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I left my corporate high paying job in 2016 one month before my 58th birthday. I'm 60 now. I was being pressured to leave by a new supervisor and the writing was on the wall. She started really targeting me in January, I left in June the day after some stock vested. I didn't even try to get another job. I was done with my career, she made me hate it.
Fortunately I had paid off my home in 2014 and had no liabilities. I have spent the past two years frequently traveling internationally and trying to "find" myself. I returned to school in 2017 to earn an ESOL Teaching Certificate. I am proud to say I am doing just fine, despite not having the multi-million amount I thought I needed to retire. My "non retirement" nest egg will allow me to live modestly and take 2 vacations a year until I take SS and retirement distributions in 7 years.
This year I have done 1. 3 week Tour of Europe 2. Caribbean cruise 3. 3 week Tour of Central America 4. Trip to Canada 5. Alaska Cruise 6. In December: Tour of Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore
Well, I'd say despite the last manager, you beat the bastards. Great job.
I outlast my previous manager who was the most selfish person I've ever met. Thank goodness that he never targeted me but I did watch him target many, many others and essentially, run them off.
My fear is that my current manager may be replaced by someone like you described and make my life miserable again. I'm working for the pure joy of it - and a paycheck - but I can pack it all in now if my work turns to misery. Even then, I'll give it back as hard as I can esp since I really have nothing to lose except maybe a bonus.
That's likely because "IT" is a very broad umbrella. If you're doing meatball IT somewhere like a regional hospital in Flyover USA, that's a job for life and an older workforce. It's repetitive task work that evolved from "computer operator" where people fed boxes of paper at the printer and made sure the nightly batch jobs ran. IT in Boston, NYC, or the Bay Area is often product development where you're paying north of $250K fully burdened cost for talent that does real development rather than backups, administering the servers, and doing help desk for morons who can't use their laptop PC. If you're a CFO in one of those places, there is huge incentive to get the most bang for your buck. Most people age out of being able to sustain the mental intensity to do product development into their 60s. Since everybody knows that, it's almost impossible to find work at 60+ unless you have specific expertise they can't find anywhere else.
I'm 60. I have zero shot at any job where I'm not a rare subject matter expert. If an employer is going to hire someone who needs to learn, they're going to hire the 30-year-old, not the 60-year-old. I'm now at the point in my career where I'm only sticking with companies for as long as they really need me. I have to assume I'll have a year of down time between any job and that the next job I land could vanish on short notice. I guess I could save face and say I'm semi-retired. I suppose I could take a job for 40 cents on the dollar but what's the point. I have enough of a retirement war chest that I don't need to do that.
Fair point, but I think the general pace of life comes into play also. I’ve known a few “product developers” here in the Bay Area who have moved to smaller Flyover metros once they approached 50.
They are doing the same type of work, but the pressures of having Stanford and Berkeley grads breathing down your neck is not there. The supply of talent just isn’t there....yet.
Fair point, but I think the general pace of life comes into play also. I’ve known a few “product developers” here in the Bay Area who have moved to smaller Flyover metros once they approached 50.
They are doing the same type of work, but the pressures of having Stanford and Berkeley grads breathing down your neck is not there. The supply of talent just isn’t there....yet.
I made a life choice like that though not moving to Flyover country. At age 50, I switched from metro-Boston high tech starting companies to telecommuting. I didn't have the energy level to work the long hours with all the pressure & responsibility. I lived the decade of my 50's in two vacation homes with as much business travel as my employers needed. Some years, I was traveling frequently. Other years, not very much. The problem with work like that is it can take a while to turn up your next job when something happens. At age 60, I'm working but it could vanish at any time.
Circling back to the topic of this thread, my retirement cash flow if I stopped working today is about half of what I've ever lived on. I'd be comfortable but in the long term, I couldn't maintain the lifestyle I've always lived and I'd have to cut some things. The more I work in my 60s, the closer I come to maintaining the lifestyle. It's really first world problems. I'm certainly financially independent now. When the job I have now inevitably ends, I'm going to be in that limbo again somewhere between unemployed, semi-retired, and retired. I've already spliced together enough things over the last couple of years where I'm fine if I never work again.
I was well prepared financially to retire at 58 and I'm glad I did. I'm selling off the rental properties now because I'm getting lazy in my old age (62 in January.) I was having a great retirement until I broke my arm and wrist ice skating in May. You never know what life is going to hit you with. I planned for early retirement and we worked hard for it. Now it's time to enjoy life. You never know how much time you have left and I sure didn't want to spend those years at work and drop dead as soon as I retire. There are way too many people out there living above their means and expecting to squeak by. Nobody owes you a job and everyone is replaceable. You have to plan for that.
The spouse was in his late 50s when the Fortune 50 company he worked for offered early retirement. He wasn't really ready to retire, but he could read the writing on the wall - a bunch of engineering projects wrapping up, no new projects being discussed - the next move was going to be a layoff, and with probably worse benefits. So he took early retirement and within a year the plant dropped from 4,000 employees to 600.
With the way health care worked out (poorly, the pre-Medicare retiree health insurance cost about twice what the early ACA programs were, although the ACA has climbed up to be on par), we could have used a few more years of full employment. We are certainly not hurting, although a vacation house in Europe or in Hawaii is not an option.
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Not forced to retire but the new boss made things too unstable to last -- I took the first off-ramp and never looked back. They offer a full pension to get rid of the "dead wood". That was at 52 and I found a 'dream job' part-time spot that kept me busy and happier than I had been the last five years of my professional career. My wife did the same thing. Financially, we were readier than I expected to be at that age but not wealthy. At this point (age 70) I'm more than comfortable, live where I want to live, and have more in the bank than when I started.
Were you ready financially to be forced to retire in your late 50s?
I knew that my employer [US Navy] was going to kick me out onto pension when I completed 20 years of Active Duty service. I knew this when I reached my 6 year anniversary in the Navy. So we focused our finances and investments toward that mark.
I reached 20 years with the US Navy when I was 42, and at that time I was financially 'ready' for retirement. At the same time as when the Navy booted me out and onto their pension.
That was 17 years ago. I am 59 now. I have been retired for 17 years.
We are roughly the same age. We could retire now, but plan to work for a few more years to build our dream house in the mountains.
It is interesting to note that in retirement you will be 90 miles apart from Dave and $850,000 in housing budget. I get the impression you are a good stock picker and therein lies the difference.
Dave will get to look at taller mountains so that's his consolation prize.
I am retiring, because I want too, in 4 months at 57. Financially ready, debt free, healthcare for life.
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