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20+ years Air Force AMMO....The only time we stood up was if it was a 0-4 or above or a visiting E-9 dignitary entered the room. For the E-9, it wasn't a "snap to attention thing." Being AMMO (Munitions Systems Technician), we did offer a beer to everyone whether we were on or off duty. IYAAYAS!!
Yes, I remember the ammo troops.
I think some of y'all are thinking way too deep into this. My goodness, dont yall even today stand up when you meet someone for the first time, for example - especially an older person?
And there was no standing at attention.
My boss was a 1st Lt and no way would I call him by his first name and not attempt to acknowledge him when he walked into my office by starting to rise out of my chair, but he would always tell me to keep my seat.
We called ourselves the chair force, but for the most part were polite.
But back to being scared, take t one day at a time.
With 45 years of experience behind me I am very good at what I do and, I am not attempting to sound arrogant it's just experience, I would put my abilities in the top 10% of those doing the same work.
It, I am speaking of work I do, is who I am and I am not willing to let go of the life I had so while I will slow up, I have the kind of job I can pick my own hours and work from home, I will continue to work. Maybe just one or two days a week but I will continue. It is just who I am.
I'm of the opinion that you never retire. You just change what you do each day.
You utilize the skills you've learned over your work career and apply them to your personal life. You don't sit around watching Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune.
You develop a 5 year plan, a 1 year plan, a quarterly plan and a monthly plan, complete with objectives, key results, and measurement criteria.
Your plans can be short term & tactical (repairing something that has been postponed) to medium term (lose 10 pounds this year) or longer term (travel to every continent over 5 years).
What scares me to death is that I will have no value to offer to the world.
There's no such thing. Everyone has value. Look at volunteering and find your niche. When you volunteer, those above you are not likely to be "bossy" given the fact that you can leave whenever you want.
Easing into retirement can be tricky for those of us who strongly identify with their careers, having put a lot of time and effort into achieving their goals and maintaining high-performance standards for decades. People who like what they do for a living are the ones at risk of getting depressed when they quit all of a sudden. Ideally, at some point, we should start working less and less, transitioning from full-time work to part-time commitment and then finally to just doing what you want to do while taking care of your general health. You need the right job or profession to be able to do this, though.
One of my grandfathers had had a series of meaningless jobs and a few failures as an entrepreneur when he was about 63. He retired on social security alone, planning to supplement his income by working part-time as a real estate assistant for a friend. He found out he was very good at it and he became a realtor and later a partner in his friend’s firm. When he was 71 he married his second wife who was 20 years his junior. At 83 he started slowing down his activities but he only fully retired when he was 86, looking better and younger than most men do at 70.
The other grandfather was a foreman at an energy plant. Without any education to speak of, he was smart and respected at work. Even young engineers would seek his advice on matters like equipment maintenance. At 62 he stopped working because he felt worn out and his health was worrying him. Retirement was hard on him at first, but then he took up painting as a hobby and enjoyed spending a lot of his free time with grandkids and his friends from work who had retired at the same time. He quit smoking and felt a lot better, moved with my grandma to a nearby coastal town and happily socialized with neighbors. For a very long time, he used to do his shopping mostly on foot, walking for miles every day and staying healthy.
My dad worked passionately as a geologist for different oil and gas companies until he was 69, enjoying substantial success in his field. Part-time work wasn’t really an option for him. Either 40-45 hours a week or nothing. He thought he didn’t want to work those hours any longer but then he realized he was wrong. He hasn’t really found anything else to fulfill his ambition. He loves his grandkids and spends time with them, but sometimes he gets really bored. Almost every time I speak with him he advises me not to retire ever.
I'm of the opinion that you never retire. You just change what you do each day.
You utilize the skills you've learned over your work career and apply them to your personal life. You don't sit around watching Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune.
You develop a 5 year plan, a 1 year plan, a quarterly plan and a monthly plan, complete with objectives, key results, and measurement criteria.
Your plans can be short term & tactical (repairing something that has been postponed) to medium term (lose 10 pounds this year) or longer term (travel to every continent over 5 years).
It is up to you.
I think this model is silly. But if it works for you, that's great. I think you're not retired yet, or are you?
If you're not retired at this point, I think you'll change your point of view. Just my opinion.
For most people, retirement is not like working.
Saying one never retires and just changes what one does every day seems pollyannish and putting a spin on retirement that does not apply to most people. (it depends, if you have a profession, for example, that allows you to stay involved in it part-time or as a consultant)
I suppose, if you find volunteer positions which take up the vast majority of your time, then your model might apply.
