This weekend will be my six month anniversary of FIRE. For the past two weeks I have been working at my neighbor's machine shop to help him out while he recovers from rotator cuff surgery. It has been quite the experience since I had never seen a CNC machine.
It has been interesting and I learned to run the CNC machine, a drilling machine, band saw and two grinding machines. I also got exposed to the "indicator" and got to practice using a digital caliper and micrometer.
Things were going well and I was within half an hour of completing my assignment without destroying any in process parts. Then, while doing what should have been just putting the finishing touch grind on the tip of the parts, I tilted one and probably ruined it. So much for my perfect track record.
The night before I started, my neighbor told me that he would "put me on the payroll" and pay me $15 per hour. That is probably more than I am worth in the machine shop, but at my old j*b I would have made more in the first hour of drinking coffee and deleting spam emails that I would make in the entire day at the shop. Adding in travel expenses and increased taxes later in life due to missed ROTH conversions, I would probably be losing money.
Fortunately I had the sense to explain to him after the first day or two, that I find it interesting to learn the machines, but that I am only doing this to help him and I never expected him to be paying me. I think he took it well and tomorrow will probably be my last day since there are no other orders being delayed. His wife retires tomorrow and she can start driving him to the shop for the next couple of weeks instead of me.
So, it looks like I have dodged the bullet about being sucked back into the workforce and have come out of the experience with all of my fingers still attached. I did, however, manage to whack myself in the chin with a wrench. But, at least, I did not take out a tooth.
Having to wake up at 5:30 am and be somewhere every morning was quite the shock to the system after six months of being retired. I also found that even though I was working only four hours a day, it was enough to tip me over the edge with regard to letting the clutter accumulate around the house.
Like they say, "work - a nice place to visit, but I would not like to live there."
It has been interesting and I learned to run the CNC machine, a drilling machine, band saw and two grinding machines. I also got exposed to the "indicator" and got to practice using a digital caliper and micrometer.
Things were going well and I was within half an hour of completing my assignment without destroying any in process parts. Then, while doing what should have been just putting the finishing touch grind on the tip of the parts, I tilted one and probably ruined it. So much for my perfect track record.
The night before I started, my neighbor told me that he would "put me on the payroll" and pay me $15 per hour. That is probably more than I am worth in the machine shop, but at my old j*b I would have made more in the first hour of drinking coffee and deleting spam emails that I would make in the entire day at the shop. Adding in travel expenses and increased taxes later in life due to missed ROTH conversions, I would probably be losing money.
Fortunately I had the sense to explain to him after the first day or two, that I find it interesting to learn the machines, but that I am only doing this to help him and I never expected him to be paying me. I think he took it well and tomorrow will probably be my last day since there are no other orders being delayed. His wife retires tomorrow and she can start driving him to the shop for the next couple of weeks instead of me.
So, it looks like I have dodged the bullet about being sucked back into the workforce and have come out of the experience with all of my fingers still attached. I did, however, manage to whack myself in the chin with a wrench. But, at least, I did not take out a tooth.
Having to wake up at 5:30 am and be somewhere every morning was quite the shock to the system after six months of being retired. I also found that even though I was working only four hours a day, it was enough to tip me over the edge with regard to letting the clutter accumulate around the house.
Like they say, "work - a nice place to visit, but I would not like to live there."
