Retirement -- Last day at work today!

Closing out my career today at work.

At the (virtual) get together yesterday, I told about how the work place seemed to contain a lot more "characters" when I started my career, and how I aspired to become one of those before my career ended.  I received validation from my co-workers that I had definitely met that goal.

And I felt old when I told them about how when I started out, we didn't use spreadsheets and PCs weren't even something we used in the normal course of business in this very technical engineering field.  When PCs were first being offered out, no  one wanted one at their desk-- they took up too much room that we were mostly using to stack masses of batch job fanfold printouts that we'd be going through to extract and further reduce the data from. 

And then we'd take that data and hand plot it!  And if it wasn't something you intended to drop a straight line through, if you couldn't fair something through it with a #48 Ship curve, or maybe a #42, there was an error in your data reduction. 

I'm not sure that the world wouldn't be a better place if we could go back to one without spreadsheets-- at least the kind of spreadsheets we seem to use that are primarily to keep lists of things.

At least I never used punch cards past high school.

And I can confirm that nothing has happened at work since the retirement offer was originally given that has made me think this isn't the right decision.

Congrats!!! 
 

whats next ?

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

Part time practice manager at my wife's veterinary clinic.  

Though the first next thing is really probably the treadmill stress test first thing Monday morning.  

Congrats!!

I tried to match you up with the announcement email to see your true identity, but realized that was sent at a site level.

Congrats and good luck with the career switch!

In reply to Karacticus :

Ok. Good luck with the stress test and managing the wife's $$$$$$ 

Congratulations! 

Just a thought: won't managing the vet clinic be enough of a stress test all by itself?

ProDarwin said:

Congrats!!

I tried to match you up with the announcement email to see your true identity, but realized that was sent at a site level.

The local list we saw here and that this wasn't offered to anyone with less than 10 years of experience, show more than 1000 man years of experience headed out the door.  Now, whether it's useful or relevant experience is another question.

mr2s2000elise said:

Congrats!!! 
 

whats next ?

Beer

congrats!

Here it was around 450 years heading out the door.  Its going to be a different world, that's for sure.

That's awesome!  Huge congratulations!

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

Congratulations! 

Just a thought: won't managing the vet clinic be enough of a stress test all by itself?

Yes and no-- 

Some stress already hearing about things my wife is dealing with that I should be able to get squared away and haven't been available to do.

Other stress from knowing having to deal with that kind of stuff.  But I've been doing the bookkeeping since the plce opened, and taking on bill paying, purchasing, etc. isn't a huge leap, with a plan to be able to handle a lot of that from home rather than joining the on site drama.

Also, need to avoid creating a toxic environment for the employees-- my wife did relief work at more than one place where the practice manager was the doctor's spouse and that was bad news.

Congratulations!

I'm only a month younger than you and I'm six months older than my brother was when he died suddenly / six months younger than my dad was when he retired.

Although I work for a huge company, I'm the only person that does what I do which makes me feel like I have to stick around but entropy will obviously eventually have its way. 

Congrats and entering the ranks of the idle!

If you're anything like the other people I've know that retired, you're probably going to be businer being retired than you were while you were working.

I also work for the same company..  shame i didn't meet you with all my vists to CR.  Next visit, I'll look you up.

Enjoy your time and thanks for your contributions.

Karacticus said:

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

Congratulations! 

Just a thought: won't managing the vet clinic be enough of a stress test all by itself?

Yes and no-- 

Some stress already hearing about things my wife is dealing with that I should be able to get squared away and haven't been available to do.

Other stress from knowing having to deal with that kind of stuff.  But I've been doing the bookkeeping since the plce opened, and taking on bill paying, purchasing, etc. isn't a huge leap, with a plan to be able to handle a lot of that from home rather than joining the on site drama.

Also, need to avoid creating a toxic environment for the employees-- my wife did relief work at more than one place where the practice manager was the doctor's spouse and that was bad news.

 

My wife was my business manager, and it worked fine. I had a CVT that was my practice manager. 

Congratulations! 

56 is probably considered early retirement. Do you mind me asking you some about your career path/savings strategies to get there?

In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :

Engineers or others in Avaition can have very long tenures..  I've handed out a 50 year plaque.. work with people who have 30 years of service regurarlly.

Congrats on escaping the rat race sir!

mtn (Forum Supporter) said:

Congratulations! 

56 is probably considered early retirement. Do you mind me asking you some about your career path/savings strategies to get there?

Outside of the obvious stuff about maximizing tax deferred savings and company contributions, the remaining major contributors aren't necessarily things you can do much about--

• Got out of college debt free
• My employment allowed me to retire my wife's school debt pretty quickly after we got married
• Home purchase and exit from the Seattle area housing market was well timed
• Changing companies twice in my career avoided salary stagnation and paid off well, but did have impacts on my wife's career as well
• Not getting divorced
• Not having kids -- though this may have been better for toys along the way to retirement than being retirement readiness proper
• Debt managed reasonably -- no credit card debt carried outside of exceptional circumstances

And there were bumps along the way-- this is/was dependent on the success of my wife's business, which is not without risk.  There was a bankruptcy along the way (2005-2006) to get out of a very bad business situation, but our primary assets (home, retirement assets) were protected through that process, and that can vary greatly state to state.  That situation revealed itself pretty early on that it was going to be a bad deal, but we gave too much consideration to our sunk costs.

56... yeah... If I can retire at 56 (I turned 50 today) I'll be a happy man.  Right now, my goal is 60, but even that feels like a distant dream at times. 

RX Reven' said:

Although I work for a huge company, I'm the only person that does what I do which makes me feel like I have to stick around

That is their problem, not yours.  Use it to your advantage, until you feel like not doing that any more.

In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :

I could theoretically get out shortly before my 57th birthday, at the end of 2021.  That is about the time DW is planning to pull the ripcord (she is 18 months older than I am, so she'll be 58).  I may bail at the same time as she does, or maybe I'll stay on a little longer so we're not both making the switch at the same time.  But I would love to be out in 2 years or less, and it looks like I can be.

To those that are out or are planning on being out before 65, what's your situation with health insurance...provider, cost, quality?