Last edited by matisse12; 04-17-2017 at 02:19 PM..
I'm 6 months POST retirement due to a RIF at work. I was 57 when they "retire separated" me, and have since turned 58. I had planned on working at least another two years, but we were bought out 100% by one of the former 50% owners, and then they cleaned (are still cleaning) house. Work was basically my identity and I'm still not 100% over that, but getting better every day. My wife still works.
You just have to keep BUSY doing something. I have some spinal issues, (my job since 2008 was a very good accommodation by my employer to keep me working at something I could handle) so I only have just so much energy to go around, and have to do things in spurts, then rest. I'm still doing things around the house and yard, and visiting a friend that become a paraplegic last year.
I'm very OCD, so tend to plan things obsessively until I have them perfected in my head, and then do them. I have lots of various interests I get "stuck on", so that can cover large timespans.
Just stay busy doing things you need to, and things you want to, and it'll all eventually work out.
You are not alone in your concerns about retirement. It is a major life transition, and it will take time. And most definitely it is not true that you will have no value to offer to the world. You will leave your work identity (although some people continue to practice their professions in a different form when they retire). You will find a new purpose that will provide meaning to your life.
I experienced the loss of professional identity when I retired, and I decided to study the topic of lifestyle in retirement to try to understand what was happening to me. I wound up with an encore career for the next eight years running programs and groups for people planning for retirement or recently retired. There is literature out there about managing this transition, although it isn't easy to find. My website Route to Retirement has a number of resources and blog posts that you will find useful.
Escort Rider's post partially explained my career involvement, except there was lots more to make my career take over my life.
#1 Fit me. I trained for years and years to gain the skills and knowledge and credentials needed for my career.
#2 Also fit me. My career was extremely challenging. I worked at the edge of state of the art and human accomplishment and tried to push upwards to higher levels.
In addition to being in a highly technical field and constantly pushing the limits, there was a lot more. For most of my career I was responsible for the output of a hundred or more employees. The HR issues and problems were constant but beyond that I took it seriously that I was at least partially responsible for the working lives of a large number of employees. In addition, I worked in healthcare where the results of our endeavors had a huge impact. Errors could kill. Reduction of errors was a constant issue in a highly complex operation. To emphasize the quality issue even more, I was the direct interface to the clients for all technical matters, including the resolution of errors. I also held the license and was legally accountable and subject to routine and unannounced regulatory inspections. Some of the errors involved human mistakes; others the limitations of computerized processes. I was responsible for the mistakes my employees made. I was also directly responsible for the computer algorithms that defined the reliability of the automated processes. I physically did the programming although I was never really a programmer. Finally my career was demanding of my time. My workday was typically at least 10 hours plus a 2 hour commute. In addition our facility operated 24 hours a day, everyday, holidays, disasters and snow emergencies included. I could be called at any hour and routinely needed to at least show my face on the midnight and weekend shifts.
I mention the above not because I am trying to brag. In fact I can readily admit that I made plenty of mistakes and did parts of my job poorly. I mentioned the basics of my career because when I came to retirement I was able to walk away clean. I did not look back, did not regret retiring, did not feel empty. I moved on to work on other endeavors and to learn and accomplish different goals. I highly recommend to have at least some roughed out advance plans and goals before retiring.
Jrkliny, I gotta take my hat off to you! ...and sort of half-heartedly think I should emulate you in more than just the Grand RV Tour of National Parks. Guilt rears its head.
I'm really going to have to work on that. My real and true aim is to reconnect with my Inner Slug. It will be an uneasy series of meetings. She has been shoved to the back of the closet. It will be a good day when we both inhabit the same skin again! I'm thinking that once that happens, THEN avocations and passions and such will begin surfacing.
At the moment, though, my idea of heaven would be to join a scholarly convent where the nuns spend most of the day in companionable silence, transcribing illuminated manuscripts on vellum with quill pens, exercising beautiful copperplate lettering (I'm willing to acknowledge the 18th Century technological improvements), with dogwalking in the adjacent National Park thrown in for exercise, with breaks every four hours or so to go sing something from the Thomas Tallis canon. OK, OK, I DO know that such places don't exist. However, except for the diseases and the intrigues and the poisonings and such, the Renaissance sounds like very interesting times. Hence the attraction of living behind stone walls in a compartmentalized environment.
But I AM going to do that National Parks tour! If I write a book about it, you will receive SCADS of credit for the inspiration! Also Stealth Rabbit! And whoever else I've read here who have shared ideas for destinations! Thanks, everybody!
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IYAAYAS!!
Your Route To Retirement
