2 things I don't miss in ER

[Donzo]

the mind numbing and numerous conference calls and the prickly email if you missed any....for any reason. Flying places you did not want to go, spending time with people you didn't want to be with and do things you didn't want to do!

 

[John Galt III]

Saw multiple studies which said about 4% of CEOs are psychopaths. It makes perfect sense to me. They are ruthless in getting what they want, use others to get ahead, driven, smart, etc.. Steve Jobs comes to my mind.

Then there is another study that says about 9% of Americans have some type of personality disorder. I don't doubt that either although my observation at work is that about 1 in 20 seems to have some kind of personality disorder that drives peers, managers crazy. As a "middle management" myself, I had to deal with a lot of these cases over the years. I am not gonna miss that after RE.

The worst boss is the sadistic powertripping nutcase who lives to harrass people. His motivation is not advancement, but to simply have power over people to make their lives miserable while management above him looks the other way. He somehow keeps his job while spending 75% of his emotional and mental energy making sure those couple of folks he has picked out of the w*rk group are completely miserable. There are lots of these sc*mb*gs thriving in middle management.

 

[Car-Guy]

The two main things I don't miss:

#1 - Business travel
#2 - Office politics

The two main things I do miss:

#1 -
#2 -

I was going to say I missed the big paychecks and the 6 weeks of vacation, but I really don't "need" the paychecks and I'm on vacation full time now.

 

[travelover]

........... There are lots of these sc*mb*gs thriving in middle management.

Heck, at MegaMotors we had them through out the entire management structure.

 

[MRG]

The worst boss is the sadistic powertripping nutcase who lives to harrass people. His motivation is not advancement, but to simply have power over people to make their lives miserable while management above him looks the other way. He somehow keeps his job while spending 75% of his emotional and mental energy making sure those couple of folks he has picked out of the w*rk group are completely miserable. There are lots of these sc*mb*gs thriving in middle management.

You you know Jim?

 

[FreeAtLast]

Managers that could not deal,with bad news.
Having to help auditors do their job just to get rid of them.
Meetings that would drift off of the agenda
Being on call every evening
Spending Sunday evening getting back into work mode.
Often having more than 1 boss.
Having to work harder before and after a vacation.

 

[Totoro]

Not really retired but self-employed and working less than half time currently.

I'll just write down what I don't miss from my previous corporate life:

1. Being slave to someone else's schedule
2. Having to volunteer for annoying tasks - if you don't you got performance reviewed out

Long hours of course too.

 

[Milton]

wearing a wrist watch…

Still wear a watch from time to time (no pun intended), but by choice not necessity.

corporate babble…

Funny video, thanks for sharing!

Every January, Lucy Kellaway at the Financial Times highlights the worst examples of corporate jargon during the previous year (the "Golden Flannel Awards").

Having to volunteer for annoying tasks - if you don't you got performance reviewed out.

On a related note: the annual United Way [-]scam[/-] campaign, to which everyone must donate or face reprisals for impairing the company's 'voluntary' participation score.

I love the movie Office Space...it was a huge catalyst in me wanting to FIRE.

I could set the building on fire.

 

[PERSonalTime]

Stress and and the inordinate lack of free time. Working in executive management meant that you were always on-call and available for the organization, even on vacations and weekends. Being ER'd means being in charge of your own time, all of the time. Freedom is fantastic!!!


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[citrine]

I don't miss anything from regular work....most important ones are the meetings, crazy managers, and office political drama! At one point over the last 5 years of freedom, I missed the paycheck...but that was short lived!

 

[Walt34]

On a related note: the annual United Way [-]scam[/-] campaign, to which everyone must donate or face reprisals for impairing the company's 'voluntary' participation score.

I always hated that too and always refused to donate through United Way and didn't give a rat's rear end about the unit's percentage of donations. When I donate to charities the check goes directly to that charity.

 

[W2R]

I always hated that too and always refused to donate through United Way and didn't give a rat's rear end about the unit's percentage of donations. When I donate to charities the check goes directly to that charity.

+1

When I was in my 20's, the union was strongarming me to contribute a "voluntary" donation to United Way so that they could claim 100% participation. I didn't like the concept of forced charity.

So, I wrote a check to United Way for $0.01 and gave it to them..... That got them off my back.

 

[Walt34]

So, I wrote a check to United Way for $0.01 and gave it to them..... That got them off my back.

Have to admit that's a gracious way out of it. You don't spend anything - well a penny - and they get their 100% participation.

 

[W2R]

Have to admit that's a gracious way out of it. You don't spend anything - well a penny - and they get their 100% participation.

Thanks! It was the only thing I could figure out to do. That particular bunch of Teamsters were tough/scary to me and not a group I wanted to battle. I was young, foolish, and determined to "win" the confrontation.

