The Colorado State Open Thread is open to people interested in traveling to or from the great squarish state of Colorado, for those living here in the past, present, future, or in-between, and for those just interested in learning more about the people and things to be found here.
For long-time readers of this column, you know that plenty of things beyond politics can be found here. To allay your fears, no I am not quitting Daily Kos. Last Friday I delivered my two weeks notice to my managers and director at work. You may have heard me grouse and complain some about work and how it was shifting from placing the emphasis on customer satisfaction to counting time for calls, for minimizing the time spent writing up tickets and also, lately, not replacing staff who left or were promoted to other divisions, leaving those of us taking calls to only take calls. Previously, we had time to slip in some time for meetings, writing up procedures, learning from reading tickets other people solved, and generally have more interactions between staff, especially as we expanded from just Colorado and Kansas, to covering Colorado, Kansas City, Wichita, North Texas, Missouri and Louisiana. Lately, we expanded across the country, taking calls from everywhere, but without training, tools, access to do our basic jobs, … Well, it had reached the point where I wasn’t able to have fun solving puzzles with customers. I was having higher and higher blood pressure, my wife was hearing me swear as calls came in before I had finished the ticket for the call that had ended, they were scheduling meetings on days when I couldn’t be present (and some other techs weren’t there for the meetings) yet we had no time to listen to the meetings if they even bothered to record them for us and we were responsible for being up on information that we no longer had time to learn. Well, I could go on longer and longer, but suffice it to say, I was feeling like I was being treated very poorly, it wasn’t fun any more and it was time to separate from that company.
Mrs. Colotim is very, very anxious to travel. She hasn’t had a real vacation in a couple of years and she wants to go back to Europe. This week we were supposed to be in Italy, starting in Naples, going to the Amalfi peninsula, back to Rome, then over to Greece and eventually winding up in Santorini.
This past March, we were supposed to go to the US Virgin Islands. Neither trip took place. I hope Europe is easier on US travelers than we have been on them. I can understand Europe wanting to keep the contagious Americans out as much as possible, though that makes it difficult for us to go where we want to go.
When I leave my current position, I will not necessarily have to go find a job right away, or possibly even at all. I plan on taking it calmly for awhile and trying to do a number of tasks that have been let slide over the years. I have plenty of downsizing to do, which is tough for me because I hate getting rid of usable items. I also have learning to do for how to make my weather station part of Weather Underground so anyone can keep track of the weather up here, how to connect the wireless speakers so that we have sound throughout the house, how to automate some other things that have features, assemble books of photos so that our trips can be remembered, read many, many books, and perhaps even find time to volunteer either for Rocky Mountain National Park or the Estes Park visitor center. There are plenty of hikes to take, plenty of pictures to shoot, and I’m sure, plenty of honey-do’s that Mrs. ColoTim will come up with. I’ll be able to get back to barbecuing/smoking/grilling, cooking, baking (though I really need to avoid carbs) and experimenting with various foods and drink.
I’d love to hear from you if you have ideas for what you’re doing in retirement, what you’d like to do in retirement and whether you think you ever will actually retire. As a civic duty, I might even send suggestions to many Republicans like Donald Trump for how to spend his retirement if he has a choice in where and how he spends it. I hope there are many who suddenly, even unexpectedly, find themselves suddenly retired by the people.
Let me hear from you in the comments. The floor is yours.
