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I am a retired executive who’s career was spent with a Fortune 200 company. Took a package at 62 after 37 years with them. I wasn’t home a month before my wife said “I married you for life not for lunch”. Hooked up with a world famous drug and alcohol rehab. I transport executives and celebrities in and out of the facility for treatment. An out of left field job that it seems I am good at. Been 4 years and hundreds of trips. Two sometimes three days a week but I call out for weeks at a time for travel. Best and most rewarding job I’ve ever had.
I worked seasonally for 2 years after I retired. It was full time for 6 months and then go play for 6 months. During the not working months all my time was my own. That is what retirement is about.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by caco54
I am a retired executive...my wife said “I married you for life not for lunch”. Hooked up with a world famous drug and alcohol rehab. I transport executives and celebrities in and out of the facility for treatment. An out of left field job that it seems I am good at. Been 4 years and hundreds of trips. Two sometimes three days a week but I call out for weeks at a time for travel. Best and most rewarding job I’ve ever had.
Are you a 'stealth pilot' and fly helicopters in and out under heavy fire? or Paparazzi?
That would be exciting!
Do you have a "James Bond Car?" That would be exciting too!
Dark glasses and a long cigarette?
I do find it ironic that some of the retirement jobs are so satisfying and rewarding. Wonder why we couldn't have found those earlier? (Guess we were working for $$$)
Some old timers working at the hardware store really love it. Also Airport shuttle drivers seem to like their flexibility and interesting people they meet. I need to work night shift if I have a job, so that limits things, but I do still enjoy driving semitrucks long distance on long snowy winter nights. (As I did 'pre-career' at age 17). Delivering new buses, firetrucks, and motorhomes would fit me well.
Volunteer at The Henry Ford.
Work as a Docent in Greenfield Village.
Edison Illuminating Co and hopefully my G-G-G-Grandfather's Saw Mull.
No pay obviously.
8-16 hours per week.
Opportunity to meet people and share knowledge about the way of life experienced by generations before me.
We're supposed to know what all of that is? maybe we do not feel like googling all of it to see exactly what you're referring to.
We do not live in Michigan, and wouldn't know exactly what all of it is - we can guess. probably a museum on first line - but why use shorthand when you're interested enough to post about it. And we're supposed to know what Greenfield Village is?
I'm "retired" from teaching. After taking five or six years off I started tutoring. I have students for 4-12 hours/week. I do it because I'm obsessed with helping people learn. I've no interest in going back to the classroom, as I don't like the "school-iness" of it.
I don't think I need the money, but I won't really know until I'm done with this life. Will I run out too soon? It looks okay now, but we don't know the future.
I did, until COVID-19. Technically I am still employed, and I've worked about one hour per month since April.
When I retired, I still had some debt, mostly related to getting my kid through college (the State of New York Retirement System sends me a check every month, so THEY consider me retired. If someone doesn't think I'm REALLY retired, take it up with them.)
I knew I'd have to find part-time work, but with no longer having to pay for health insurance and commuting costs, both of which were in excess of $400 a month, it seemed to make sense to take the pension and find part-time work and not have to commute almost four hours a day roundtrip.
I had a bit of panic about a month in, wondering if I could ever find a job. There was no reason to worry. Five weeks after retirement, an old boss, also retired and working elsewhere, called and asked if I could do some independent contractor work preparing a proposal for the engineering firm where he was. He knew I was a good writer and knew engineering terminology. While I did that, someone called me and asked me to work for their firm doing proposal preparation. The woman had met me at an industry event a year or two earlier worked for a firm that did special inspections for the private RE industry in NYC but wanted to break into the public sector and didn't know how to prepare proposals. I was on the receiving end of engineering proposals in my public job, so I knew what they needed.
While I was working for them, I ran into another man I'd known from my former life who owned a mid-size engineering firm. He asked me to work for him attending engineering industry events "because you know a lot of the people to whom we want to be introduced for teaming purposes and you are really tall so people remember you". Despite feeling somewhat disconcerted that my qualifications after 37 years of professional life boiled down to "you know a lot of people and you are really tall", the money was good and the location was more convenient, so I went there.
Now, of course, I haven't worked because the job involved going into rooms full of hundreds of people, dining with strangers, shaking hands and exchanging business cards, and having close-in conversations about who is teaming with whom for which project--a coronavirus's dream. But I paid off all the debt and then used further earnings to making renovations in my condo. I just turned 62, so if this it, I'm good. However, I know I could work in the future if need be, because I know a lot of people, and I'm really tall.