 

[Cat-tirement]

Now that I am officially ER'd, my two things are:

1. "Aggressive Schedules"
2. Waiting for weeks for IT to do something I could have done myself in 5 minutes

Of course there are more things I don't miss, but the OP only asked for two.

 

[rodi]

But... but.... Six Sigma is key to following the One True Way to ISO-9000 certification, TQM, and the Baldrige Award! Plan, Do, Check, Act, folks! It's the One True Way.

And I've got the t-shirts to prove it. "This Friday's Beer Bash is sponsored by the Vice President of Total Quality Management."

(This was a hardware startup company, that got bitten hard by the TQM bug. The CEO decided that winning the Baldrige Award was just what our hardware sales needed. )

Former President of megacorp had acquired a Baldridge award at IBM before hiring on with us. Fortunately, he was pushed aside fairly quickly (after laying off about 40% of the workforce.... he was surprised that he was given the shove after he completed this quality layoff.)

Definitely dealt with TQM, 6 sigma, ISO 9000/9001. My favorite was when my division, which built settop boxes, had to pass TL9000 audits - a telco version of quality control. But the division that built cell phones didn't. Never made sense to me. We had the same Very large customer... but only one of us had to meet the TL 9000 standards.

I don't miss this. I don't miss the every changing gates/checkpoints/etc to get a product approved. Especially since the real world had requirements changing very late in the process... so 6 sigma, Tl9000, etc was tossed out the window to meet the customers changing needs.

 

[MooreBonds]

But... but.... Six Sigma is key to following the One True Way to ISO-9000 certification, TQM, and the Baldrige Award! Plan, Do, Check, Act, folks! It's the One True Way.

LOL....brings back memories to my previous employer - a medium sized engineering firm that decided to adopt ISO 9001 (for service organizations).

Nothing like following rules for the sake of following rules. What's that? Your mechanical and electrical designs still suck and still have errors? Ah, but see, we adopted ISO 9001.

They decided it wasn't worth the expense of maintaining the procedures (and having the ISO coordinator head, the title of which was rotated to a different person each year - yet another unpaid duty you would have to learn about and oversee). So, they dropped the ISO thing in 2011, but still followed the concepts of doing peer review checking before plans went out, and notifying people when you make mistakes so they don't repeat the same mistake (which can be difficult to really cover, when you are dealing with engineering building projects, with each project very different from the last one).

Basically, ISO is doing common sense stuff that each organization should be doing anyway. But with much more paperwork, busy-bodies, and time/money wasted.

 

[Milton]

When I donate to charities the check goes directly to that charity.

Yes, exactly. Some people (??) may feel the need for a middleman to make their donation choices for them; but if you don't, the United Way serves no valid purpose and is mere unnecessary overhead.

Nothing like following rules for the sake of following rules…. Basically, ISO is doing common sense stuff that each organization should be doing anyway. But with much more paperwork, busy-bodies, and time/money wasted.

Crazy stuff.

 

[athena53]

Yes, exactly. Some people (??) may feel the need for a middleman to make their donation choices for them; but if you don't, the United Way serves no valid purpose and is mere unnecessary overhead.:

Yeah, I realized when I was reading about the latest United Way kickoff in the paper that I can completely ignore it. I don't even have to pretend I care.

We will continue to generously support the local women's shelter, which is a UW agency, but we 'll do it all directly.

 

[Meadbh]

Yeah, I realized when I was reading about the latest United Way kickoff in the paper that I can completely ignore it. I don't even have to pretend I care.

We will continue to generously support the local women's shelter, which is a UW agency, but we 'll do it all directly.

Response to United Way campaign at w*rk:

Thank you for your solicitation. My charitable giving is channeled through the Meadbh Foundation, whose mission is ...... We will be delighted to receive your donations! Please provide contact details by return email.

I never heard from the United Way campaign again.

 

[scrabbler1]

I never donated to United Way or any other charity solicitation at work. I found it tacky, including those who wanted to get us to buy Girl Scout cookies from daughters of coworkers. Nobody gave me or anyone else a hard time about it. If they gave me a hard time, I would not have caved. I was always an outlier at work and never gave a damn what anyone else thought. And they knew it.

 

[MRG]

United way was the only Megacorp solicitation allowed. We were required to fill out and sign a form even if it was for $0.00. Ticked me off they disallowed Girl Scout cookies.

The few years I decided to contribute the facilitator asked 'are you sure you want to contribute that much?'. It wasn't a lot of money, I guess they didn't expect much.

The best was a 1 year job delivering auto parts in '77. Paid $.20 above minimum wage. Plus you got 2 hrs. overtime for clocking in 15 minutes early every day. The owner, a U.W. volunteer let us know the 'fair share' contribution was mandatory as 'there were people that needed help.'