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My Dad was demoted from his job running the Chicago plant of a major US steel company when he was 58. He and Mom had saved all their lives (and put all 5 of us through college). Mom and Dad took stock of the situation, sold the house, bought one for cash in Myrtle Beach and Dad tried a second career as a financial advisor (he'd been investing for years). He did a ridiculous amount of cold-calling, had bankers snatch business out from under him after Dad explained investment products to people and they tried to withdraw the money when their CDs came up and was disillusioned to find that the firm he'd joined was just as bad as the others in pushing brokers to sell certain products. He retired for good and he and Mom golfed and played cards and were active in their church. It was a good life. Mom died 2 years ago and Dad is in a good Assisted Living facility near one of my brothers.
It was a lesson I never forgot. At age 61, politics got toxic in my job even though I loved the work and most of the people. I'd been over the numbers multiple times and one week elapsed between calling my husband on a Friday and saying, "I think I'm going to quit my job on Monday" and my last day in the office. That was mid-2014. Life is good.
Siblings: brother, age 64, still working as an executive in various cost accounting jobs- he's been in maybe 3 over the last 10 years. Despite a happy marriage and a granddaughter nearby I think he doesn't want to give up work because he identifies with it. Sister age 63, a doctor (OB/Gyn) who enjoys her hospitalist job. Probably could quit from a financial point of view. Brother age 62 who left a mechanical engineering job at age 59- good pension, they'd saved a lot and lived frugally and he was sick of the politics. He sails his boat and is a gifted woodworker. Youngest brother, hotshot CPA tax partner in a large (not Big 5) firm, age 59, Dad thinks he may be pulling in $1 million/year. He just bought a Tesla and it's his new toy. He says this is his last tax season. He loves it but he's tired of it.
So- a mix of people who threw in the towel early and people still working because they want to, not because they have to. Only Dad and I were truly forced out and we were ready.
I lost my job in 2008 when I was 51 and I was no way prepared for that. I spent the next couple of years on unemployment and food stamps while working my way through my savings till those were gone. I must have applied for hundreds and hundreds of jobs, but people weren't hiring then.
Naturally, as soon as things began to pick up, I took a hard fall down a flight of stairs and really screwed my back up. It wasn't that bad at first, but got progressively worse as time went on. Six years ago I was still looking for jobs even with all the pain I had. A friend saw how much pain I was in and convinced me to apply for disability, which I did. That was finally approved last year.
I really didn't want to go on disability, but now I'm glad I did. I can barely stand and can't sit up straight for more than half an hour without needing to lie down. If I don't watch myself, I end up hunching over when I sit for more than 30 minutes and that makes it even worse.
Anyway, I've accepted that I'm not going to work again and I'll be living on SSDI until my full retirement age and then I'll be living on that. I guess the best I can hope for is I'll croak before I have to go into the old folks' home.
My second oldest brother had to retire a couple years before he really wanted to at 61 because his diabetes was taking a toll on his vision and, although he felt he could have continued, his company put him on disability because they were worried about the liability if he had an accident at work. I think they thought they were doing him a favor. Financially he was almost ready, but not quite. He was in the middle of building his dream home (actually physically building it himself), and was cash-flowing it. He unfortunately was still paying alimony to his first wife too. It was tight for a couple of years. They sold their previous home moved into a travel trailer on the property where he was building and worked on the house full-time. His wife retired too, and she gets a pension and medical from her previous employer. Surgery has restored a good portion of his vision. He switched to SS from disability and he's trying to get his alimony reduced, due to his lowered income.
My oldest brother retired around age 55 because the company had been cutting his department (payphones) to a skeleton staff and he was the supervisor of almost no one, so he retired before they could lay him off. He had finished his retirement dream home and was all ready financially with a pension, insurance, and investments. I think he would have liked to work longer, but he could read the writing on the wall. He had 2 heart attacks in his early 50's and needed to de-stress.
I retired at 51. I hadn't planned on it so soon, but I was very stressed at work and not sleeping. I'd been running the numbers over and over. I saw that it was possible if we move to a lower COL location. My hubby was dissatisfied at work, he was 56, and I showed him how it could work. He jumped ship from his job when I showed him that he would make as much staying home on his pension as he was bringing home working. That was a real no-brainer! I retired a few months later, even though we knew we couldn't sell the house until the market turned around. I had faith it would work. We moved his mom in with us and she paid us a portion of her SS and pension as rent, so we made ends meet until we moved to our happy place. We're so glad that we did what we did. Life is good.
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
I posted the article about the IT director killing himself in NYC. I also work in IT, but not at a tech company.
I work on an immediate team of six. I'm the only one on this team under 50. One is over 60. Two others might be. My manager and director are both in their 50s. One person on another team under my manager is 65. One person on another team under my manager is probably also in his 30s, and there is a 23 year old guy in an administrative type position under my new manager. He's probably the youngest in the building. There are some more in their 20s/30s in the building, but they are by no means the majority. I'd say the average worker here is at least 45. Most of the recent hires that I'm aware of were all at least 40.
My last employer was a bank in Indiana. I was the only IT member there under 45 when I was hired in. The employer before that was a Boston-based tech company. That company was basically everyone in my division under 40, with at least 50% foreign staff, mostly Chinese and Indian. That place fit the IT model to a "T."
One thing I've noticed in the "put out to pasture in your 50s in IT" deal is that most of the people being sent packing are people in the most significant and prestigious cities - NYC, Silicon Valley, Boston, that type of thing. At least from my experience, and I've worked at offices in Indiana, Iowa, and Tennessee across a variety of industries, all but one of which were "not tech employers," older workers are not getting the boot as badly in smaller metros.
One thing I've noticed in the "put out to pasture in your 50s in IT" deal is that most of the people being sent packing are people in the most significant and prestigious cities - NYC, Silicon Valley, Boston, that type of thing. At least from my experience, and I've worked at offices in Indiana, Iowa, and Tennessee across a variety of industries, all but one of which were "not tech employers," older workers are not getting the boot as badly in smaller metros.
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.
I posted the article about the IT director killing himself in NYC. I also work in IT, but not at a tech company.
I work on an immediate team of six. I'm the only one on this team under 50. One is over 60. Two others might be. My manager and director are both in their 50s. One person on another team under my manager is 65. One person on another team under my manager is probably also in his 30s, and there is a 23 year old guy in an administrative type position under my new manager. He's probably the youngest in the building. There are some more in their 20s/30s in the building, but they are by no means the majority. I'd say the average worker here is at least 45. Most of the recent hires that I'm aware of were all at least 40.
My last employer was a bank in Indiana. I was the only IT member there under 45 when I was hired in. The employer before that was a Boston-based tech company. That company was basically everyone in my division under 40, with at least 50% foreign staff, mostly Chinese and Indian. That place fit the IT model to a "T."
One thing I've noticed in the "put out to pasture in your 50s in IT" deal is that most of the people being sent packing are people in the most significant and prestigious cities - NYC, Silicon Valley, Boston, that type of thing. At least from my experience, and I've worked at offices in Indiana, Iowa, and Tennessee across a variety of industries, all but one of which were "not tech employers," older workers are not getting the boot as badly in smaller metros.
You nailed it.
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