Do people actually retire early?

[IndependentlyPoor]

This looks like a good poll topic. If you are retired, when did you quit?

Do you mean what year, or at what age?

 

[Emeritus]

This looks like a good poll topic. If you are retired, when did you quit?

There is a problem with defined retired for active but unpaid "retirees" who continue their professional work. I just got invited to co-organize an international conference on emergency risk regulation in Paris. It's a lot of work a lot of fun but not paid. Is that retired or not?

I was awarded Professor Emeritus status at the age of 56. I made a deal with the University to teach two courses a year, continue my international research and provide ethics lectures. Since in 1975-76 I taught two courses a year while working full time in a judicial clerkship I felt I had "retired" from my full time gig. The grant writing and administrative part of the Professorial career is the soul killer, but I love the teaching and research. However if my courses don't get enough students I won't get paid for the courses. So far no problem.

So I'm sort of semi-retired, or running a small teaching business, or retired but with a part time job, or retired but doing volunteer work.

Yes I know all the jokes about Professor X retired...How could they tell?

 

[REWahoo]

I just got invited to co-organize an international conference on emergency risk regulation in Paris.

Just curious - now that phone booths have all but totally disappeared, where do you change?

 

[ls99]

This looks like a good poll topic. If you are retired, when did you quit?

To put a different spin on the question. I retired much too late.At 59.5. Fortunately in enough time to appreciate the leisure for a good bit of time.

 

[Nords]

I was awarded Professor Emeritus status at the age of 56.

I'm beginning to understand why.

You have a nice life now.

 

[Meadbh]

I think people should stop assuming Emeritus is making it all up. As an academic myself, I know quite a few senior academics who do all the type of things he is describing. Heck, I've even done some of those things myself....like organizing an international conference. And some of the academics I know have a large ego, too.

 

[REWahoo]

I think people should stop assuming Emeritus is making it all up. As an academic myself, I know quite a few senior academics who do all the type of things he is describing. Heck, I've even done some of those things myself....like organizing an international conference. And some of the academics I know have a large ego, too.

I don't care if he's making it up or it is completely accurate. Constant boasting of how "special" he is leads me to believe he's far from it - and compensating for his feeling of inadequacy.

No charge for my diagnosis.

 

[bbbamI]

I've been invited to a birthday party...does that count?

Otherwise....

YouTube - Three Dog Night - Never Been To Spain

 

[Emeritus]

I think people should stop assuming Emeritus is making it all up. As an academic myself, I know quite a few senior academics who do all the type of things he is describing. Heck, I've even done some of those things myself....like organizing an international conference. And some of the academics I know have a large ego, too.

All the successful research university academics I know have substantial egos. Like all artists, you sign every piece of work you do. You do everything in public and submit it to the world and posterity for critique. Unlike an actor you can't lay off any of the blame for failure on anyone else. But I'm a very minor player compared to some I've met.

I was a junior academic at a conference at a university. Not a hotel, no help with the luggage. Elderly gentleman got out of a cab. I carried his suitcase up the three flights into his room, next to mine . I said Hi and gave him my name and he said Hi, I'm Gene Wigner....

As Wiki describes Eugene Wigner:

"He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles". Some contemporaries referred to Wigner as the Silent Genius and some even considered him the intellectual equal to Albert Einstein, though without his prominence....

Some of us don't even "stand on the shoulders of giants" but we do get to stand next them and learn

 

[haha]

Just curious - now that phone booths have all but totally disappeared, where do you change?

Dumpsters are good.

Ha

 

[FIREd]

This looks like a good poll topic. If you are retired, when did you quit?

I dunno, what does "retired" means? I'd be shocked if we had a consensus...

Can you have a paid activity and still call yourself retired? Can you call yourself retired if your spouse is still working? What about early-semi-retirement, true retirement or oxymoron? It would be like opening a can of worms...

 

[W2R]

All the successful research university academics I know have substantial egos.

Some of the most humble people I have ever met have been giants in their respective fields, as genuine "research university academics". They don't have an axe to grind or anything to prove (especially those who essentially founded their field of endeavor).

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Rule number 7.4a, paragraph 3 from the Academic Retirement Handbook:

No one will be as impressed with your accomplishments as you are.
​

I'm afraid we academics live in a world driven by external recognition, self-aggrandizement and constant competition for funding sources. We climb a peer-review promotion process which is highly competitive. It can bring about (or self-select for) some unpleasant traits. In this case, I think the Professor misjudged his audience, which is neither impressed nor intimidated by the accomplishments he chooses to share.

Been there, done that, and came to learn how artificial and bloated much of the pomp and circumstance is (along with some good stuff, to, be sure). Bravo for whatever one does to make the world a little better, but much of the nonacademic world is more interested in more mundane accomplishments, like what you're like to be around.

Like Meadbh, I don't doubt the accomplishments. I just don't care that much about them in the context of this board. It's kind of like introducing yourself here as one of the nation's top annuity salesman.

 

[Meadbh]

Well said, Rich.