My Retired Husband Is Home All the Time: What…
“Are you going out? Where? When will you be back?” It is a Tuesday, a little before eleven. He retired in March, and he has asked some version of that question every morning since. This morning, car keys in your hand, you can hear yourself about to answer in…
The Last Time They Needed Me
The first sign was my phone. Or rather, the absence of it. For most of my working life, my days arrived already occupied. Before I had finished…
Returning to Seoul
In the first week of February 2025, I returned to Seoul. The crisp air of late winter greeted me. But what struck me most was the energy…
The Call I Expected to Be Urgent
A former colleague called. For ten seconds, I expected it to be urgent. That is the whole event, and I would not normally write about a phone…
What Peter Drucker Understood About the Second Half of…
In 1927 a seventeen-year-old from Vienna took a job as a trainee in a cotton-export firm in Hamburg. The work started at half past seven, finished at…
The Question No One Asked at My Retirement Party
Speeches, handshakes, cake, and one question nobody asked. A diary entry on what a retirement party honors, and what it leaves for afterward.
