Are you retired for good?

I have been retired for a little over a year now and can't see myself working. However, I would never say never! Hopefully, that will never happen, unless I wanted it to happen! Besides, I don't have time to work!
 
Nords said:
*Snort*. Yeah, sure. Good luck with that.

Here's my take from just 61 months of experience. After a few weeks/months of R&R you'll find that you have absolutely zero residual tolerance for commuting, office attire, meetings, mandatory training, working lunches, performance assessments, career planning, refresher training, stretch goals, deadlines, HR, company-sponsored holiday socials, VIP tours, showing up 5x/week, working late, working weekends,... am I leaving anything out?
Click to expand...

But, but, Nords, I’m speaking of others and of my time way back when I didn’t have the cash for permanent retirement; I was young and could go back to work, all refreshed-like. Ha Ha! And over the years I was able to gravitate to a job that suited me well. I had a glimpse of my current job, and thought, "if I ever see a job opening like that, I will apply for it." Well it fell into my lap.

My boss also dislikes business lunches (isn’t that what the phone and e-mail are for?), we keep it to one or two business/social lunches a year with people we all like with minimal business chatter; after our last office move in ‘01 we went to office casual attire every day; the boss hasn’t bothered with a performance review in years; goes with the usual raise every January; doesn’t believe in working beyond 4:15 every day (although I stay until 4:50), we never work on weekends.

I can honestly say I like and respect my boss! People we do business with have asked if he is really as nice as he seems, emphatically, yes! One dreadful day, I had to go begging to a local govt. office for a huge favor, the powers that be there knew my boss, and said, "___ ___ is a fine gentleman...." Company-sponsored holiday socials have disappeared over the years, :); but I am looking forward to a bar mitzvah this weekend, its been about 2-1/2 years since the last event on my own time.

An old dream of mine was to work within walking distance of the job, I’ve been in such a location since 1994; the knees are good enough to walk only half way now but there are many interesting public transit options. Meetings? Meetings, I don’t go to no stinking meetings. But I do see clients which is a rewarding part of the job. Deadlines, no problem-o, boss is an early bird, timelines are reasonable. Mandatory training, huh? Career planning, what is that?, this is the end of the line.

Ok, Ok, "HR" is a downer, bosses’ wife (our HR-equivalent and bookkeeper) seems to be trying to find out if I will be leaving soon-–there’s a topic for a long thread, I try to keep ‘em guessing. ‘Um, refresher training, I do have to keep up with the current rules for conducting our business, but that is not too onerous. And Nords, you've really got me on "showing up 5X week" yick!

I will have to plan not to re-enter the work force because jobs like mine don’t exist.

I don’t mean to minimize anything you say here in your post, Nords, it’s absolutely true of large companies (I’ve worked in many various size companies, even among nuclear engineers). Glad you are free of all of that. Will join your ranks soonish.
 
Really wouldn't mind it on my terms

That means work I find stimulating and enjoy. It also means they would have to find me. There is no worse work under heaven than looking for it. There really seems to be a competition among employers on how they can turn their applicants into supplicants and how shoddily they can treat them to see if they come back asking for more. Having been out for several years now, it is unlikely I ever will. I don't mind. Looking back, one realizes how unimportant work really is.
 
After being retired for six glorious years, if there was a financial disaster I would move to a trailer in the hills of West Virginia and eat dog food before going back to work.
 
But don't hold back, Becca---how do you really feel? ;) Actually, I loved your reply and totally agree (although I would need to find an alternative to dog food, being a vegetarian!).
 
kumquat:
I've only been RE for less than 3 weeks, but I might w*rk a bit under the right circumstances. That would be a SHORT (1 month or less) contract in an interesting place, sort of a paid holiday.
Click to expand...
Check out our Retirement Jobs page: Relocation Retirement Jobs Community Service and click down to Back Door Jobs, Cool Works or Tropic Jobs. You might find something fun/interesting to do and enjoy yourself while making a buck or two! When you don't have to work, it can be fun!

Kcowan
Hey writing books for cash must just be a paid hobby.
Click to expand...

We write because we love it, and because we consider it to be a service; we put in measurable volunteer time. Don't forget, we were retired 15 years before our book came out... We enjoy this. Work was never a 4 letter word to us.

Be well,

Akaisha
Author, The Adventurer's Guide to Early Retirement
 
surprisingly even to myself, i would consider going back to work. is there a job where i can work in just my underwear, shave just once a week and have lots of personal contact with the public?
 
lazygood4nothinbum said:
surprisingly even to myself, i would consider going back to work. is there a job where i can work in just my underwear, shave just once a week and have lots of personal contact with the public?
Click to expand...
I think you described a runway model... although they may shave more often. :2funny: >:D
 
Nords said:
Khan, for those of us who are no longer registered members there, can you give us an unregistered summary?
Click to expand...

Memoirs of a Meeting

Today there was a meeting scheduled to run from 2pm - 4pm (never mind that many of us leave at 3 or 3:30); it lasted 'til 4:30.

I did not know why I was there, I had no input.

I had no idea what the acronyms meant.

It reminded me of those dreams where one is scheduled to take a final exam for a class never attended; or maybe is trying to understand people who don't speak your (or each other's) language.

The 'leader' has a voice set on '11', and gratingly ungrammatical (irregardless, I seen, had went).

It went on and on and on.

My blood sugar was dropping.

