Letter to a friend
from Jean Devos
37
My dear retired friends.
A year in Provence I hope this letter will reach you in your remote retirement place .You retired during the nineties, after 35 years of loyal service to the submarine cable business. Some of you enjoy good golfing in Florida, or Spain. I am aware of the ones established in Provence, pruning their roses, playing “Pétanque”. I met some of you recently in Japan, keen on travel, reading and gardening. It took some time for you to adjust, to switch abruptly from a hectic professional life, with a lot of long trips, to a quiet, family oriented life. You are now member of the ever growing group of our “aging” society, the one the Telecom world needs to start looking at *. But you are all surfing on the internet, staying tuned with our Telecoms world, trying to understand the evolutions which sometimes puzzle you. Many of you stay in touch and play a consultant or advisory role. You were among the key players of this industry, esteemed and recognised by your peers on the international scene, for your technical or management skills as well as your ability to cooperate with other cultures. Your whole career was spent in a regulated world, a stable world where the role and identity of each player was clear, where each player enjoyed a home base from which he could cooperate and sometimes compete with the rest of the world .