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There seems to be 4 categories of retirees, or soon to be retired:
1) those who couldn't ( Can't) wait to get out of the rat race and being a slave to a time clock
2) those who will drop dead while working
3) those who thoroughly enjoy their retirement And would never do another lick of work
4) those who are retired but still keep something "in the game " and work part time during retirement.
So, regardless of which category you are in, what did you thoroughly ENJOY about working? And which category are you in?
Im a 4. I was early medically retired at age 40. But after 13 years I returned to work part time, as that's about all I can handle. I returned for all of these reasons: I was bored, finances, something "productive" to do, and to some degree loneliness.
I'm currently a hotel front desk clerk, and after a career dabbling in retail, cooking in restaurants, administrative assistant, and now this job, I can say I ENJOY the human interaction. In my positions it is possible to "make someone's day. That could by helping them to find exactly what they are looking for to buy, cooking a meal they thoroughly enjoyed, or giving them a pleasant overnight stay. Naturally I don't do all this alone, my co-workers help with what becomes their ultimate satisfaction, too. My job isn't a lucrative one, but it doesn't need to be to meet my goals.
As a hotel front desk clerk, I've had the privilege of chatting with people literally from all over the country and the world. FOR world travelers, a language barrier can force me to think outside the box, pay close attention to their questions and statements in order to communicate effectively, which I find both interesting and stimulating. I know a little of several languages, as I guess you could say I'm an amateur linguist. It can be of help or hindrance when on the spot, and my mind goes blank on the language in question.
Too many complain of the daily grind, the commute, the hours, but no one expresses what they LIKE(D) about work.
But when I did work, there were periods when I thoroughly enjoyed it. Mostly when I worked with a group of intelligent people -- that made work enjoyable, gave me many opportunities to learn from them, and made for stimulating non-work-related conversation.
I enjoy what I do so I continue to do it on a part-time basis. For me, work has always been enjoyable. Each consulting job and client brings a new challenge that shakes up the old grey matter and gets the adrenaline going! A traditional retirement would be too stressful for me. We each have our preferences.
Working nights in a psychiatric hospital full of very smart people, I have much enjoyed the non-work conversations that we often have opportunity to discuss. Because of the low numbers of staff and the always-possible psychiatric and medical emergencies, there is a lot of camaraderie, without which the job would be awful. I have co-workers from all over the world and that makes for a real feeling of diversity and almost like traveling without the annoyances of travel!
I am glad that my labors are in the ballpark of improving the world in some small way and therefore is not meaningless.
But I am ready to put it down. Eighty-three more days.
There seems to be 4 categories of retirees, or soon to be retired:
1) those who couldn't ( Can't) wait to get out of the rat race and being a slave to a time clock
2) those who will drop dead while working
3) those who thoroughly enjoy their retirement And would never do another lick of work
4) those who are retired but still keep something "in the game " and work part time during retirement.
So, regardless of which category you are in, what did you thoroughly ENJOY about working? And which category are you in?
...
I thoroughly enjoyed my employment. Could not have had a more exciting career. Worked 34 years for NASA conducting a variety of research projects, primarily the application of satellite imagery to the study of the earth's renewable and non-renewable resources. Then, later on, I commanded, monitored, controlled, and basically kept running two environmental instruments on different earth-orbiting satellites.
Beside the excitement of the work, I feel that it contributed to a greater understanding of our home planet and its ecosystems. I see that as important, worth-while work. There was an element of travel, both domestic and international, which was "nice".
I do not fit into any of your four categories. I liked my work, and would gladly do it some more. However, I moved to an area where that is not possible, (as I look out the front-room window at the gently falling snow). The only reason I retired is that I had my fill of the very long commute. Even though it was an 'easy' commute 'over the mountain', it still took three hours out of a day. I had enough of that, (and "No!", I was not willing to move closer to my employer; due to various reasons which are outside the scope of this thread).
There seems to be 4 categories of retirees, or soon to be retired:
1) those who couldn't ( Can't) wait to get out of the rat race and being a slave to a time clock
2) those who will drop dead while working
3) those who thoroughly enjoy their retirement And would never do another lick of work
4) those who are retired but still keep something "in the game " and work part time during retirement.
So, regardless of which category you are in, what did you thoroughly ENJOY about working? And which category are you in?
...So what do or did you ENJOY about working?
I'm a cross between #1 & #4. Let me explain...
By pure happenstance, about four years ago I found myself in a role which perfectly matched the meandering path my career has taken over pretty much my entire professional working life.
Meaning, in order to successfully fulfill the role I'm in, whoever is in this role absolutely needs to have certain background knowledge, which is only possible by spending 2-3 years in about a half-dozen different jobs (some of which no longer exist in San Diego (where I'm at), but are solely located on the East coast).
What does this mean? I've never been so busy in my working life, but because of the vast storehouse of kowledge I happen to have, I can practically do this job in my sleep. Anyone else attempting to do it would be woefully unprepared for about 80% of it (depending on his or her background, that 80% would be in different areas).
