Recollection of your career

I didn't care much for my "career" when I had it and rarely think of it now. It paid well and allowed me to get out young enough to ER. That's it.

These days prestige, degrees and accomplishments are meaningless. I have nothing more to prove to anyone and that's the way I like it.
 
I had a mostly great career. I made a lot of dough, saved a lot of dough, saw the world, helped a lot of people progress, made a ton of money for shareholders, had the respect of my peers, my superiors, my board of directors, most of my staff (most were sad to see me go, many cried at my going-away party, some, I'm sure cried tears of joy that I'd be gone), I helped many advance their own careers, and in general it was just a great career save for the BS that everyone at some point has to endure.

When I think maybe I should go back, I can do nothing but shudder at the thought.
 
The most meaningful work I ever did was a job I left 31 years ago, so I've had a good long time to get over it.
 
I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I took advice from my Pop who told me "most jobs weren't going to be a whole lot of fun, so you might as well take a job you were going to make some money at".

I settled on commercial construction and it was actually fun for a few years. After that, it started getting progressively worse dealing with regulations, employees, paperwork, etc., but, luckily, I was able to focus and keep at it till I got to the point where I thought I could call it quits.

I can't say I enjoyed it alot, but it allowed me to save enough coin to RE fairly young and now, after being RE for a couple years, I'm glad I made the decision
to trade 8-12 hours a day of not being real happy with my job for the chance to get out early. I very seldom reflect on my career now. Now I look forward to what I am going to do for fun and helping relatives out with little projects and things!
 
If you had told me when I entered college I would end up in the career I have had, I would have thought it impossible. My basic goal then was to get a degree, find a job, and be happy with reaching $50K in salary someday. I was a shy, insecure introvert who have never been on an airplane. So to end in up in a career that catered to my interests, felt many times like a hobby, required a lot of interacting with people, had me teaching/presenting to a wide range of audiences across the world, achieve a salary well beyond my expectations, and have it last for almost 38 years, I look back on as a miracle.

Factor into this having immigrant parents where English was not my Dad's native language, and growing up in a large family in the inner city where I saw enough things that my main wish was to make it to age 18 alive and not on drugs, let alone college, and the miracle for me increases.
 
One of my jobs was CEO and I had to downsize the organization from 650 to 525 and restore profitability, then sell it to a much larger company. That was probably the most lasting of the jobs I had.

The rest, although very satisfying, had no lasting effect. Any lingering effect was gone by 6 months.
 
@Texas. You are free to view yourself as a "cog" and define "cog" anyway you wish. In my view thinking of yourself as a "cog" does yourself a disservice. I view it as an attitude, ie I am insignificant. Many people feel this way and in many philosophies, this is an accepted belief. I chose not to embrace this view.
 
When I first started at Megacorp, only the word "cog" would describe what I was (what I did). For perhaps 6 or 7 years, I pictured a fantasy assignment. I eventually created that assignment for myself and, fortunately, my peers nor my management ever really figured out that I was almost exactly where I wanted to be, doing almost exactly what I wanted to do. There were intrusions (from management, from life, from Corp. BS, from changing attitudes within Megacorp, etc.) which made it still "just a j*b" but I always felt as though I had "fooled" everyone into letting me do what I wanted to do.

Eventually, I don't know if someone caught on and decided to make me "their" cog again (instead of my own) or whether "all good things come to an end." In any case, when things changed, that's when I pulled the FIRE plug. Looking back (and I only do that occasionally) I WAS always a cog. I'm neither proud nor ashamed of that designation. It's just the way things are. Still, for the most part, I enjoyed my c*reer as a cog and have mostly fond memories. YMMV
 
Cogs are very important. Just another gear in the transmission yes, but without every cog in place and transferring torque the machine don't move. If any cog is damaged (chipped teeth perhaps) the machine runs rough.

In order for the machine to run smooth and efficiently all the cogs have to be in place and in good and proper shape.
 
Danmar said:
@Texas. You are free to view yourself as a "cog" and define "cog" anyway you wish. In my view thinking of yourself as a "cog" does yourself a disservice. I view it as an attitude, ie I am insignificant. Many people feel this way and in many philosophies, this is an accepted belief. I chose not to embrace this view.
Click to expand...

Sure. Whatever you have to tell yourself. "I view it... " says it all Your conclusion is proprietary and in no way reflects or can reflect what the original definition of "cog" means to the person who used it.
 
The corporate human cog machine is fault-tolerant. The better ones have to be designed that way, otherwise they fail.

One falls out, others pick up the slack. Rough edges? Let it rattle. Sometimes the machine even works better with a cog removed. Heck, even many inventions and breakthroughs would have happened without the inventor who got the credit. Broken cogs get replaced. Cheaper than fixing them.