After retiring from my government job, I worked part-time at the library for 2 years. It was 20-29 hours a week. As a grandfathered OPERS employee, I neither paid into Medicare, nor received Medicare credits. Since I had 35 credits from other jobs, I wanted to earn the 5 additional credits in case OPERS decided to stop paying Medicare A for grandfathered employees. I earned 12 Medicare credits and was able to contribute $13,500 to my Roth IRA, since I had earned income.
After leaving the library, I wondered if I should have stayed at my job for 36 years, instead of the 34.75 years I stayed. I had wanted to give myself time to find a part-time job and earn the Medicare credits before I turned 65 in February 2021. As it turned out, I made the correct decision. Who would have predicted that a pandemic would shut down the whole world's economy? I think the library has laid off all of their part-time staff. I really feel for the people who needed that work in order to make ends meet.
lawn mowing, edging, racking leaves, painting, planting, master dog poop picker upper ( 3 labs ), dog walker, pre school learning toy maker ( daughter teaches pre school so she's always got me making thing for her class)
i find that most days i say where did the time go today?
Isn't the whole point of retirement NOT to have a job?
I agree! If you don't have enough money in your retirement years, then you shouldn't have retired yet. The retirement jobs usually pay a small fraction of what you used to make working, plus there are no benefits. If you have a pension, the pension would have gotten larger if you kept working longer. I could have worked longer, but I had enough with working, I saved more than enough, and I wanted my freedom.
If you're bored with your life, and you seem to have too much time on your hands, why don't you get hobbies and interests? If working is all you can imagine doing, then you don't have much of a life. In government and corporate environments, it was mostly doing repetitive things, following brain dead policies developed by incompetent upper management, and going to endless and pointless meetings, that usually were a total waste of time.
I think working is just something you did to make and save enough money, so that you don't have to work again. Your retirement years should be like an endless vacation, where you can do what you want to do, when you want to do it. It's total freedom, if you saved enough to retire. if you wait too long to retire, and your health is shot, then you've thrown away your good retirement years.
After you retire, you don't have to answer to a stupid boss, try to pry vacation time that you've already earned out of your boss's hands, and put up with the office politics. The hassles of the daily commute to and from work are gone. Your alarm clock is rarely used, except for early flights and early doctor appointments. Why would you want to give up the freedom you have in your retirement years, unless you retired too early, and didn't save enough money to retire comfortably?
I agree! If you don't have enough money in your retirement years, then you shouldn't have retired yet. The retirement jobs usually pay a small fraction of what you used to make working, plus there are no benefits. If you have a pension, the pension would have gotten larger if you kept working longer. I could have worked longer, but I had enough with working, I saved more than enough, and I wanted my freedom.
If you're bored with your life, and you seem to have too much time on your hands, why don't you get hobbies and interests? If working is all you can imagine doing, then you don't have much of a life. In government and corporate environments, it was mostly doing repetitive things, following brain dead policies developed by incompetent upper management, and going to endless and pointless meetings, that usually were a total waste of time.
I think working is just something you did to make and save enough money, so that you don't have to work again. Your retirement years should be like an endless vacation, where you can do what you want to do, when you want to do it. It's total freedom, if you saved enough to retire. if you wait too long to retire, and your health is shot, then you've thrown away your good retirement years.
After you retire, you don't have to answer to a stupid boss, try to pry vacation time that you've already earned out of your boss's hands, and put up with the office politics. The hassles of the daily commute to and from work are gone. Your alarm clock is rarely used, except for early flights and early doctor appointments. Why would you want to give up the freedom you have in your retirement years, unless you retired too early, and didn't save enough money to retire comfortably?
I will say that this post explains a lot about your previous posts, though I applaud your candor.
Work is really meant to make this world a more enjoyable place to live. That is why we pick up garbage, why we have companies like Google/Alphabet, why we have assisted living centers. Work is only toil and unnerving stress and 50-60 hours a week because of the greed and competitiveness of people trying to 'build their nest egg'. But I digress, I could go on forever on THAT subject.
If you contribute to society you should get paid. Your idea that senior citizens should not work basically says to me that they cannot contribute to society. I find that to be laughable. Senior citizens may not be able to 'get' jobs that can help them contribute which is a problem.
But even putting aside an idealistic overhaul of society, let's take a job like working at Home Depot or Lowes. It's generally not too stressful, you get to help customers, and you're making society a better place. You're giving people a service they want at a price they are generally willing to pay and helping society hum along.
When I drive around, walk around, I can think of lots of jobs that would be enjoyable to do if I was a senior citizen.
I'd add that almost every book you read on the art of 'happiness' recommends never 'retiring'.
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