This film starts with still pictures of a large city. (There are a lot of photographs in this film, signifying that his life is in the past.) The Woodmen of the World building looms. After some up-angle shots of the Woodmen of the World building, we see a large, white-faced, industrial clock hanging on a green wall in a fairly well lit room. The second hand is slowing counting time down to 5:00. Is this a.m. or p.m.? The clock appears to be looking down ("Time is more important than you" it seems to say) at an elderly man sitting at a brown desk to let us know this is 5:00 in the afternoon and that, for him, this time is significant and he is not. His face is not the face of a lighthearted man, rather the face of a man awaiting an unhappy fate. As we look at the cleaned off desk top and the boxes stacked to the side, we think that this must be his last day in this office. There is a close-up shot on the man's face as he watches the clock, then a close-up shot on the clock. As the time gets exactly 5:00 p.m., he gets up from behind the desk, goes to the door, takes down his coat and puts it on his arm, opens the door, leaves the office and closes the door behind him. He's closing the door to a former life and heading out into an unknown (and unwelcome) future. .
We know in just a short while that this is his retirement day because he and an older lady, his wife we presume, are in the car driving in the rain (of course it's raining, doesn't it rain at funerals and other sad days?). The windshield wipers count like the second hand on the clock as they drive to a restaurant. Inside the restaurant, there are pictures of various people and cattle, with a close-up shot of a wide-eyed (scared?) cow and then a close-up shot of a picture of the elderly man we had seen in the office. This leads us to believe that the man will have some stresses later. The scene then moves into the dining room and the toasts and goodbys to Warren Schmitt who has just retired.