After the positive responses and congratulations on my Retirement thread, the idea came to me that there should be a thread that helps everyone prepare for the eventuality of retirement.
There were many great ideas, comments and great suggestions that came out of the conversation. What I would like to do is put this here as a repository for information for anyone who is:
Ready to retire
Close to retirement
Beginning to plan for retirement
One of the things I came to find out is that no matter how much I had thought I was prepared for retirement, there were still things I had not pondered or prepared for.
So this thread is for all your questions, comments, advice to help others that are close to retirement.
I mean....this board is about a year and a half away from being around for a quarter of a century, and many of us who have been around are there already.
Originally Posted by TrebMaxx:
I just submitted my papers. One month and 7 days to go.
Bravo! I spent my retirement day, pressure washing my fence then chilled with a few grand kids. You just can't beat retired life. Good luck to you. [Reply]
Quick serious comment that has not been addressed yet, but I feel the need to bring up to all of us.
On Tuesday I went to lunch with a local buddy of mine who retired about a year ago. I thought it a bit odd that he would just call me out of the blue and ask to have lunch, but I thought maybe he was trying to get started again on our regular lunch meets we used to have.
I could tell by looking at him something was wrong....he didn't have his normal jovial persona and his face looked worn.
Long story short...he is struggling mentally with his self worth and his place now that he is retired. He feels like he is no longer contributing positively like he did when he was working....for some reason a job and a paycheck was his emotional identity and after a year of doing, as he put it, "selfish things only for me", he had gotten down on himself.
I listened....just talked when he needed me to. Man did stuff come out that I could tell he needed to vent. Then I took him to meet the Counselor from our church and introduce them to each other. Our guy handed him his card and said...."when you need to talk, call me." Nothing more...just his way of saying come talk to me when you need to. (Our church has many people my age who are in retirement or getting there and developed an outreach program just for that group)
To sum up...if you have friends you see that are struggling like mine was, make sure to keep in touch with them. We will all eventually have times that we struggle in retirement and it's no shame to admit it. [Reply]
My memory loss has gotten a lot worse the last couple of months and I had to to give up control of Arrowhead Kingdom. I'm making mistakes that I have no idea why I did that. I've got a great leadership crew to take over. They'll take it places I never could of. So it looks like it will survive post BRC.
That's the first time I've really felt "old". I figured I could spend more time on our international surge in retirement. Alas, it was not to be.
I am loving retirement though. I enjoyed my work but it was stressful. Don't miss it yet. [Reply]
Welp! I have 5 more working days left. Trying to avoid any new projects but my boss keeps bringing me in on meetings for FY-25 budget items. I don't think he realizes my "giveashitter" is broken and I don't care what they do. Time has flown by these past few months but I imagine this last week will drag on. [Reply]
Originally Posted by TrebMaxx:
Welp! I have 5 more working days left. Trying to avoid any new projects but my boss keeps bringing me in on meetings for FY-25 budget items. I don't think he realizes my "giveashitter" is broken and I don't care what they do. Time has flown by these past few months but I imagine this last week will drag on.
I gave just over 10 weeks notice, and my boss and I sat down and worked out a strategy for which of my subordinate the directors would act for me during those remaining weeks (with me there) to prepare for acting for me when I was actually retired. That worked out very well, for the week(s) each acted they attended all my meetings with me, pretty-much as me, and we learned what details I needed to provide all of them in order to take over. Unlive previous years when they'd "bridge the gap" while I was on diving vacations, this was going to be a lot more real, so it was helpful. I was blessed by having hired super-awesome folks and in turn they hired a really awesome leadership chain under them. But yeah, sometimes it's not the best idea to have the outgoing person in on budget meetings for the next fiscal year...
Enjoy your last week, you're going to smile a lot.. [Reply]
I guess I'm lucky in that I had a bunch of other things going on in my life. Work never defined me - it was something I did so I could afford to do other stuff.
I remember meeting my last team lead a couple of years ago. He brought me down for lunch and explained who he was and what his plans were for the team writ large and what he intended to do to help each member of the team advance in their careers.
I stopped him after a bit and said, "John, my only goal at (Company) is to get to retirement in a couple of years. I have no aspirations at being a manager - my last job in the Army had me leading 84 soldiers in 53 separate offices and answering to six different officers at one time or another. I want interesting work, regular hours, and to be left alone to do my job. I don't want a promotion, am not seeking a promotion, and would probably turn down said promotion. So, does that help?"
He looked at me, smiled, and said, "So, how do you feel about football?" It was a very pleasant lunch after that. *grin*
Originally Posted by Mosbonian:
Quick serious comment that has not been addressed yet, but I feel the need to bring up to all of us.
On Tuesday I went to lunch with a local buddy of mine who retired about a year ago. I thought it a bit odd that he would just call me out of the blue and ask to have lunch, but I thought maybe he was trying to get started again on our regular lunch meets we used to have.
