It’s A Start!
After several years of winding down my career gradually, I’m finally ready to pull the plug 100%. May 21, 2018 will hereafter be known as my retirement date.
I’ve had a really wonderful time, done my best to make a difference, and made some great friends along the way, but now it’s time to move on. There are so many other things I want to do with my time (to include illustrated journaling at which I’m a very enthusiastic but not talented beginner — look to your right — but which gives me great pleasure) that it’s no longer sensible to spend hours each day plugged into the ebb and flow of news and discussion at the intersection of HRM and IT, let alone to take briefings and attend vendor analyst days.
It’s also well past time for the next generation or three to take their turn at calling out the crummy software, passive aggressive corporate cultures, never going to make money business models, 40+ year old data and process designs, intransigent HR professionals, dissembling marketeers, and all the other muck that I’ve been shoveling uphill for a half century. Fortunately, those next generations include some very capable people, many of whom have become valued friends, in addition to the usual run of charlatans and wannabees.
But, before I disconnect, unfollow, unsubscribe, etc., let me reassure you that my health is fine (except for my longstanding mobility issues), Ron and I will be celebrating our 46th anniversary next month, and there’s no mid-life (later life?) crisis going on here. If you’re a personal friend as well as a valued colleague, I hope that we can stay in touch. Email’s been my friend since before many of you were born (naomibloom@mindspring.com), I made my first phone call in 1948, and there’s nothing so classy as a handwritten note on proper vellum, so these will remain the best ways to reach me until my brain implant can speak directly to yours. And I hope that all of you will keep reading my blog as I write about travel, art collecting, illustrated journaling, future novellas and plays and family stories, philanthropy, aging and much more. After all, you will be following the same path some day, if you’re really lucky, and you may benefit from the trail blazing I mean to do.
Wishing all of you fair winds and following seas.