Was your leaving work typical or atypical?

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERhoosier Some reached FI and suddenly left when their BS bucket started overflowing.

That was my story. I turned 61 in February and planned to work till 65. On May 2 I called my husband and said, "I think I'm going to quit my job on Monday". He and I talked about it over the weekend, even discussed it with DS and DDIL since we had made the trip to visit them. DS works in the same business so he was a good sounding board. On Monday, May 9 I quit, and my last day was that Friday. I've never looked back. I still have to get over the emotional baggage of the cluster-folderol that motivated me to leave, but getting used to retirement itself hasn't been a problem at all.

[WannabeRetired]

Athena53, were people pretty surprised at you leaving so abruptly? It sounds like there was a certain something that co-workers could easily tell was your reason for leaving. I'm curious to know more if you're inclined to share. Thanks.

[athena53]

Some were very surprised. Briefly, I was put onto a new project (basically digging into a giant pile of data and generating meaningful market intelligence from it- something I love and do very well) around the first of the year. We produced an initial report, to rave reviews, with some suggestions for improvements/refinements.

It was at about this point that I discovered my boss was a VERY bad communicator. He had a lot of unspoken assumptions and expectations, and unwritten objectives. I thought I did a good job of dragging them out of him and complying (one person whose opinion I trust said that migrating it all over into a business intelligence platform I'd never used in only 3 weeks was "awesome"). I thought boss and I had had a clear understanding of what enhancements I would be able to make and what I wouldn't for the next draft given time constraints. The shootout at the OK Corral happened in a meeting where I was attacked from multiple sides for not making ALL the enhancements and boss just sat there. (No, I am NOT good at recognizing bad behavior and calling people on it.) I have since found that's a pattern of his- back someone in private but don't support them when everyone else goes against them.

I resigned the following Monday. The people who had worked with me on other projects were stunned. The ones who had attacked me, of course, were not. The kicker: when I reviewed the paperwork for my resignation, it noted that I was not eligible for rehire. That would have been the boss' call and typically occurs when there's a long trail of poor performance, improvement plans, discussions, etc. There was none here. As I said, he's a poor communicator. I thought *I* was non-confrontational. (Then I remembered that one of the best things I'd done for the unit was get a genuine poor performer fired. I had to practically drag the boss to HR to get it done. Morale picked up significantly after that and we replaced the fired guy with a brilliant young man who worked out very well.)

So, I've lost a lot of respect for the boss even though he's highly regarded by most people. The reason I gave for general consumption was "it wasn't fun anymore". The ones closest to me knew that I'd set a mental finish line of age 65 so they knew there had to be a reason I quit so much earlier.

[ziggy29]

Mine was a layoff. I was told on a Tuesday that Friday would be my last day. I worked exclusively from home so I didn't have to "clean out my desk and box up my personal belongings", though. I did have to ship my badge and my Megacorp-issued laptop back to them as a condition to receiving my severance package, though (in addition to the signed severance agreement). I was getting close to considering walking away anyway, since DW was installed in a pretty good church situation here, so if they are going to hand me a check for nearly $53K to go away a little earlier, who am I to turn it down?

[Milton]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrabbler1 We had a small gathering at my desk on my last day. I declined a luncheon so they gave me $160 in cash they were going to spend on it. Nobody walked me to the door and I handed my ID card to the security desk at the exit/entrance turnstiles and headed home on the commute I so despised for the last time. I near broke down in tears near the end of the trip, barely keeping my composure on the train. I walked into my apartment, dropped my stuff, and yelled out, "I'm FREE!"

Good for you. Thanks for sharing!

[easysurfer]

Atypical.

My leaving went pretty much like my boss calling letting the group know there's a departmental conference call to attend. About ten minutes after the call, the boss started calling members of the team pretty much saying "Guess what, you've been outsourced". About two weeks after that I had a meeting with my boss to tell him "Guess what, I've done"

I was the only one in the department brave (or stupid, depending on how you look at it ) enough to do what I did.

[kramer]

Atypical. I was 41 years old and sort of a star at my Fortune 500 technology company (engineer). I had recently been asked if I wanted to be promoted to the highest level engineer and I politely declined consideration. I told my boss and friends that my reason for leaving was to do some extensive travel and perhaps to teach English abroad for a year. In reality, this was my long planned Early Retirement. They were all absolutely shocked. Giving notice might have been the hardest thing I had ever done and I could only get myself to do it because I had become so burned out at my job.

There were two huge outside lunches given for me at local restaurants. One in my current department and another one with many ex-coworkers. One lunch got so big that they had to bring in extra tables and chairs and it filled a big room. I really couldn't believe it and was truly touched. Then, on my last day, they surprised me with an afternoon get together at the company and a specially made cake in my current department -- the cake had a play on words incorporating my name and my planned travels. I got lots of request to start a blog and I did that for my first couple of years.

[gayl]

Crap. I was promoted the day b4 I went on a 10 day vacation and took 4 days off for cancer surgery (they didn't know). Business sold during that time and staff not being retained. Told I'd be kept thru next tax season (Jr Partner says it's 4 / 15 / 2015, Sr Partner says it's 10 / 15 / 2014).

