one of those wicked games life sometimes play with us take place. You’re riding on the crest of your career and everything seems to be working fine. The world is practically at your feet. Everything is just going great and you are thankful to be alive.
Then wham, it happens! An accident. A disease with no known cure. Flood sweeping through your part of the city, washing away your means of livelihood. Or one of those religious riots.
It doesn’t matter which one it is. The impact is the same: devastating. All of a sudden you’re out of a job. Or you couldn’t do any of those things that bring the cash into your bank account and put food on the family dinner table.
And that’s it. You’ve been forced to retire!
That’s one aspect of forced retirement; the one I was sure you had in mind when you first read that question above. But there is another type of forced retirement. This type is not forced on you. You are the one that engineers it.
It happens this way. You’ve set a target date to retire and you’ve planned for it. You did everything within your power to work towards your time-table and you seem to be making a headway. But, somehow, as the time approaches, you suddenly become the toast of the organization you’re working for. As if they’ve just discovered your ability, they suddenly decide to give you the promotion that you’ve been overdue for.
At this point, you become confused. Which way are you to go? Should you abandon your plans to retire into something else or keep your present job and be enjoying the new perks your company is piling on you?
Questions like this keep you awake at night. You turn from one side of the bed to the other, trying to figure out the best choice.
Of course, if you stay on the job, you’ve not retired. But if you did the unthinkable [not by your own thinking but in the opinion of those closest to you] and step out of that job, then you’ve forced yourself to retire.
That is what I mean by the other forced retirement.
This type of retirement comes with a different set of challenges. Unlike when you’re forced to retire by your employers or by fate, when you go on self-induced retirement, you’re sometimes considered a candidate for a mental home by people closest to you.
Which was my own experience in 1984. I fired myself from my sports editor job at The Guardian newspaper. And only one person, to the best of my knowledge, thought I wasn’t crazy. And that person was my wife.
Even though no one confronted me and told me so, I could read it on their faces. How could anyone in his right senses leave a well-paying job for a risky endeavour like starting a publishing business in an uncertain economy like Nigeria was at the time [and still is today, did I hear you say?]? And when it became apparent that I didn’t have anyone in the background that was going to bankroll the business, the people who thought something was wrong with me were now very sure that I had gone round the bend.
That is one of the many challenges of forcing yourself into retirement. Another challenge is the self-doubt that could sometimes be overwhelming. This is not people close to you thinking something was wrong with you. This is you, I mean you as in YOU, questioning yourself within whether you were crazy to have taken the decision to quit your previous job at the time you did.
You reach this crossroads when the plan you had, which was so good on paper [read that to mean business plan] and which you believe nothing could go wrong with, suddenly gets stuck. Someone had pledged to invest in the new company, promising to pay for his equity subscription in a month’s time.
The person is “loaded”. You know what I mean by that. So you’re sure that the money he pledged is coming in. But a month stretches to two months, then to three. Now, you hardly can reach him on the phone. And he’s always in a meeting when you go to his office at the same period that his secretary usually ushered you to his presence with a broad, welcome smile.
Unfortunately –– or should I say it’s fortunate? Whether fortunate or unfortunate will depend on the individual concerned and the way they respond to things like this –– you had started the company with the small seed capital that you have, assuring yourself that “this man will surely deliver.”
No, you were wrong this time. No dice! Welcome to adversity that you hardly prepared for. Right then self recrimination and self doubt will creep in. Were you right to have resigned at the time you did? Was that not pride or something that pushed you out of that job?
The more you think along this line, the gloomier the future looks. You’re deep in a tunnel with no shaft of light in sight. Don’t make the mistake of reading the morning papers at this period when your spirit is down. If you do, you will sink deeper into depression.
Why? Because that day’s paper will report the story of the local council chairman who embezzeled millions of naira and the governor whose relation was caught with millions of dollars in raw cash in a Ghana-must-go bag.
If you get my drift in the last few paragraphs, you’ll come to the wrong conclusion that forced retirement, especially the one you impose on yourself, is a poison to be avoided like plague. If you do, then you’ve missed my point.
This is what I mean. You see, sometimes, the best way to avoid the trap of getting retired properly, which entitles you to a wall clock, a fat or not-so-fat retirement benefits and what-a-jolly-good-fellow- he-was speeches that your bosses and colleagues flatter you with at a send off party, as you go into the sunset of your life, is to go for the forced retirement option.
Yes, the challenges of making that choice could be overwhelming, I agree.
But compared to the other option whereby you’re almost too old to do anything whorthwhile with the rest of your life before you retire is certainly not the best, especially if your employers would not be in a position to make adequate provision for your existence after your productive work life.
If you can brave the odds, and give the assignment your best efforts and with GOD on your side, you will come out on top.
There’s a way to go about that. And I’ll share it with you in next week’s edition.
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