Twenty Working Days Until Retirement

 

I can’t believe I only have 20 more working days until retirement from my position as an AVP Executive Claim Director at one of the largest multinational insurers. 

My first day as a rookie claims adjuster was June 9, 1980. I’d graduated from college early and was still too young to legally consume adult beverages. Seriously, I had zero knowledge about the job. I’d never even heard of a claims adjuster. I only took the job because it was offered to me and I needed to be self sufficient. 

After several months of training, it dawned on me that I was a quota hire. That truly pissed me off. When I stormed into my manager’s office outraged, he looked at me and asked how did I know that I wasn’t the best candidate? My sails lost wind immediately.

There have been many times over the years where I loathed my job, generally in the early days when my assignments were routine and boring. However, the last 23 years have afforded me the opportunity to thrive handling the most complex coverage and catastrophic injury matters that gave me a type of euphoria when negotiating a resolution. 

While I truly continue to dislike the mundane aspects of the job, I loved the thrill of victory and survived the agony of defeat. Ultimately, however, it is the frustration of the minutiae, the micromanagement, the Thursday morning quarterbacking, duplicative reports, and the fight to get legal bills paid that caused me to retire. As always, it was the bull shit.