ceboyd

BUSTED!!!!



...but at least I'm enjoying life!!!!!

1NICESC430

Retire as early as you can and enjoy yourself even if enjoyment is simply experiencing what the rest of the world looks like at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning. Every time I run across colleagues of mine who also took an early retirement "buyout", I notice that they look younger and healthier than when they were working.

ceboyd ... I hope someone buys that lotttery ticket for ya!

Arvin

LOL

thats a funny pic 1NICESC430.

SCamp

Wandering off topic, but...

Being able to retire is much more important than actually retiring. Having enough resources that I can quit if the BS gets too high makes my daily decision to go on working a positive statement that I enjoy what I'm doing. I also have to deal with the fact that compromising my principals would indicate a lack of character, rather than rationalizing (and implicating) "family" or similar.

My preference is to work a while, travel a while, take up a new career (get any required certification) and repeat. I found that my focus and critical skills would decline without the demands of a competetive environment, but by the same token, most careers become rather routine when tied to a particular company/position. Even the joy of being a small business owner paled after a while... but YMMV (appropriate metaphor for this board). Since I have the luxury of picking positions that meet my requirements, I hold those positions with the mindset of a free-lance consultant (although my current position is nothing that could actually go to a consultant). Quite liberating.

And I get a deep, visceral pleasure from being able make the (relatively rare) threat "If we do X, then I will quit" - and have people know that I'm completely serious.

The trick to this is that "enough resources" is largely a matter of personal lifestyle choice, not just "raw wealth". So, quit buying luxury cars &c and learn to live frugally until you can walk away. Then you get the extraordinary luxury of being able to do exactly what you want, whether it requires working to support your hobby or not. I bought my sc430 with the income from my current position (cash collected, absolutely not future payments!) - I could not have "reasonably" afforded it, but also would not have bought it otherwise.

Now, I'm sure I can connect this back to the gas pedal discussion, w/ some effort...

beachdrive

I was also lucky enough to retire this year at 55. I have noticed over the last ten years fellow employees who retired seemed to look about ten years younger. After seeing this enough I just accepted it as the normal state. Then earlier this year I bumped into a fellow female employee and she looked 20 years younger. I did not recognize her until she started to talk to me.

I believe it does have to do with the lack of stress. In recent years with perpetual, downsizing, program after program, plant shutdowns, cutbacks, "belt- tightening", etc we were all exposed to the not so pleasant side of life. It takes a toll - except for those few who actually don't care much about their fellow employees.

1NICESC430

SCamp ...

It appears that you're enjoying yourself and that's what really matters. Personally, I have an extremely limited pension income, and I live as a middle-class kinda guy. Moreover, I really don't care about having an impressive house and expensive clothes, although I can appreciate and admire classy things. I made a couple of wise investments which are now paying me off by paying for my Lexus.

I suppose when an SC430 pulls up, one expects a guy with $300 shoes and a thousand-dollar suit to get out instead of a guy such as I, with $30 sneakers and $20 chinos. (Hmmm . I think I'm paying too much for sneaks). My SC430 is my treat for working steady from high school through retirement.

I still do some work by helping people with their PC applications and did a few years of teaching after retirement. But now I pick and choose what I want to do and do absolutely nothing when that whim strikes me. On the other hand, I think your lifestyle is kinda neat, too.

Now I have to go wash my gas pedal.

SCamp

Good point, maybe intended to criticise me, but I guess I should describe my work philosophy: Make myself obsolete, by improving work process at all levels; Make everybody around me behave the same way.

Consequently, my skills are attuned to everything you mentioned as stressful -- which it definitely is. But as a result of my efforts, the people around me become the most valuable employees -- i.e., those contributing most to making the necessary downsizing possible. Consequently, they are least likely to be laid off, and when the inevitable does happen, they are most capable of finding new positions - because their demonstrable skills always extend beyond obsolete or sub-standard task-level expertise.

Now, on first hearing my work philosophy, many people (here and elsewhere) think I am the worst kind of soulless company man (or less polite terms that would be deleted from this board). I care about enabling people to survive in what I find, only somewhat cynically, to be the way business actually works. I cannot change corporate behavior, but I can help people change their behavior to better adapt to a profoundly uncaring business world; more that that, to help indivduals regain personal autonomy and independence from de-humanizing business demands and practices. I care deeply enough about people I work with that I've taught many of them how to get to the same position I find myself in today.

beachdrive

Original Quote by SCamp (sorry I dont know how to do the quote thing right)
Good point, maybe intended to criticise me, but I guess I should describe my work philosophy: Make myself obsolete, by improving work process at all levels; Make everybody around me behave the same way.


No I was not refering to you at all. Truly sorry if it seemed like that.

Actually refering to the old me, my compadres, and the fleets of Management Consultants (all the big ones except McKinsey) we brought in to "lead us to the new work, manufacturing, and distribution systems of the future". Initially, I certainly felt that it was better to close a plant or two, layoff a department or two, etc than to lose the whole enterprise as we faced more difficult international competition. And not on just a theoretical basis, but real concerns about restoring an adequate profitablity level. However over a three year period I got much closer to the Union Leadership at local, regional, and national level and found them to be very decent human beings. It was one of my final trips among a group of our manufacturing locations that were being looked at as part our our "rationalizing" efforts that hit me hardest. As I talked to (amd looked intot he eyes of) many employees who already had a pretty good idea of what might come next, I just came to the realization that even though I certainly understood the concept of the "greater good" for the whole organization I found it difficult to be part of the process.

I agree with making one's self obsolete. You actually start to work yourself out of a job the day you take each new job. This can lead to the next stage in your professional growth.