This brain is no longer in service

 

Being a public transit marketing professional, I have used public transit to commute for decades. Before the pandemic, I commuted daily on a commuter train that runs between my home and my office in downtown Seattle.  It is a comfortable train that runs along the coastline of the Puget Sound and gives you views you wouldn't see any other way.  The pandemic pushed me into working from home most of the time for a few years. Even now I only go into the office a few times a week. I still commute by train when I do.

This is a long way to get to the punchline, but this week when I was commuting and the train pulled into the station in downtown Seattle, the automated message came on that said, "King Street Station is the last stop. This train is no longer in service." I had heard this message hundreds of times and then it occurred to me that it was kind of a metaphor for retirement. Instead of the train no longer being in service, a retired person's brain would no longer be in service...at least for the company you retire from. Then I thought that it would make a great t-shirt design that I could add to me creative and abundant collection of t-shirt designs that don't sell.

In the process I also created this design:

You have to be a transit foamer to truly appreciate it. For that matter, the "This brain no longer in service" means more to a train commuter than your average person who drives everywhere and thwarts my professional existence trying to convince people taking public transit it the way to go.

Regardless, both designs would be great retirement gifts. I thought about this when I got to my office and finished unpacking the last of my stuff from a recent office move. As you can imagine, having worked at my agency for more than 28 years and in public transit for almost 44 years I've accumulated a lot of memorabilia. So my work office is packed to the gills with images of ad campaigns I've produced, souvenirs from ad shoots, opening events, signed merch from sports teams we've sponsored and a shit-load of awards that mainly impress me. 

It is a museum of my career that no one visits. Most people step into my office tentatively and don't venture too far past the door.  It is not a space for people with Attention Deficit Disorder.  It is arranged in themed sections that probably only mean anything to me. No one appreciates them but me because I am the only one who really spends time in my office. 

My home office is very similar in arrangement but it has nothing related to public transit in it, just guitars, tiki mugs and masks and swords.  I don't have a clue what I'm going to do when I retire and have to clean out my work office downtown for good.  I have absolutely no room for most of it at home and once I retire I don't want to surround myself with memories of what will likely be almost 50 years of transit marketing memories. 

I imagine much of it will go to Goodwill because when I leave my job and my brain is no longer in service there, I can pretty much predict no one will particularly care. No one will particularly care about my memorabilia or awards. So trash or treasure it will all go the way of other people's memories sitting on the shelves of thrift stores being picked over by others looking for value in forgotten lives and careers.

But since my train will have left that station, I suppose I shouldn't care.