Will I care?

REWahoo said:
It will vary by individual of course, but expect a gradual decline over a period of weeks and months. The speed will vary based on how close you remain in contact with your former work associates and the rate of attrition of those individuals from the firm.

In my case the drop off in interest accelerated quickly when a number of former associates left the company within a few months of my retirement. My interest evaporated after a year when the company merged and was sold.
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They've already disposed of some of my best buddies, so yeah, nobody left to be interested in.

Reading though this thread I realized that about every place I worked, I kept n touch with one or two people. More of a social thing than about the old department, but on occasion, they did tend to b*tch to me since "Only someone who was there would understand", hehe.

But to address the OP's question, I'm done, and I haven't even left yet.
 
+1 its a gradual decline over several months as you wean off your "old self" corporate identity to your "new self" free man (or woman)
 
I have 50+ employees under me. 10 years ago, I cared about each and every one of my employees as if they are part of my family. But years of downsizing and cut throat competition to survive changed everything. Couple that with my boss's management by intimidation & fear eroded the personal relationship we all had with each other. So, if I quit today, that's it. Except for a few friends I have, my involvement with former company and employees/peers will cease. Cold turkey.
 
I still think of my old megacorp every day, and it's been nearly a year since I FIREd. There are a lot of folks I miss, some good friends. Some days, I really miss "making a difference" or being of some value to an organization or to people as individuals. Sometimes I wish I could go back, but that's usually a very fleeting feeling, because amongst all the good memories are loads of stressful and difficult memories. When I dwell on those too long, the rise in my blood pressure is palpable. Who knows, maybe I will do some kind of work again in the future (the portfolio is holding up just fine...if I go back to work, it won't be because of financial need...rather, it would most like be to re-gain a sense of productivity and value. Until then, if it happens, I have plenty of fences to build, landscaping to get done, etc.

R
 
I was part owner of our 30 person firm for 20 years when I gave 6 months notice in October 2012, then agreed to stay on for 1 year at 2 days a week which will end April 1, 2014. I used to care a lot when my livelihood and that of the employees depended on company success. Now I still care - not as much as I used to, but more than I should. I estimate that I'll continue to care about 6 months after I'm gone, making a 2 year "care" ramp down.
 
I have been ERed for 9 years and still keep in touch with a couple of folks from work and am Facebook friends with a handful. I liked my work (except for the stress) and many/most of the people I worked with so I still find news about what is happening interesting. Lots of the reports I get remind me of the stress factors that contributed to my departure at 56. But that always makes me smile, just like seeing commuters rushing to the Metro makes me smile.
 
I left mega corp in 1974 to start my own business.........still talk to folks, had dinner with my old boss last year......he is 88 years old. it was a great part of my life......going into business for myself has been even better. Do I still care? Sure.....it is a good company with good people.
 
I have about one year left before I hopefully leave, and have already pretty much checked out of the place. I just don't care anymore about the work I do.

I've written before about the reward vs the journey...I don't care about the journey anymore, just the reward. Which is (finally) in sight, as they've already filed their S-1 to IPO in the next few months.

I'm not nearly excited about it as I should be. If I had worked at a startup 10 or 15 years ago that IPO'd, I might have been excited about it. But not now. Multiple BS buckets have overflowed in my career to the point I just don't get excited about anything at work. Just hand me my bag of money and let me be on my way.
 
I'd care more if they were willing to fix the problem. Instead, they justify to themselves why staff is leaving as general turnover that's been a long time in coming. So most of the staff I'd care about are gone and I'll say good luck to any new staff coming in because they'll get nothing more from management in learning their new jobs. I guess I do care a little to see if they ever get a clue, but I'm not at all hopeful. It's easier to justify the changes if you keep your head in the sand.
 
I stopped cold turkey the moment my car's rear bumper cleared the gate on the way out.
 
ls99 said:
I stopped cold turkey the moment my car's rear bumper cleared the gate on the way out.
Click to expand...

I must agree.....I plan to leave the end of the year and do not expect to think about the place more than about 9 nano seconds.
 
I'm retiring in 23 more work days and when I hear them talk about future plans - completely new way of doing something - I cringe and start to get anxious. I think they need some of my sage advice but they aren't asking for it!

I know I will only care to what they are doing to the institution that I love so much - a public library. But to be away from the politics, I won't care one bit!
 
The most interesting thing for me has been discovering who at mega corp was a real friend and who had been a "friend" because of my position. There have been some real surprises on both sides of that.

As for the company itself, I'm still curious, but I just don't care.
 
