Poll: What was your employment track record?

[REWahoo]

This comment by donheff on another thread...

... I was lucky to never be without a paycheck from when I started my first job out of college to when I retired 34 years later.

...has me curious.

For those of you who are at or very near (within a year or two) of retiring, did you encounter any periods of unemployment along the path?

Note that drawing unemployment compensation does not qualify as "no paycheck"...

 

[kcowan]

When I switched from a paycheck to consulting, I was out of pay for 10 weeks. A couple of other times between gigs but never as long.

 

[MichaelB]

I hit a dry spell in grad school when they pulled a TA job after the school year began. The US was in recession and I couldn't find work anywhere, it was the first and only time in my life I wanted to work but couldn't find a job. We were recently married and it led to me leaving school and moving to Venezuela, where I did find a good job.

 

[BTravlin]

Started work at age 13 and worked continuously until last year at age 55.

Enough already!

 

[FUEGO]

Between me and my wife, neither of us have had periods of unemployment interrupting our working careers. From 15 or so till into our 30's, constant employment, except while law school classes were in session.

Unless you count my final job that ended with me being unemployed (and on the dole for the penurious 20 week max). I just called it "retirement" (after diligently pursuing employment opportunities pursuant to state unemployment law eligibility requirements of course).

"Retired" just sounds way better than jobless or unemployed for a gentleman of small but independent means like myself.

 

[Live Free]

I did take a leave of absence from my job for a year when my youngest was born. Actually, I worked 1 day per week in that year to keep my foot in the door.

 

[Ronstar]

I was unemployed for less than 6 months in 1983 when I was building our first house

 

[NW-Bound]

As one of a startup's founders, I worked for free for about 2 years in an effort to keep it afloat, and junior employees' salary paid.

Couldn't answer the poll as none of the choices applied. I was (self)-employed, just not gainfully.

PS. It could have been as long as 3 years. That period of time is a blur in memory now. Too painful. Too long ago.

 

[AnIntentionalRoad]

My only unemployment was a few weeks here and there during college. Otherwise I had worked pretty much continuously from 15 until retirement at 43.

 

[jjquantz]

If I interpret grad school TA and RA positions and a year and a half of substitute teaching as work then I have an unbroken record since college graduation in 1981. SS records don't reflect the grad school years, however.

 

[DFA]

Worked from 12 until End of year 2013, when I was laid off -> into retirement @ 55. 43 years with all kind of jobs never unemployed. Maybe that is why I sometimes feel I need to be going to w@!k instead of enjoying life.

 

[Nodak]

When my Father passed away I was unemployed for 3 months.

 

[Moemg]

I worked for forty years in nursing with the only downtime being six months each for the birth of my children.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Got laid off from my engineering job in the nuclear industry in 1993. Didn't find another job for 16 months. It can be hard to cross over from one industry to another (building engineering). Took an $18k pay cut, although since I was only getting unemployment maybe that was an infinite pay raise.

DW and I always budgeted so we could live on only one of our paychecks, so we didn't do without. That's what also makes FIRE an achievable goal. She RE'd a few years ago, and I plan to next year, hopefully.

 

[calmloki]

Paycheck? Between the Navy and a few different jobs I earned enough credits for social security and medicare - but just barely.

 

[Willers]

Worked without a break since I got my first busboy job way back when. Got laid off once on a Friday when a business closed, worked construction that weekend for cash (thinking that I'd need it), then got a call from the new owner on that Sunday and was back at work Monday morning. That one time I thought I would get a few days off turned out to be a false alarm...

 

[smurray5991]

I found this poll a little hard to answer because it seems that most are regarding 'period of unemployment' as losing a job, taking off for some extraordinary life event (e.g., birth or death), or not being able to find a job. I'm not sure if "voluntary unemployment" counts, but I have a lot of that -- many years in various graduate schooling where grants paid the way so I only worked summers, and a few different 1+ year periods where I voluntarily took time off/a sabbatical for complete fun international traveling. When I add it all up, I'm in fact a little embarrassed that there were so few paycheck years before my semi-ER last year (maybe 23-26 in total out of 40 years since I was 18, depending on how you count). And 4.5 of those were in Peace Corps and VISTA, with next to no salary to speak of!

