My Retirement Was Announced Today

My retirement from selling fine paper to printers, at least. I'll never conventionally retire. I'll always be working at something.

I've sold and managed people who sell for the last 20 years, and now I'm done. I've been in the print/paper business for a total of 33 years. I like to tell people that I started at 12, but I don't think they're buying it anymore.

And just think. There was a time when I thought that 33 was old. Now it's just the amount of time that I've spent in an industry.

I read an obituary last week about a woman in Maine who was in her late 80s. She'd written a humor column for a newspaper for years, and here was her obituary in a paper on the other side of the continent. I was inspired. She made people happy. She made them laugh at the vagaries of life. I, like her, can write for the rest of my life, and can hopefully make people laugh and think, and can have a career that lasts longer than my paper sales career has. That's exciting.

Now I wonder how long I can keep my 150,000-mile Sales Warrior Vehicle running.