Impending retirement.... probably

[Koolau]

^^^ I dunno. I traveled for business to many interesting places but more often than not, unless I stayed the weekend it was mostly airport to office to hotel to restaurant for dinner to hotel to office... to airport without very much time for sightseeing.

I often managed to get in a day or two of vacation along with the actual purpose of the travel. All I had to do was pay my own way for the days not dedicated to business. My local management never seemed to mind, though I'm surprised that someone up higher never tried to quash my fun!

 

[pb4uski]

Ah, I see. I was able to enjoy the weekends though, but most of the team wre locals so I was usually on my own. Weekends alone in Seoul and Hanoi were hard where you don't read or speak the language. However, London and Sydney were a blast and some of the locals took me under their wing for some socializing when I was in London.

 

[pook]

I do enjoy the travel as well. Currently in northern Germany. Thankfully the weekends are off, so heading out to see some of the sights today. Having travelled most of my life, one profound change is the translations apps available today; they make it so easy to communicate with pretty much anyone anywhere.

 

[pook]

Quick update: got home from the overseas work trip, then off on two more work trips... and back home again. 37 days and counting. Have a meeting scheduled with HR next week to start the 'offboarding' process. I have one more work trip next month to hand over a project to my replacement. All in all, it has been a smooth process thus far. I have read here about negative experiences some had when they announced their plans and am grateful that my work environment is very accommodating; not only has everyone congratulated me on upcoming retirement, but several sections have repeatedly asked if I planned on doing any consulting post-retirement and if I would be interested in doing so with the company. I have remained non-committal thus far as I don't want to end up creating another full-time job for myself lol.

 

[Koolau]

Quick update: got home from the overseas work trip, then off on two more work trips... and back home again. 37 days and counting. Have a meeting scheduled with HR next week to start the 'offboarding' process. I have one more work trip next month to hand over a project to my replacement. All in all, it has been a smooth process thus far. I have read here about negative experiences some had when they announced their plans and am grateful that my work environment is very accommodating; not only has everyone congratulated me on upcoming retirement, but several sections have repeatedly asked if I planned on doing any consulting post-retirement and if I would be interested in doing so with the company. I have remained non-committal thus far as I don't want to end up creating another full-time job for myself lol.

Right. Even things you like to do can be a pain if you have to do them - especially on a schedule. I'd want to wait a while on any commitments to consulting or other part-time w*rk. Let the Retirement-Dust settle first.

Congratulations on your impending retirement. You're gonna love this!

 

[pb4uski]

I did that. Once I announced that I was leaving they asked if I would be open to doing any consulting and I left the door open. I left and we had some preliminary discussions. They wanted to have a middleman of some sort... the firm would hire the middleman and I would then contract for the middleman. It seemed silly.

After two years, I realized that they hadn't called me and that I hadn't called them so it all worked out.