A friend of mine, now retired, was then a major exec at a major bank, and one of her jobs, the last four years, was the farewell interview.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was an accidental banker. To please my parents, I went for an interview with Chase Manhattan Bank in 1983. They promised to send me into their offices in more than 40 countries and essentially audit the practices. It was an extraordinary job.
I'd retired for about six or seven years. Coming back to the business, I found that I was sort of not quite a has-been, and it wasn't a new career, it was just kind of difficult to crack the nut, so to speak.
I think anyone about to leave one job not surprisingly would use their knowledge, their experience, their skills drawn from their previous positions to try and earn a living in the future. That's what happens in all interviews.
I used to do a lot of interviews in the early '80s, when my career started, but it came to a point when I decided I didn't want to talk anymore, and people kind of understood that and left me alone.
If I had quietly retired as governor in 2007 and went into banking or something of that nature, I would have been, at most, a footnote in the story and probably never mentioned.
Well, that was in 1995 when I resigned from my last academic job.
Retiring for good wasn't difficult. I knew at the time it was right. I was no longer capable of achieving the standards I'd set myself and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
I never wanted to retire. I wanted to kind of shift my work pattern so I could stay fresh and invigorated, and use the experience that I had gained in 30 years, but in a slightly different direction.
By late 1953, going to New York on vacation, I had lined up several Time Inc. interviews - and what they did was give me a lifelong appreciation of the importance of luck in getting a job.
My dad for a long time was an accounting professor at Rice University. And then he went out on his own, and he got hired by a client. He ended up being CEO of a hospital management company before he retired, called Lifemark.