I'm also getting a bit tired of working full time, and am looking forward to retirement in just under four years from now. Knowing that my presence will absolutely be required if they want whoever backfills me to succeed, I am more than willing to come back part time to mentor whoever that is (at an exorbitant rate of pay, of course). They can take it or leave it - no skin off my nose either way - but if I'm NOT there to help the new guy or gal, things will start falling apart rather quickly...
It seems contradictory but I could have chosen either 2 or 3 since I enjoy both working and retirement.
If I was single with no kids, it's likely that I would have continued working until the day that I drop dead.
The main reason to retire was to spend more time and to do more things with my husband why we both still healthy/able or to take care of him if he was down again with his back injury.
Since my retirement less than two years ago, we have enjoyed a number of long international/cross country trips as well as almost daily hiking, birding trips and weekly flights in our little plane. I wished that bad things had not happened but my husband's sciatica came back again last Christmas. His injury along with illness of our dog, house maintenance/repairs issue kept me busy most of this spring and summer. We had a break with an almost perfect 18-days trip to France if it wasn't for the terrible news of our daughter's cancer while we were still abroad.
In less than two weeks coming back to NY, we traveled again to Boise (in spite of the return of my husband's sciatica) so that we could be with our daughter during her chemo's treatment.
I am very glad to be retired and able to devote my free time to take care of my family. If I was still working, I'd definitely have to take a leave of absence and quite torn about not being to do my job.
Back to the OP's question about what did I enjoy about my work, I could list many things. To me, it was not 'work'. It was the way that I lived, my vocation. I derived tremendous satisfaction and pride from what I did or accomplished. I was able to utilize my education, my training and had opportunities to continue learning and discovering new things. I enjoyed analyzing problems, identifying root causes and finding solutions.
I also enjoyed working in a team. I was very lucky to work with many intelligent and hardworking people, engineers and technicians who took pride in their work. Of course, there were few 'bad' eggs but they were the exceptions. I was also very lucky to have either good or great bosses. In all my working life of 5 jobs, I only had to endure two bad managers and both only lasted for short times (one 3 months and one 1 year).
As much as I love what I did and still have a twinge of regret, a moment of nostalgia every time that I get a notification from ResearchGate of a publication citation or a read/cite milestone, I do not plan to return to work. It was not easy to abandon a technical career, to no longer utilize my training, knowledge and years of experience. However, I would not want to resume my career even on a part time, consulting basis. It's my nature and habit to be dedicated to what I do. While I was working, my work, my project, the problems which I had to solve etc. were always in the back of my mind. I used to have many sudden 'aha' moments in the middle of the night, woke up with a solution, a plan which no doubts was hatching in my dream state!
So for me, it is either work or retirement and not both. I like them both but will dilute or spoil each enjoyment if I mix them together. Work was an enjoyable phase of my life. I am now in my retirement phase. I enjoy being retired in spite of the recent life challenges. These challenges would have been much tougher to handle if I was still working.
I was glad to retire after 30+ years of doing shift work. I couldn't wait to go to bed and get up on my own schedule and to finally have nights, weekends and holidays off to spend time with family and friends that I rarely saw when I was working. If I wanted to go to a party or other event, I would almost always have to burn a vacation day or take an unpaid day off. That gets old.
On the other hand, I loved my job. I was a TV studio technician, doing everything from camera work to video playback, graphics and audio. Live TV was stressful, but it was also incredibly exciting. When we were on our game and everything went perfectly on the air, it was such an exhilarating feeling. I miss that.
I also miss my co-workers (some more than others, I'll admit ). We had camaraderie. There were a lot of laughs in the control room along with the stress, and I met some really interesting people, including a few celebrities and the man who has been my husband for 31 years.
On the whole, though, I am delighted to be retired and consider this to be the best time of my life. I have never been happier. I have financial and emotional security, a paid-for home, and my time is all my own to do whatever I please. I love it, I feel incredibly fortunate, and I wouldn't go back for anything.
I think a lot of people would work longer if there could be a transition to a shorter week. If I could get a 3 or 4 day work week somehow, I might work until I am 70. I look forward to retirement to have more free time to do things. 2 days off a week just doesn't cut it sometimes.
People are thinking, why not retire and work part time. The problem is, flexible part time jobs are hard to find and most aren't that enjoyable or don't pay that much to be worthwhile.
I'm retired but, due to medical problems, my wife cannot travel. She can't tolerate sitting for more than about 1 hour. It really limits the things we can do.
Sometimes, I get bored. My mind never stops and I love solving problems. I worked in engineering and I really loved the challenge of solving technical puzzles. For me, it was never work. Most of the time, I couldn't believe they were actually paying me to have so much fun.
My company called a few weeks ago and asked me if I'd be willing to return part time. They really need my help and they have both offered an incredible wage and given me great flexibility in choosing hours. So I'll start back on Monday.
Companies can benefit by letting retirees return part time. Much of that time can be used to train the next generation. I think my company is learning this the hard way. They are having a difficult time with the new recruits. There is way too much to learn.
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). We had camaraderie. There were a lot of laughs in the control room along with the stress, and I met some really interesting people, including a few celebrities and the man who has been my husband for 31 years.