 

[H2ODude]

Had total of 8 jobs after engineering degrees. One unexpected period of unemployment for about 6 months. Most of my time was spent in two local government roles.

Maybe it's germane to this thread or not. I worked with a lot of engineers in local government who enjoyed long term civil service or similar type secure positions. It always seemed to me they could have benefited from a period of unemployment. My positions were at risk, theirs not really. It just seemed that my perspective was that they really failed to appreciate what they had. Good employees, most, just lacked that ability to roll with a punch and instead were quick with a complaint. YMMV, only my opinion.

 

[W2R]

I stayed home with my daughter until she was a toddler, because we both felt that was important for our family. We couldn't really afford it, though! We were really really poor during those days. So, I did various things like computer work on our TRS-80 at home, or like caring for friends' babies at my home to earn a little bit but had no regular paycheck for a while. Honestly, I never worked harder in my life and we were STILL poor. It was such a relief to get back to work where I could relax.

 

[golfersailor]

After college I had two jobs. One last 10 yrs and the other lasted 31 yrs. Never been out of a job until I retired 5 yrs ago.

 

[rodi]

I collected unemployment twice in my career - both times for about 3 weeks... So I've been pretty steadily employed all of my adult life.

I did take an unpaid leave of absense for 12 weeks when I first got married - to travel with my new husband. But I was technically still an employee.

Also took 2 maternity leaves - one for 13 weeks, one for 12. Part of the time, in each case, disability was paid. And I was still an employee...

My husband has had big gaps in his employment through the years. He was laid off from a job in the 80's and bought a down-to-the-studs HUD auction and spent the down town rehabbing it. He also quit a few weeks before my job transferred me back to my home town - and took his time finding a new job. And again when his parents were in crisis and needed assistance.

Now he's the ultimate slacker - he retired a few months ago. Actually - I think he's working harder in retirement than he did as an employee - he's taking care of the kid schlepping AND doing all the home projects that have built up through the years.

 

[Jager]

Was unemployed for fifteen months coming out of the dot-com crash. Incredibly anxious, worrisome time. Finances were devastated.

The only good that came from it was a taste of what retirement might be like. I used to always tell myself that if weren't for the money worries, and the hours spent every day looking for a job... it would be great.

In a few weeks I finally get to live that dream...

 

[scrabbler1]

After graduating college in 1985 at age 22, I held one job continuously until I retired in 2008 at 45.

I did not work continuously from when I got my first part-time, after-school job at 16 until I finished college. While I had jobs for each of the 3 summers between my 4 college terms, I did not always work during my college years. I did only a few hours of tutoring in my freshman year. In my sophomore year, I did more tutoring but also held two other part-time jobs in the second half of that year (one time getting paid for all 3 jobs in a single day!). In my junior and senior years I held one part-time job each time (a different job across the 2 years). Some jobs were off-the-book, cash jobs while others had a real paycheck. Some had SS taxes withheld, some not.

These odd jobs paid for my textbooks, Knicks games, train tickets, and lots of Ray's Pizza in those 4 years.

 

[unclemick]

Hmmm - will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights. Got a job in Denver six weeks later.

Fast forward 24 years - got layed off at the tender age of 49. Was an unemployed slacker for about a year.

Then silly me took some contract engineer(aka jobshopper) work for about a year in total.

THAT convinced me ER was waaaay cooler!

heh heh heh - been a high class ER ever since 20 yrs and counting although at 71 I am now a regular old phart.

 

[FIREd]

I was unemployed for 3-4 months in 2002 after my very first employer went bankrupt during the tech crash. Unemployment was a huge blow to my ego and it was a rough time. But eventually it gave me the motivation to aggressively pursue FIRE because I really did not want to put up with this BS again.