YOUNG LIONS

Today I viewed a list of folks retiring at DPS.

The list was extremely long, but I have seen that happen in past decades.

The list included a lot of "brass", but I have seen that happen on occasion.

However, this list put me to thinking:

1. In 1980 I served as a platoon sergeant for a Highway Patrol school. There were many of those folks on the list. I remember them as shiny new recruits. Now they are grizzled veterans at the end of their journey. Makes ya ponder when employees you mentored have started and finished their careers on your watch.

2. Most of the retirees are people that I supervised or worked with during my career. It feels like the passing of an era in the sense that any "body of work" will be forgotten. As an example, almost no one will be left who will remember who I am or anything that I might have accomplished. Such is the way of the world since Moby Dick was a minnow.

3. From past experience, I know this much brass retiring means a "change of the guard" will occur. New management personnel will try their personal policies, methods, and philosophies. Some of this will be good. Some of this will not be good. Due to inexperience, the new managers will make mistakes that many before them have made. Fortunately, they will learn and things will work out.

4. From my perspective, the people retiring are young. From the perspective of the employee they leave behind, the retirees are old farts. This is the way it has always been.

5. Throughout these employees careers, they have had status. Now they are just plain folks. For the ones who were defined by the job, they will not fully enjoy retirement. For the ones that had lives separate and apart from the job, their lives will be enriched and happier.

6. The new guys need to heed the young lions or risk being devoured. Being the boss don't make you smart and it don't make folks follow. You have to listen and learn or you will be eaten alive. The young lions have no mercy and no conscience.