Even the ones that do get remembered are often products of accidents, not unique snowflakes. Especially some CEOs of megacorps belong in that category. Their most redeeming quality is sometimes staying put and not being special.
 
Like Athena53, I worked in the actuarial field after finishing college. It wasn't my first choice of careers, but I had only one job offer at the end of my college years so I took it.


I liked computer programming so I was placed in an actuarial division whose manager wanted someone with a good programming background who could automate a lot of things. I was sent to a SAS (a programming language used in business) class in the mid-1980s and it accelerated my programming expertise. I also learned Lotus (for DOS) and later on, Excel and Word which further enhanced my PC skills.


I was a big fish in a small pond thanks to the combination of math and statistical knowledge along with the insurance knowledge and programming skills. In the 1990s, I became more and more of a go-to person in my division after being promoted to supervisor. That was good for job security and for getting above-average raises.


My peak earnings years of the late 1990s coincided with the start of my company's ESOP program which would become the means for eventual ER in 2008.


But the commute eventually wore me down after 16 years of full-time work, 15 of them with the long, awful commute. The office BS was gnawing at me but not a lot. It was the commute.


I had various part-time gigs at the company in my last 7 years, some of them working mostly from home. Doing mostly programming work made me a good fit for working from home because I could run and maintain programs during the off-hours when my coworkers weren't using them. Long-running programs ran more quickly overnight.


But the telecommute ended after 2 years and the horrors of the commute returned, even only 3 then 2 days a week. I still liked the work and was freed from some of the less desirable tasks such as employee evaluations.


I left the company and ERed in late 2008. I am thankful for the many things I learned in my career which carry over into my ER life. One is the writing skills I picked up over the years, from my supervisors and from two business writing classes. Another are the PC skills I still use today such as Word, Lotus, and Excel, along with all the general PC tricks I picked up over the years. I have been able to use those worksheet skills in my volunteer work and other hobbies.


Once in a while, I talk to my best friend/coworker. He even asks me a work question now and then although my knowledge is so out of date and my memory faded that I thankfully can't help him much any more!


My career was good for me. But I am glad it is over and I never have to deal with it again.
 
Danmar said:
@Texas. You are free to view yourself as a "cog" and define "cog" anyway you wish. In my view thinking of yourself as a "cog" does yourself a disservice. I view it as an attitude, ie I am insignificant. Many people feel this way and in many philosophies, this is an accepted belief. I chose not to embrace this view.
Click to expand...


First, there is a real definition of cog..... from dictionary.com....

a person who plays a minor part in a large organization, activity, etc.:
​
I played a 'role' in a large organization.... one that had over 200,000 people... so almost everybody there was a cog.... and at times my role might have been considered important (at one point I was in charge of global interoffice pricing, but still only a VP)... but, someone did it well before I was there and someone did it well after I was gone.... so, kinda fits the definition...

I do not feel insignificant at all... I was highly valued in every position that I had... and I did a good job in all of them also... I have also had a good life and can say I am very successful....

But, I am nothing 'special' like an Elon Musk or Steve Jobs... people that will be remembered for generations (if not longer)....

I do not need to try and aggrandize my role in life as some might...



So, reading the definition, how are you not a cog? Just because you 'feel' you are not?
 
I guess you could just google yourself.

If you are not all over the results...
 
razztazz said:
Sure. Whatever you have to tell yourself. "I view it... " says it all Your conclusion is proprietary and in no way reflects or can reflect what the original definition of "cog" means to the person who used it.
Click to expand...

Of course my view is proprietary as is his. I don't "have to tell myself anything". Everybody has his beliefs, I respectfully disagree with his.
 
Texas Proud said:
First, there is a real definition of cog..... from dictionary.com....

a person who plays a minor part in a large organization, activity, etc.:
​
I played a 'role' in a large organization.... one that had over 200,000 people... so almost everybody there was a cog.... and at times my role might have been considered important (at one point I was in charge of global interoffice pricing, but still only a VP)... but, someone did it well before I was there and someone did it well after I was gone.... so, kinda fits the definition...

I do not feel insignificant at all... I was highly valued in every position that I had... and I did a good job in all of them also... I have also had a good life and can say I am very successful....

But, I am nothing 'special' like an Elon Musk or Steve Jobs... people that will be remembered for generations (if not longer)....

I do not need to try and aggrandize my role in life as some might...



So, reading the definition, how are you not a cog? Just because you 'feel' you are not?
Click to expand...
I guess it's in the definition of "minor". I just never felt "minor". Others in my organization may have disagreed with me. If they did they never mentioned it. If this is aggrandization, I am guilty.
 