I could tell by looking at him something was wrong....he didn't have his normal jovial persona and his face looked worn.
Long story short...he is struggling mentally with his self worth and his place now that he is retired. He feels like he is no longer contributing positively like he did when he was working....for some reason a job and a paycheck was his emotional identity and after a year of doing, as he put it, "selfish things only for me", he had gotten down on himself.
I listened....just talked when he needed me to. Man did stuff come out that I could tell he needed to vent. Then I took him to meet the Counselor from our church and introduce them to each other. Our guy handed him his card and said...."when you need to talk, call me." Nothing more...just his way of saying come talk to me when you need to. (Our church has many people my age who are in retirement or getting there and developed an outreach program just for that group)
To sum up...if you have friends you see that are struggling like mine was, make sure to keep in touch with them. We will all eventually have times that we struggle in retirement and it's no shame to admit it.
Originally Posted by TrebMaxx:
Welp! I have 5 more working days left. Trying to avoid any new projects but my boss keeps bringing me in on meetings for FY-25 budget items. I don't think he realizes my "giveashitter" is broken and I don't care what they do. Time has flown by these past few months but I imagine this last week will drag on.
Congratulations! Enjoy your retirement! Do you have any hobbies? Plans for your new free time?
We have been retired now for just over a decade and I have the same as or more than a full time job keeping up with my hobbies and property maintenance.
When we retired in 2014, I would have never believed that I would have to pay $10.50 for 5 peaches or $950 for 6 months of car insurance. [Reply]
I'm down to seven working days. This is working out well for me because the company I work for, well contracting with, was purchased and is being dissolved. Our IT department is winding down and we just sit around waiting for them to turn out the lights.
Have started looking into Medicare and am shocked at how much this costs the average person. My dentist and eye care centers do not take any Medicare at all so I will need to find a new one. Been going to them for over thirty years...
I'm a little bit nervous about the whole thing because I've spent my entire working life defining myself as what I can do for the job and now that's going to be gone.
Lots of changes in IT; from punched cards to 'the cloud'. Seen the rise of the PC and the fall of the mainframe. Been an interesting ride and I'm glad I'm going to be out of IT. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Misplaced_Chiefs_Fan:
I guess I'm lucky in that I had a bunch of other things going on in my life. Work never defined me - it was something I did so I could afford to do other stuff.
I remember meeting my last team lead a couple of years ago. He brought me down for lunch and explained who he was and what his plans were for the team writ large and what he intended to do to help each member of the team advance in their careers.
I stopped him after a bit and said, "John, my only goal at (Company) is to get to retirement in a couple of years. I have no aspirations at being a manager - my last job in the Army had me leading 84 soldiers in 53 separate offices and answering to six different officers at one time or another. I want interesting work, regular hours, and to be left alone to do my job. I don't want a promotion, am not seeking a promotion, and would probably turn down said promotion. So, does that help?"
He looked at me, smiled, and said, "So, how do you feel about football?" It was a very pleasant lunch after that. *grin*
I'll be honest, I had staff members who were exactly like you and they were some of the most productive and easy people to have on staff. I was in network engineering so it was actually very nice having staff who just wanted to engineer and/or troubleshoot networking issues, but weren't jockeying for the next supervisory job. So my hats off to you for being the dude who made it clear that you were happy where you were and got on to talking football. [Reply]
Originally Posted by crayzkirk:
I'm down to seven working days. This is working out well for me because the company I work for, well contracting with, was purchased and is being dissolved. Our IT department is winding down and we just sit around waiting for them to turn out the lights.
Have started looking into Medicare and am shocked at how much this costs the average person. My dentist and eye care centers do not take any Medicare at all so I will need to find a new one. Been going to them for over thirty years...
I'm a little bit nervous about the whole thing because I've spent my entire working life defining myself as what I can do for the job and now that's going to be gone.
Lots of changes in IT; from punched cards to 'the cloud'. Seen the rise of the PC and the fall of the mainframe. Been an interesting ride and I'm glad I'm going to be out of IT.
100% agree, IT has gone from being an interesting and rewarding career to one where you get all the blame, a slashed budget and it's a legalized sweatshop. Like you won't, I don't miss it at all.
That said, I hope you developed a hobby during your years in IT. IMO, a hobby is almost a requirement for IT people to decompress during those brief times when you aren't living the job day and night because few successful IT workers have any semblance of a 9-5 job anymore. I am, and always have been, a SCUBA junkie and part of not missing my IT job is that the IT job has allowed me to retire very nicely and live my passion of teaching diving and frequently traveling for diving. Granted on many of my trips I'm "working", but it's hardly work for me. I hope you have a hobby that you're very passionate about, and do it a lot after seven more working days.
A bit of advice.... Plan an awesome trip soon... It's the best way to break into retirement and forget what you just left.. Three days after I retired I spent a week in Roatan diving, it was awesome beyond words... I was a retiree... [Reply]
