Re-Inventing Myself after Working at the United Nations

Dear Editor,

I really enjoyed reading the articles on retirement in the last issue of Clio’s Psyche and wish I had seen the call for papers in time to submit my own piece. I wanted to share with you the experience of those who, like me, retire from the United Nations. I noted, with envy, that those in academia and in the individual practice of psychotherapy seem to have an easier time of phasing down and out of their work lives. They have the possibility of choosing their time to leave. At the UN we have no choice; there is mandatory retirement at age sixty, except for the senior officials like the Secretary-General and his Under-Secretaries who are allowed to work on past that age, but for the majority of staffers, age sixty is the magic number when we must go. Often we are so busy that the arrival of the termination date is a shock! Retiring at age sixty is early given today’s life expectancy but those are the regulations we have lived with since 1945 (they have only been adjusted slightly to allow those who joined the organization after 1990 to retire at age sixty-two).

Working in political analysis at the United Nations, there was no easy way for me to transition to another organization utilizing my skills. Workers doing disarmament and humanitarian relief work have the same problem, unless, they are already lecturing on these subjects and can enlarge this activity upon retirement. Most other UN retirees fall into the same situation except perhaps those in the administrative, financial, or translation fields who can make the shift to other agencies or to companies. So, for most of us it takes some thought and effort to find a way to make use of the experience and expertise gained while working in our specialized environment. Of course, there are those who will go on to teach about the United Nations at various colleges, and others who will continue writing on topics like arms control or population issues.

We also face the problem of “location.” The “Psychology of Retirement” contributors had made some plans early on and many knew where they would like to spend some of their time. A majority of us are from other countries, since, as an international organization, the UN has to recruit staff representative of its membership. Even American staffers are not generally native New Yorkers. After many years of service, in an institution as exceptional as the UN, we become a large, close knit family, and for us, the separation from our “UN family” is difficult. Most of us find that “we can’t go home again,” despite our visits to maintain ties on “home leave” during our careers; but life “back home” even though we name it that without former colleagues and friends from different cultures and with similar experiences, is not the same. Those whose children were born here and are now employed or married in New York or the U.S. find the separation from children and grandchildren particularly difficult. To this has to be added the fact that “staying here” does not automatically follow, but needs time and the approval of the U.S. authorities to enable us to get residency visas. Americans also face the question of “where to retire” since they have been so long in the tri-state area, and may not feel like going back to their home towns.

Despite the ranting against the UN in many media quarters, we all feel keenly the loss of identity and status; there is still a great deal of interest shown when one says s/he works at the UN. I appreciate particularly what Ruth Neubauer wrote in her piece she highlights the feelings in that transition so aptly. I certainly keenly felt the loss of my identity if I was not “Joan at the UN” with all that that connotes, to family, friends and fellow parishioners, then who was I? It was a difficult and painful question not only to ponder, but to which to find an answer. For about ten months, I was unable to utter the word

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“retired” I felt so ashamed to be without work, and without any idea of whom I now was or could be. Also, the realization that statistically I was likely to live for another twenty-six years only put me in deep depression.

Then I remembered my mother’s response to me when she began a four-year course as a Diocesan Reader; I asked her why she would begin this at age sixty and she replied, “Whether I do it or not, the years are going to pass so I may as well do it.” So, with that in mind, and the fact that I had just become a Resident Alien in the U.S., (we are in the U.S. on special visas while at the UN) I decided to re-invent myself. I told myself that I am now living in America and here one can become whatever one wants, and so I did. I took courses in voice-over, early-childhood education, and considered becoming a paralegal. I found new avenues for taking up some of the interests I had earlier in life, like singing, music and languages, and playing a more active role at my church, which I had not been able to do while putting in my long hours at the office.

When asked what I do I no longer have to say, “I used to work at the UN.” Now, I say I am a retirement consultant, a singer with a couple of groups, passionate about the opera, a very active member of my parish, a voice-over artist, a volunteer with Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, a mentor to staff at the UN, a beloved aunt to young nieces and nephews, and a traveler interested in different cultures, l am now a member of a number of new communities. But it has taken much effort to get from there to here. It is only with great difficulty that others like me, who spent all those hours at work, without taking the time for outside interests and people, make this transition from work and generally work that one was keenly interested in to “retirement.”

The possibility and need to re-invent oneself and find a way to use one’s knowledge is the reason that I have come to my new career as a retirement consultant. My own experiences and my trial and error with other interests, have given me the insight for this as well as what I learned at the William Alanson White Institute and at New York University.

So I work with others to explore some long-hidden interests or talents that they did not have the time to develop, so that they can make this new stage of life a more fulfilling one, and in the process, find a new community. I hope your readers will find my experiences to be of interest.

Sincerely yours,

Joan Seymour

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