Omg omy?

[2B]

If the escort to HR without a short-timer period is a definite possibility, make a list of the coworkers who consider you mentors, or those who you consider friends. Make a December to-do list. Lunches, labeling recipients for the reference books you plan to leave behind, etc.

Congrats!

I doubt I'll be frog marched out. If I'm not needed, I'll volunteer to leave the same day. The few people who have retired have all been treated well. Then there is the traditional department lunch at a close-by Mexican restaurant with the retiree as the guest of honor.

With only 8 "in-office" days left, I need to get the plan moving. I can't really haul away any boxes during normal work hours but I certainly could start doing so real early in the morning. I get in before most of my department. I could easily avoid being noticed. I only have about two or three boxes of stuff I want to keep. It would be nice to have most of that gone.

 

[CoolChange]

Congratulations to the [Current] OMY Champions

You may be, I retired at 54, but went back to work for OMY, until finally retiring at 63 like you. I must have been deranged, as I really didn't need the money.

....
I'm not sure but I think I'm the OMY champion. I haven't seen anyone in the almost decade status yet. Of course, I could be wrong....

I just wanted to offer both my congratulations on finally pulling the trigger as well as my thanks for making me feel better about my own OMY issues.

I have a few friends outside this forum who know I plan to retire at an early age (actually, planned to semi-retire at a very early age). But, they are at the point of not believing it any longer. Just when I think I am ready, somebody makes me an offer that I cannot refuse (money + interesting project), kind of like Norway for 2B.

My latest plan was to pull the trigger in early 2015 after maxing out 401(k), HSA, etc. But, a couple of other things have come up, not as compelling as Norway for six months; but, these are not things I could do on my own post ER. So, now I'm trying to decide if I have OMY in me. (I've been doing this for at least 8-9 years; ridiculous indecision, I know.) I may be secretly hoping they make the decisions for me: I have been actively avoiding/declining projects which I do not find interesting and/or which I do not think would be resourced well enough to have a chance of success for the last six months.

I am currently either funding a better retirement lifestyle than I have ever had preretirement, a bigger buffer or my DD's inheritance, hopefully all three. (Funding LTC for mom is also a concern; but, I am hoping she never needs this.)

 

[MooreBonds]

Low income? I will gross over $180K this year. I avoid extra overtime as best I can or I'd be over 200K.

That may be low to you but I don't consider myself low income. DW and I have a basic cost of living of ~50K before income taxes and health insurance.

I was referring to things you could do in 2015 with your 2015 income. I didn't know what kind of dollars you were referring to as being in calendar year 2015, and didn't know if it would be maybe $20-$30k, or much higher.

Even at 63 I'd jump at a Norway assignment.

Well, if you would seriously jump at a Norway (or other ideal) assignment, I'd suggest you think long and hard about hinting at that. I don't know how your organization works, but if you tell them in Jan/Feb 2015 "See ya, I'm retiring next week", they can't necessarily just drop everything and start showering you with incentives/alternatives to keep you aboard. If you give very strong hints or just come right out and say "I am looking to likely retire first half of next year, unless I could find an assignment in Norway or ________" to the right person in December, it would at least give them time to consider a possible package or offer to relocate you for a short-term assignment. Odds are, they can't put their heads together in 2 hours time and negotiate a package with you on the day you turn in your resignation - especially as many departments go through year-end closeout items and may have higher work loads and time commitments in January than usual.

If you would rather negotiate this with them after you are "retired" and then come back to work, that's one thing. But there might be (MIGHT be) slightly more good-will built up if you give them advanced notice**, so they have more notice to fill your spot AND possibly work on a short-term opening in an ideal location for you.

Also, do you have an internal jobs board in the company that has job openings? Did you check that (or even places like Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com) for openings either your company, or even another company might have for a temporary placement in some foreign country? Or even better yet, call a bunch of recruiters and tell them that you are specifically looking for a short-term assignment in _______ or ________. Recruiters DO sometimes have contacts with some companies that enable them to sniff out or even create leads that might not be advertised yet (as happened with me in an engineering position a few years back).

You might be surprised how in-demand it might be for someone to spend a year or so in a foreign place, since many senior engineers may not want to go through that...

**The topic of "advanced notice of retirement" has been discussed ad nauseum on the forum, with the findings that most companies NEVER take advanced time to truly start searching, and often just start searching for a replacement after you're gone. But you know your company better than us, and your superiors, and how your lead time might impact their actions.

 

[2B]

I was referring to things you could do in 2015 with your 2015 income. I didn't know what kind of dollars you were referring to as being in calendar year 2015, and didn't know if it would be maybe $20-$30k, or much higher.




Well, if you would seriously jump at a Norway (or other ideal) assignment, I'd suggest you think long and hard about hinting at that.

In a few weeks after separating from the company I will get a SERP (supplemental employee retirement plan) check that by itself will put me in the 28% tax bracket. On top of that I'll get hit with the taxes on interest and dividends, PTO pay out for left over vacation hours and my small pension which I'll start sometime next year. I will pay nearly twice the amount in income taxes in 2015 than I will pay in 2014. This tax hit led me to defer retirement in mid-2014 until Jan 2015. If I had retired in 2014 I would have paid 33% or higher on most of the SERP payout. I would have also triggered all the wonderful ACA taxes. The SERP payout is the result of a mistake on my part when I signed up for the program. The "fix" is worse in my opinion than the lump sum.

I wouldn't be taken seriously for Norway or the UK because the only people that would be candidates from the US are serious Upstream experts in Oil and Gas. I am not. There is also no shortage of European engineers. I would be a candidate for Saudi Arabia, Nigeria.... Well, you get the idea.