Can you really enjoy retirement if it was someone else's decision?

[gauss]

Well [edited per above request]

-gauss

 

[pb4uski]

My friends and relatives who really enjoy retirement the most are people who leave the workforce after a long and successful career and do it on the date of their choosing.

They feel proud of their career and life accomplishments, have a nice retirement party at work, get all kinds of compliments about how great they are and feel like they really added value to their employer and profession.

Other friends and relatives who are retired are bitter, bored and frustrated. Their employer kicked them out without any warning or praise. Their ex coworkers ignore social offers and they felt they still had things to offer the workforce, but employers disagreed.

Could you enjoy your retirement if you were pushed out before you were ready, even if you had enough money to retire and were over 60?

IMHO, if you are over 60 and have enough money to retire and are still working then they are doing you a big favor by pushing you out and you should thank your lucky stars that they pushed you out of your rut.

That said, I left on my own terms at age 56 and they threw me a nice "retirement" party so I'm probably the last person one should ask. I can see a short period of bitterness because of being pushed out but not for long.

 

[NW-Bound]

Completely agree. I was propelled into ER by a layoff due to the fact that my company went out of business. My self-worth wasn't entirely tied to the job, but I did derive a fair degree of satisfaction (and a little bit of my identity) from it. There was something strangely unsettling about the fact that the organization that had been such a mainstay of my life for 16 years no longer existed. It had no physical location that I could go back to. Employee records, archives of meetings, business plans, ad campaigns etc have most likely long been shredded and recycled.

It's all gone.

But I'm still here

Two megacorps I worked at were bought out. These were large corps with more than 100K employees each. The new owners eradicated all the legacy and history of the once proud and long-lived corporations. I felt sad when thinking about it, even though I no longer worked there when the take-overs happened.

But the closing of the start-ups that I helped founded did play a major role in my early retirement. After these small businesses went defunct, I could not go back to an 8-5 job at a megacorp anymore once I had the taste of freedom. So, I did part-time consulting, and retained the freedom to travel and take time off as I wanted. I even refused the offers to go full-time with them (heck, it was not out of kindness but they wanted to own my a$$). Eventually, I decided to call it quit when even the hassle of a part-time job became too much.

 

[chilkoot]

My friends and relatives who really enjoy retirement the most are people who leave the workforce after a long and successful career and do it on the date of their choosing.

They feel proud of their career and life accomplishments, have a nice retirement party at work, get all kinds of compliments about how great they are and feel like they really added value to their employer and profession.

Other friends and relatives who are retired are bitter, bored and frustrated. Their employer kicked them out without any warning or praise. Their ex coworkers ignore social offers and they felt they still had things to offer the workforce, but employers disagreed.

Could you enjoy your retirement if you were pushed out before you were ready, even if you had enough money to retire and were over 60?

Yes.

 

[FUEGO]

I can see a short period of bitterness because of being pushed out but not for long.

My bitterness lasted about as long as the 10 minute drive home from the office It wouldn't have lasted that long but I hit a lot of red lights.

 

[braumeister]

My employer gave me my "please go away quietly" papers April of 2106.

Major bummer!
90 more years in the salt mines?

 

[NW-Bound]

Major bummer!
90 more years in the salt mines?

Makes one ask "do I want longevity if I have to work all my life".

 

[pb4uski]

My bitterness lasted about as long as the 10 minute drive home from the office It wouldn't have lasted that long but I hit a lot of red lights.

That seems appropriately not for long to me!!

 

[Major Tom]

My bitterness lasted about as long as the 10 minute drive home from the office It wouldn't have lasted that long but I hit a lot of red lights.