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[LOL!]

To get my spouse to retire I'm thinking of buying 2 tickets to Hawaii along with a condo reservation, then just walking into her work and plopping them down on her desk and say, "OK, let's go to Hawaii. Right now."

[DFA]

Laid off with great severance package, but still doing contract work for them about 5-10 hours/month. I sometimes feel like I never left, just waiting for DW to get her time in for pension. Contract work was suppose to stop in March 2014, but now may be end of year. I am not going to do contract work after DW is done, they will just have to find someone else.

[Milton]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LOL! To get my spouse to retire I'm thinking of buying 2 tickets to Hawaii along with a condo reservation, then just walking into her work and plopping them down on her desk and say, "OK, let's go to Hawaii. Right now."

Reminds me of the quit-your-job scene in the Albert Brooks movie Lost in America (1985).

[In-control]

I bet no two stories are the same! I gave my co. a choice last week - PT (Semi-Retired) 25 hrs a week with benefits or my notice(full retirement).

They took the PT choice. I am now Semi Retired. I get to work in the office two days a week and @ home one. So for 4 days straight I am retired. I will do this for a while and see how it goes.

Mentally - i'm fully retired!!!!

[gayl]

Processed the letter for 400+ clients today stating files transferred 8/31. Well ~~~ went off to NOLA 7/17 and office sold. Off to Alaska 9/7 and probably won't have a job to come back to.

Was it easy for you singles to transition to retirement?

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[Focus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by In-control I bet no two stories are the same! I gave my co. a choice last week - PT (Semi-Retired) 25 hrs a week with benefits or my notice(full retirement). They took the PT choice. I am now Semi Retired. I get to work in the office two days a week and @ home one. So for 4 days straight I am retired. I will do this for a while and see how it goes. Mentally - i'm fully retired!!!!

I was offered a similar arrangement, but it became apparent to me that those three days -- and all their related stresses -- would bleed into the rest of the week. I knew I'd start to dread the day before the next three-day stretch. That was one factor in my deciding nothing less than full retirement would do.

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by In-control I bet no two stories are the same! I gave my co. a choice last week - PT (Semi-Retired) 25 hrs a week with benefits or my notice(full retirement). They took the PT choice. I am now Semi Retired. I get to work in the office two days a week and @ home one. So for 4 days straight I am retired. I will do this for a while and see how it goes. Mentally - i'm fully retired!!!!

This was very similar to the mostly telecommuting deal I was able to get back in 2001. I worked one day per week at the office for about 1/3 of my 20 hours per week and worked from home for the other ~13 hours per week scattered over the other 6 days. I, too, considered myself semi-retired. This deal worked out well for 27 months until the company pulled the plug on it, a key step toward my eventual ER (I had to go to the office 3x a week for the 20 hours and I could not stand it after a few more years; cutting that back to 2x a week helped a little but not much).

I can't say I was mentally fully retired but I had regained control of my personal life which was a big improvement.

[In-control]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrabbler1 This was very similar to the mostly telecommuting deal I was able to get back in 2001. I worked one day per week at the office for about 1/3 of my 20 hours per week and worked from home for the other ~13 hours per week scattered over the other 6 days. I, too, considered myself semi-retired. This deal worked out well for 27 months until the company pulled the plug on it, a key step toward my eventual ER (I had to go to the office 3x a week for the 20 hours and I could not stand it after a few more years; cutting that back to 2x a week helped a little but not much). I can't say I was mentally fully retired but I had regained control of my personal life which was a big improvement.

I'm giving it a year to see how it goes. i'm pretty good at detaching/ unplugging from work and since it is day bound(Wednesday/Thursday/Friday) it's easy to be in an on/off mode. Being in MA working PT during the winter is good as their is only so much daylight to have fun outdoors.

We shall see - The real benefit is the benefits!

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by In-control I'm giving it a year to see how it goes. i'm pretty good at detaching/ unplugging from work and since it is day bound(Wednesday/Thursday/Friday) it's easy to be in an on/off mode. Being in MA working PT during the winter is good as their is only so much daylight to have fun outdoors. We shall see - The real benefit is the benefits!

I hope it works out for you. In the 3 1/2 years I had to commute to my office 3x a week, I rarely worked 3 days in a row. Also hating the dreaded Monday morning, I rarely worked on Mondays, too. This had me working Tues-Wed-Fri most weeks, sometimes Tues-Thurs-Fri.

But when I switched to working 2 days a week, one more rule was to never work 2 days in a row, something I was able to adhere to the whole 17 months I did that before working at all became unacceptable.

As for benefits, I was able to keep most of them in the 3x-a-week deal. These included group health, 401k match, annual company stock allocation, some PTO, and a few paid holidays. When I went to 2x-a-week, I lost all of those but simply being employes enabled me to keep the most important one - watching the value of my existing shares of company stock continue to rise a lot until it hit my magic number in 2008 so I could LEAVE!