I found myself experiencing fugue states, out of body experiences, hallucinations, terrorist fantasies.

One of the hallucinations was seeing all the participants as chimpanzees; dressed in suits and shuffling papers, while baring their teeth and making pre-lingual noises. I half expected them to run around on all fours, grunting, and throwing papers into the air.
Click to expand...
 
I've been ER'd for a bit over a year now, with that very desireable modest but guarranteed Cola'd Pension of about 30 percent of ending Salary.

As to going back, I basically arranged a trial PT job ( at least in my mind ) just before I left. The concept was while I still had some leverage, was reasonably well-liked and respected by people in power (medium large Agency 1000 plus employees), I would be "willing" to come back (after 4 months decompression) and work one day per week as a consultant and/or work special projects.

So after about 10 months (about 40 actual working days) I'm finding it quite bearable. I don't have to go to any far-reaching meetings as it's N/A I'm just not there enough for most meetings to be relevant. Deadlines aren't a factor as you can't assign me something that needs to be quickly achieved when I'm mostly just not there. Instead I've weaseled stuff I wanted to do before I left full-time-ness and after I'd become basically a Manager rather than a Hands-on Problem solver. I've slipped a bit sideways in the chain of command, I seem to partly work for my sucessor, and partly for his high level Manager, and they kind of each think the other is taking care of monitoring me. Meanwhile I do interesting things from my point of view, i.e. researching solutions, making recommendations, sharing my experiences with the youngsters, doing some needed repair work that doesn't have a deadline and therefore tends to fall thru the cracks and never quite get done, and all the while still receiving my peak ex-hourly rate including whatever Colas the "real" employees get along the way. I'm contributing in an effective way, with good kharma all around, but if it all goes away when the next big management shakeup occurs, It's all Good. My guess is the expiration date will at the latest be early 2009.

All that being said, there is likely no "other" job I'd ever take, other than maybe volunteering at the Library, somebody should really put all those books back up on the shelves...
 
Khan said:
Memoirs of a Meeting
Click to expand...

I'm still at work and this is hysterically funny. Thanks for posting that, Khan. Nords' description of a typical day reminded me of two jobs I didn't take because they let me "test drive" them and I got the joy of attending their meetings. One was set as a breakfast mtg at 7:00 a.m. because everyone had full calendars (each hoping to be the only who didn't have to attend).

I actually like solving problems and the opportunity often presents itself because I rarely have the complete picture (could be because I don't attend mtgs?) For me its a game and work equals filling in the gaps only as far as needed....
 
lg4n
surprisingly even to myself, i would consider going back to work. is there a job where i can work in just my underwear, shave just once a week and have lots of personal contact with the public?
Click to expand...

I thought they called that 'working from home' or 'telecommuting'. So long as you have computer access you can have a good deal of 'personal' contact with the public, and who cares what you are (not) wearing?

Akaisha
Author, The Adventurer's Guide to Early Retirement
 
Not retired yet... in about 4 years. We will not work again after that.
 
I retired a year ago and haven't worked one day since then. I'm having too good of a time to consider replacing my freedom with anything that resembles making a living (or making a dying as Joe Dominguez so eloquently stated in "Your Life or your Money"). If I enjoyed work, why would I have retired?
 
I rarely say never- but -- NEVER! I have property and assets to sell long before I would be in such dire straights and considering w*rk.
I can't stand any type of encumbrance concerning my free time now. Having to fly to 2-3 cities every week doing BS for megacorp like I used to sounds like torture!!! I thought it was great ... once
 
becca said:
After being retired for six glorious years, if there was a financial disaster I would move to a trailer in the hills of West Virginia and eat dog food before going back to work.
Click to expand...

I already live in the hills of West Virginia (it really is a beautiful state), I guess I could move from my house to a trailer and eat cat food (although the cat food I buy is approximately $31.00 per bag) instead of returning to work!;)
 
If it feels like 'w*rk' then it has no place in ER. If it is something fun and engaging, whether it is paid or unpaid, then I like to call it semi-retirement and think it's great. Oops, gotta go. -- model just arrived for a few hours of sculpting 'work'. You can see a few of the pieces I did with her here -- now I ask you, does that look like work? :D
 
ERed six years ago. I don't plan to work again. I do some light volunteer work now only because I can set my own hours and effort and I enjoy the email interactions.
But I went to a retirement party last week for a guy in my old office. It reminded me of how much healthier and happier I am now than I used to be when I was working, and how tired and overweight most of those still-working people appear to be. I just didn't have the time or energy to exercise enough when I was working a stressful desk job.
 
Never say never, I guess. Just took a j*b after just over 3 months of "ER". Wasn't looking for w*rk, but this one found me and I essentially named my own price. Believe me, it's quite a shock to the system going back to a j*b. At the moment, I'm just taking it a day at a time and trying to convince myself that it is only temporary until I become "tiredofw*rk" again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

The Cosmic Avenger
Applying for Citizenship by Descent
2
Replies
45
Views
2K
rodi
rodi
E
Five Years Retired: Lessons Learned
Replies
24
Views
2K
Koolau
Koolau
S
All in retirement and no liquidity
Replies
12
Views
1K
cathy63
C
prudent_one
Which advisory option for spouse surviving me?
2
Replies
41
Views
4K
RetiredHappy
R
J
Work for toys/travel
Replies
24
Views
3K
walkinwood
walkinwood

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom