Was your leaving work typical or atypical?

[easysurfer]

Atypical.

My leaving went pretty much like my boss calling letting the group know there's a departmental conference call to attend. About ten minutes after the call, the boss started calling members of the team pretty much saying "Guess what, you've been outsourced". About two weeks after that I had a meeting with my boss to tell him "Guess what, I've done"

I was the only one in the department brave (or stupid, depending on how you look at it ) enough to do what I did.

 

[kramer]

Atypical. I was 41 years old and sort of a star at my Fortune 500 technology company (engineer). I had recently been asked if I wanted to be promoted to the highest level engineer and I politely declined consideration. I told my boss and friends that my reason for leaving was to do some extensive travel and perhaps to teach English abroad for a year. In reality, this was my long planned Early Retirement. They were all absolutely shocked. Giving notice might have been the hardest thing I had ever done and I could only get myself to do it because I had become so burned out at my job.

There were two huge outside lunches given for me at local restaurants. One in my current department and another one with many ex-coworkers. One lunch got so big that they had to bring in extra tables and chairs and it filled a big room. I really couldn't believe it and was truly touched. Then, on my last day, they surprised me with an afternoon get together at the company and a specially made cake in my current department -- the cake had a play on words incorporating my name and my planned travels. I got lots of request to start a blog and I did that for my first couple of years.

 

[gayl]

Crap. I was promoted the day b4 I went on a 10 day vacation and took 4 days off for cancer surgery (they didn't know). Business sold during that time and staff not being retained. Told I'd be kept thru next tax season (Jr Partner says it's 4 / 15 / 2015, Sr Partner says it's 10 / 15 / 2014).

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[LOL!]

To get my spouse to retire I'm thinking of buying 2 tickets to Hawaii along with a condo reservation, then just walking into her work and plopping them down on her desk and say, "OK, let's go to Hawaii. Right now."

 

[DFA]

Laid off with great severance package, but still doing contract work for them about 5-10 hours/month. I sometimes feel like I never left, just waiting for DW to get her time in for pension. Contract work was suppose to stop in March 2014, but now may be end of year. I am not going to do contract work after DW is done, they will just have to find someone else.

 

[Milton]

To get my spouse to retire I'm thinking of buying 2 tickets to Hawaii along with a condo reservation, then just walking into her work and plopping them down on her desk and say, "OK, let's go to Hawaii. Right now."

Reminds me of the quit-your-job scene in the Albert Brooks movie Lost in America (1985).

 

[In-control]

I bet no two stories are the same! I gave my co. a choice last week - PT (Semi-Retired) 25 hrs a week with benefits or my notice(full retirement).

They took the PT choice. I am now Semi Retired. I get to work in the office two days a week and @ home one. So for 4 days straight I am retired. I will do this for a while and see how it goes.

Mentally - i'm fully retired!!!!

 

[gayl]

Processed the letter for 400+ clients today stating files transferred 8/31. Well ~~~ went off to NOLA 7/17 and office sold. Off to Alaska 9/7 and probably won't have a job to come back to.

Was it easy for you singles to transition to retirement?

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[Focus]

I bet no two stories are the same! I gave my co. a choice last week - PT (Semi-Retired) 25 hrs a week with benefits or my notice(full retirement).

They took the PT choice. I am now Semi Retired. I get to work in the office two days a week and @ home one. So for 4 days straight I am retired. I will do this for a while and see how it goes.

Mentally - i'm fully retired!!!!

I was offered a similar arrangement, but it became apparent to me that those three days -- and all their related stresses -- would bleed into the rest of the week. I knew I'd start to dread the day before the next three-day stretch. That was one factor in my deciding nothing less than full retirement would do.

 

[scrabbler1]

I bet no two stories are the same! I gave my co. a choice last week - PT (Semi-Retired) 25 hrs a week with benefits or my notice(full retirement).

They took the PT choice. I am now Semi Retired. I get to work in the office two days a week and @ home one. So for 4 days straight I am retired. I will do this for a while and see how it goes.

Mentally - i'm fully retired!!!!

This was very similar to the mostly telecommuting deal I was able to get back in 2001. I worked one day per week at the office for about 1/3 of my 20 hours per week and worked from home for the other ~13 hours per week scattered over the other 6 days. I, too, considered myself semi-retired. This deal worked out well for 27 months until the company pulled the plug on it, a key step toward my eventual ER (I had to go to the office 3x a week for the 20 hours and I could not stand it after a few more years; cutting that back to 2x a week helped a little but not much).

I can't say I was mentally fully retired but I had regained control of my personal life which was a big improvement.

 

[In-control]

This was very similar to the mostly telecommuting deal I was able to get back in 2001. I worked one day per week at the office for about 1/3 of my 20 hours per week and worked from home for the other ~13 hours per week scattered over the other 6 days. I, too, considered myself semi-retired. This deal worked out well for 27 months until the company pulled the plug on it, a key step toward my eventual ER (I had to go to the office 3x a week for the 20 hours and I could not stand it after a few more years; cutting that back to 2x a week helped a little but not much).

I can't say I was mentally fully retired but I had regained control of my personal life which was a big improvement.

I'm giving it a year to see how it goes. i'm pretty good at detaching/ unplugging from work and since it is day bound(Wednesday/Thursday/Friday) it's easy to be in an on/off mode. Being in MA working PT during the winter is good as their is only so much daylight to have fun outdoors.

We shall see - The real benefit is the benefits!

 

[scrabbler1]

I'm giving it a year to see how it goes. i'm pretty good at detaching/ unplugging from work and since it is day bound(Wednesday/Thursday/Friday) it's easy to be in an on/off mode. Being in MA working PT during the winter is good as their is only so much daylight to have fun outdoors.

We shall see - The real benefit is the benefits!

I hope it works out for you. In the 3 1/2 years I had to commute to my office 3x a week, I rarely worked 3 days in a row. Also hating the dreaded Monday morning, I rarely worked on Mondays, too. This had me working Tues-Wed-Fri most weeks, sometimes Tues-Thurs-Fri.

But when I switched to working 2 days a week, one more rule was to never work 2 days in a row, something I was able to adhere to the whole 17 months I did that before working at all became unacceptable.

As for benefits, I was able to keep most of them in the 3x-a-week deal. These included group health, 401k match, annual company stock allocation, some PTO, and a few paid holidays. When I went to 2x-a-week, I lost all of those but simply being employes enabled me to keep the most important one - watching the value of my existing shares of company stock continue to rise a lot until it hit my magic number in 2008 so I could LEAVE!