The Cosmic Avenger
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
I've been thinking about this lately, especially when I was "out of work" last year. Technically my company kept me as a zero-hour, on-call employee, in the hope that they would find work for me, and they did! They also had a very few hours here and there, although eventually I said I would do it if they NEEDED me, but otherwise I'd rather not.
So for the Rule of 55, does anyone know what qualifies as "separation from service"? I've looked, but I haven't found the details. I'm sure my company would keep me on call if I asked until that year, but at zero hours, would that qualify? I'm very curious, because the contract for the work I'm doing will end halfway through the year I turn 54, so while I think we're doing a great job, in consulting you never can rely 100% on a government contract being renewed, no matter how happy the client is with you.
I have a feeling that part time would qualify, but on-call would not, but I can't find anything confirming that. Heck, they could probably find 8 hours of work I could help with and hire me back for one day in January of the year I turn 55, I've been there over 20 years and I'm always being asked for advice from all over the company. If on-call doesn't count, maybe doing on-call work full time for one day and then retiring would count?
So for the Rule of 55, does anyone know what qualifies as "separation from service"? I've looked, but I haven't found the details. I'm sure my company would keep me on call if I asked until that year, but at zero hours, would that qualify? I'm very curious, because the contract for the work I'm doing will end halfway through the year I turn 54, so while I think we're doing a great job, in consulting you never can rely 100% on a government contract being renewed, no matter how happy the client is with you.
I have a feeling that part time would qualify, but on-call would not, but I can't find anything confirming that. Heck, they could probably find 8 hours of work I could help with and hire me back for one day in January of the year I turn 55, I've been there over 20 years and I'm always being asked for advice from all over the company. If on-call doesn't count, maybe doing on-call work full time for one day and then retiring would count?