Danmar said:
I guess it's in the definition of "minor". I just never felt "minor". Others in my organization may have disagreed with me. If they did they never mentioned it. If this is aggrandization, I am guilty.
Click to expand...

Wow... we have to go through a list of words to get their meanings...

Unless you were the CEO of a major corp or maybe one level down, you were 'minor'.... and if you were one person in a company with over 100,000.... also probably minor...

I am not saying you were not important or did a bad job, just that you were easily replaceable with someone else... if so, then it is a minor job...

You have also not said what you did.... maybe you are not a cog...
 
Back in the old days, there was an implicit social contract between employer & employee: the employee spent the best hours of every day and the best years of their life serving the company, and in return the company would 'take care' of the employee. Those days are mostly gone - now mutual distrust rules the day. This change happened during my career.

One of my half-baked ideas is that the IRS should abolish W2 status and turn everyone into an independent consultant / small business owner. This would transition the IRS from being a generation behind the times to a half-generation ahead of the times - rare for a government agency.
 
We are all cogs in that great gearbox we call life. :)

To paraphrase Billy S.

A cog by any other name, would be just as meaningful
Click to expand...
Pink Floyd did a great job singing about it
.
.
 
Texas Proud said:
Wow... we have to go through a list of words to get their meanings...

Unless you were the CEO of a major corp or maybe one level down, you were 'minor'.... and if you were one person in a company with over 100,000.... also probably minor...

I am not saying you were not important or did a bad job, just that you were easily replaceable with someone else... if so, then it is a minor job...

You have also not said what you did.... maybe you are not a cog...
Click to expand...

And unless you are someone like Steve Jobs, no one will really know anything of you in 2 or 3 generations. Think of all the great inventions...The microwave. Anesthesia. The microscope. The telephone. And guess what? Very few people know who invented them. So, even if you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you are still a cog in a very large machine and you are replaceable.
 
ExFlyBoy5 said:
And unless you are someone like Steve Jobs, no one will really know anything of you in 2 or 3 generations. Think of all the great inventions...The microwave. Anesthesia. The microscope. The telephone. And guess what? Very few people know who invented them. So, even if you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you are still a cog in a very large machine and you are replaceable.
Click to expand...


Yea.... kinda a good point.... but, I remember Bell invented the telephone... have no idea about the others...

But, at least most of those inventors can be found with a bit of searching.... now that so much knowledge is just a search away...

As an example.... I thought.... who were the CEOs of GM:confused: Took me less than a minute to get the list... really do not know much about any of them.... just showing they were a bit more than just a cog...


Chief Executive Officers of General Motors[60]

 
I can say I was one lucky dude.

The first 6 years I was well respected but a bit bored which made me search for other opportunities. I got on with a startup, received some stock options and managed to eventually change my job type. I continued in that type of job through 7 buyouts.

Although I never considered myself a standout employee, all my supervisors over the years rated me from above average through outstanding. Only the last supervisor rated me average likely based on my confrontation with him which is what eventually what made my ER decision that much easier.

But the best feeling were all the co-workers who upon hearing of my resignation notice wrote of their shock and sadness in my pending departure. While it may sound a bit gross, the best was “I think I’m going to throw up.” As weird as it may be, I know I meant something.
 
I was treated as a valued individual the first half of my career, when my employer was doing well. Mid-career they suddenly were on the verge of bankruptcy, never prospered after that, and I and most everyone else became tightly-controlled cogs. So I have some positive memories of the early years, but put the second half of my career out of my mind even before the door had shut behind me on my way out.
 
The best part of my career?

About 6 years ago, a former colleague and friend from an earlier department in the same company was being displaced (he was 50...his job was moved to India) called me and asked if I had any openings on my team? I didn't, but I had HR re-open an unfilled req, and shoe-horned him into the role, and gave him a raise. Totally kosher, played by the rules. But I also played the "it's who you know" game to give back to someone who deserved it.

Anything else I "accomplished" is peanuts in comparison.
 
Texas Proud said:
Wow... we have to go through a list of words to get their meanings...

Unless you were the CEO of a major corp or maybe one level down, you were 'minor'.... and if you were one person in a company with over 100,000.... also probably minor...

I am not saying you were not important or did a bad job, just that you were easily replaceable with someone else... if so, then it is a minor job...

You have also not said what you did.... maybe you are not a cog...
Click to expand...

Yes, I did report to the CEO in a major corporation (Canada's second largest company with a market cap of about $120billion). Agree that everybody is replaceable (easy of not) I just never felt, acted, or was treated like a "cog". The word "minor" is somewhat subjective as well. I agree that in the overall scheme of life we can view ourselves as "minor" but to those we interact with much less minor, and that's the important thing. I guess we should just agree to disagree.
 
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