I miss some folks and care about them, those are folks I still choose to eat lunch with. I still care about the business, as I haven't sold my last 1000 shares that they gave me:)

MRG
 
My employees were reassigned to other supervisors about a month after I announced my retirement. I really didn't care about the job for the next four months before I physically left. I've kept in touch with employees and colleagues by having lunch with them every month or two. I also keep in touch with them using Facebook. This has been going on for about 3 yrs now.
 
I was close to a lot of my staff. Some had worked for me for years and were really concerned about starting over with a new manager they might not click with, so I felt bad about that.

Projectwise I used to get the big budget, failed IT projects assigned to me to fix up. That was partly why I left. I'd get a project under control and then they'd reassign it to someone else and give me another disaster. It was nonstop stress and crises management.

After I left and they had their next disaster project, they called me at home to come back. The manager who called actually said they had a big meeting to try to figure out who could take over some major disaster and my name was the only one that came up. I didn't go back. Shortly after that call I heard my ex-director was out the door.

I never followed up to find out who ended up getting put in charge of the project I had been called about so I guess that means I didn't care. I was just glad it wasn't me.
 
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daylatedollarshort said:
After I left and they had their next disaster project, they called me at home to come back. The manager who called actually said they had a big meeting to try to figure out who could take over some major disaster and my name was the only one that came up. I didn't go back. Shortly after that call I heard my ex-director was out the door.
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The only way I'd even consider going back to help a former employer on an ad hoc basis would be if they offered me what I call "crazy-stupid money".

Meaning...they'd be crazy and stupid for offering it, and I'd be crazy and stupid for turning it down.

It would basically have to be at least an order of magnitude more than what I was making. If I was making $100,000 in salary, they could have me back for one year for $1,000,000. Oh, and that's the AFTER-tax amount I want to walk away with, so it actually needs to be $2,000,000 gross.

I imagine after hearing that, they'd get the point and hang up the phone, LOL.
 
LoneAspen said:
The only way I'd even consider going back to help a former employer on an ad hoc basis would be if they offered me what I call "crazy-stupid money".

Meaning...they'd be crazy and stupid for offering it, and I'd be crazy and stupid for turning it down.

It would basically have to be at least an order of magnitude more than what I was making. If I was making $100,000 in salary, they could have me back for one year for $1,000,000. Oh, and that's the AFTER-tax amount I want to walk away with, so it actually needs to be $2,000,000 gross.

I imagine after hearing that, they'd get the point and hang up the phone, LOL.
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They actually said we will pay you whatever you want, though I don't think they meant that quite literally. I think about it like the Star Trek episode where alternate universe Riker refuses to go back to the reality where the heartless Borg won the war and are in charge. He said something like, "You just don't know what was like. I'm not going back. I'm never going back. You can't make me go back."

Okay, so maybe it wasn't quite that bad. I did offer to go back to be a part time consultant and help train someone else to take over that type of project. But I said I would not be in charge of the whole project, plus I put in some travel and weekly hour work limits, and they turned that down.
 
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Things were going downhill at my megacorp for a couple of years prior to my retirement. I left about 3 months ago and it did not take long before I just didn't care what was going on there anymore. I've been having semi-regular lunches with several co-workers who I consider friends, so I know things have not changed. If anything things are getting worse. I hope it works out for them individually, but I care less and less by the day about the projects I was working on and whether they eventually succeed or fail.

I just got my lump sum pension payout, so the ongoing success of megacorp is even less important to me now.
 
Will I care?
Well, hard to answer. My last position 1984-1986 was as special project manager, to close down 1400 franchises and 500 company operations. When I left, there was no one left to care about.

But... watching thousands of people who had to end their careers because of the shut down... well.... yeah... I cared a whole lot. It was through me that many of them had signed on, so only fitting that I had to give them the sad news. A bittersweet time in my life.
 
It took me about 2 years. There are still things I miss about the job - but not enough to go back to it! I miss the people but the way corporations churn people in and out these days ,there are hardly any people I knew that are still employed there.
Recently I ate breakfast with 4 of my former co-workers and realized 3 of the 5 of us had left the company by lay-off. One had retired on her own but several years prior had taken a lower paying position after having her job eliminated. She felt her job was again in jeopardy and left because her retirement was based on her highest salary of 5 out of the last 10 years and she had just completed the 5th year of her lower paying position. The fifth person retired by taking advantage of an early retirement incentive.
I also think you have to be 'psyched up' to perform your job at max level and that takes a while to go away too.
Congratulations on your retirement!
 
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