There is nothing that I miss about the work world I left behind. There are however several people who seem to be 'waiting' for me to say that I miss working and miss my former workplace. Every time I'm together with them they ask me if I miss working. The answer is always no. I reassure them that I made the right decision since they seem to be worried that I made the wrong decision. They seem to think that they know me better than I know myself. I tell them that wild horses could not drag me back to what was. I've learned (finally) to let go and to live in the present. My workplace belongs to the past. I don't worry about the past and I cannot predict nor do anything about the future, so the best place to live is in the present. I jokingly say that I retired to spend more time in my garden. But it's really the truth. My garden is my happy place.
I was speaking with one former colleague yesterday since we still socialize from time to time. She had just gotten off the phone with another former colleague who updated her on all the doings at my former workplace. Summa summarum--nothing has changed. Nothing will change. The big egos are still running the show, rude as ever to the researchers they deem worthless (those who don't drag in a ton of money). Rude also to the clinicians who are doing research (or trying to) in addition to their clinical duties. What is there to miss about this type of workplace? Egotistical arrogant superficial uninteresting people (the majority of whom are men). They think they are going to live forever and carry on as though they will. And they can do so for my sake. I don't care a whit about them.
I also grew weary of the bureaucratic systems that were built up around the practice of science. There are forms to fill out and online systems to learn at every turn. Work life in the public healthcare system is simply about having your every move tracked by one or another system. As my husband says, they exist because there is no longer any trust between employers and employees. He's right. I suppose there are any number of employees who are scoundrels, who cheat the system if they can get away with it, who abuse it and thereby abuse fellow colleagues (in my experience it has been top leadership that has abused the system but that is another story). So the systems grew out of that mistrust. However, the systems now exist by and for themselves. It is very important as a researcher to know how the accounting and ordering departments work in detail, something that has never particularly interested me. I grew up professionally at a time when these departments were support systems for us. Now they dominate the work lives of most researchers, who already use a large amount of time reporting to the granting agencies that give them money to do research. Updating the latter is important, I grant that, but it is not necessary to update them several times a year. Once a year is enough.
Many pathologists with whom I used to work are leaving the public healthcare system for private labs. I can totally understand this. I wish I had left the public healthcare system years ago. Thankfully there are more private research labs to choose among at present, so that younger researchers don't have to tolerate what we older researchers had to tolerate. The private labs are efficient; they don't waste time on endless meetings and they let their employees do their jobs. A friend of mine, who is now retired, put it this way; he said that all he wanted to do was go to work and do the job he was paid to do. But he couldn't, because he had a boss who insisted that he go to useless meetings and learn administrative systems for which he had little use. What is the point of all of this? He told me that this emphasis on administrative systems is now called New Office Management. Whoopee. I suppose it replaces New Public Management? Who the heck knows, and who the heck cares?
Life has different stages, different chapters. Best to start a new chapter when you have the health and presence of mind to do so. Best to start anew with a sense of anticipation, of fun, of adventure. So no, I don't regret retiring. I transitioned into a new life, one that I'm grateful for and one that makes me happy. If other people don't accept that, that's their problem, not mine.
