Irrelevant.

She was an attractive 20-something with a husband and a daughter, competent at her work and usually cheerful and happy. On this morning she was anything but.

Her expression was sober and her face showed worry. She stood in the doorway to my office and asked if she could speak to me.

“Of course,” I replied. Sensing her mood, I nodded to the door. “Close it,” I added. She did, and took a seat in a guest chair, facing me across my desk, which as usual was littered with urgent paperwork.

Her first problem

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she began. “I wanted to wait until my supervisor was out for the day so I could come direct to you.” Her worried face clouded even more and I could see she was near tears. “I don’t want to discuss this with Mr. Brigand.”

“No bother, Freddie,” I replied, and forced myself to meet her gaze, determined not to steal a glance at the urgent tasks on my desk. I let my face match her expression. “What’s up?”

Her second problem

In a burst, she said, “I need a referral to a marriage counselor.” Her tone was admirably level, and I sensed she had practiced this part. “Mr. Brigand is a nice man, but he would start by offering me advice, and I don’t think that would be helpful.” Her voice trailed off. End of memorized plea.

It had taken an effort for her to get it out.

I nodded. “Of course, Freddie. I can help you with that.” Seeing her distress, I added, “We can keep it confidential. No one else needs to be involved in it.”

(And yes, all these names have been changed.)

Relief spread over her pretty face and I saw the tension relax a bit. It still surprised me to find that people under my name on the organizational chart saw me as some sort of powerful authority figure.

I had been promoted to this mid-level management position in a huge corporation only a short time before. One of my responsibilities was the clerical pool, whose supervisor was Earl Brigand, a man nearly twice my age, and subordinate to me.

His exit was not the sort of celebration he had hoped for

Earl was nearing retirement.

Virtually everyone could hardly wait for his departure.

Mr. Brigand was firmly entrenched in his 1950s approach to our business. Nearly 4 decades had passed, but Earl seemed determined to re-live the days of his youth. He offered unsolicited advice to younger associates (which was everyone in his orbit) at every opportunity. No trip to the water cooler was safe without first reconnoitering the path.

Unfortunately, Earl also knew where to find every memo ever written on any subject in our national company. The 20-yard stack of 4-drawer filing cabinets that lined one wall of our satellite sales office was his domain. Ask him for any aged, obscure document on any subject, no matter how inconsequential, and he could come up with a tattered hardcopy in minutes.

Freddie was one of his typists. She and her peers, like everyone else, tried to avoid him.

Irrelevance means avoidance

On this day, Earl had a scheduled vacation day. Freddie seized the opportunity to legitimately approach me — her supervisor’s boss — directly with her request.

Our company offered a free benefit for employees who requested counseling of any type. The usual subjects were the usual suspects: Problems with alcohol, drugs, marriage difficulties and physical abuse topped the list. Under the guidelines, any such request was understandably to be kept in the strictest confidence.

After my meeting with Freddie, I called my boss’s secretary. “I need to make an employee-initiated request for Employee Assistance Counseling,” I said, “and I have no idea where to find the form. Can you help?”

She chuckled. “Why am I not surprised?” She could have questioned why I hadn’t asked Earl about it, but she probably guessed the reason. “I’ll make a copy for you and walk you through the process. Come by my office this afternoon.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You’re a life-saver, as always.”

Surprising research

This week I have conducted a bit of unscientific research on what people fear most about aging and retirement. Surveying maybe a hundred comments on www.reddit.com, searching for, “What do people fear most about retirement,” I found 20 where respondents offered their own (maybe-honest) responses.

Most of the responses were what they believed OTHER people feared. I only looked at the comments in first person: “My biggest fear is…”

Categorizing those comments, I found the results surprising. They grouped into areas I defined as Wealth, Relevance, Uncertainty, Health, Mental decline and Grandchildren. The topics fell out as follows, by the numbers:

• 6 Wealth — Will I have enough money?

• 6 Relevance — Will others be interested in me/Will I have anything meaningful to do?

• 3 Uncertainty — I don’t know what it will be like/I am afraid of what I don’t know.

• 2 Health — I fear for my own or my spouse’s physical well-being and what it will cost.

• 2 Mental decline — I fear old age/I want to keep my mind active.

• 1 Grandchildren — They avoid me.

(I had thought “Health” would have ranked higher, but as I said, this is unscientific. There are correlations at work. It is possible that those suffering a health crisis are not spending time surfing retirement websites.)

Wealth — money worries — dominated the list, as I expected. What I did not expect was that Relevance was tied for top place.

Irrelevance: The great fear

No one wants to be Mr. Brigand, set on a shelf and avoided. A large percentage of us apparently fear just that.

With an associate, I have launched “Your Best Retirement,” an online newsletter aiming to grow:

• a community of like-minded individuals 

• who seek to maximize their relevance

• in the time granted to them by God. 

Our topics are Health, Wealth and Legacy. My own emphasis is on legacy: How to communicate your hard-won lessons in a way that is engaging, entertaining and instructive for those who follow you.

“Those who follow you” may be your own children and grandchildren, or someone else’s children and grandchildren. For many of us, our childhood heroes — those individuals who shaped our values, ethics and ambitions — were not those of our own bloodline. We looked to a coach, a teacher, a neighbor, a scout leader.

For those fortunate to have known such a role model, their influence has been immeasurable. In my case, my high school band teacher’s expectations are never far from my thoughts, half a century later.

Ensure your impact on those who matter to you

Composing your thoughts and having the tools to communicate them is a project with unrecognized urgency in the 4th quarter of your life. None of us knows his or her days. Recognize the reality. The time to assemble the skills and content is probably now.

Do not boast about tomorrow,
For you do not know what a day may bring forth.

Proverbs 27:1 NKJV

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