A little over three years from now, I will be retiring from my career with 30 years of service to the library where I have worked for the past 27 years. I know how fast that time will go, as it's hard to believe that the year 2010 is over half way gone now. Summers in particular seem to fly by so quickly that one minute it's Memorial Day and the next thing you know, it's Labor Day and Back-To-School time. So I know that time can whiz by very quickly. That being the case, I know that my retirement day is going to come up very fast and I'm already feeling somewhat anxious about this whole thing. I'm excited about the prospect of being able to go places and do things that right now, I haven't got the vacation time available to do. We're short handed at work due to a 10% staff downsizing and that's likely to remain the case for the long term as this Great Recession drags on with no real recovery in sight. So I'm no longer allowed to take more than one week of vacation at a time, and in particular, it gets difficult to secure vacation time in the summer when just about the entire staff wants the same weeks off that I do. Only in my case, I can't reschedule when the events I travel to on vacation take place. I have to go when they occur. And unfortunately, that means that someone's going to lose out because rather than parcel out vacation by seniority (which is how it used to be done), now vacations at work are parcelled out on a first come, first served basis, meaning you'd better get your vacation requests for the year in on the first working day back to work after New Year's Day each year. Otherwise, there's no guarantee that you'll get your desired vacation dates. It sucks, but there it is. My vacation requests receive the same consideration as the most junior co-worker who's only been there a short time. When I was a junior staffer so long ago, I sacrificed my desired vacations so that the senior staff could have theirs, and I figured, I'll wait my turn so that when I've been around a while, I will get the same consideration for my years of service. No more. Everyone's on a level playing field now, regardless of seniority, and it somehow feels unfair that I can't get my desired time off after so many years on the job if I don't get in my request as early as possible after New Year's Day. Well, once I retire, I will no longer have to concern myself with that. I can do what I want to do, go where I want to go and stay as long as I want without having to worry about putting out a boss who's trying to keep a department staffed in the busy summer months when everyone wants to go on vacation.
My biggest fear is that I will get totally bored very quickly and regret my decision to retire. I really love having access to so many good books, movies and CDs. Through my job, I've been very fortunate to have been exposed to some wonderful authors who I might never have heard of had I not worked in a library. I've had a wonderful opportunity to foster my interests, which are vast and many. I've met so many wonderful people, gotten to travel to interesting places throughout Summit County on our vehicles, learned more than I ever did during my four years in college, and become a better person as a result of my years of working there. But by the same token, with our downsizing and the recent catastrophic illnesses on the part of several co-workers, I've had to take on a far heavier workload than I ever anticipated. Part of me doesn't mind this. Honestly, I'd rather be busy than bored. It just means having to prioritize my work and decide what needs to be done now and what can wait until later. I have to meticulously plan each day and hope that when I get to work, some monkey wrench hasn't been thrown into the works to screw up my day, like an unexpected call off or something. But overall, I have no complaints about my job other than the fact that I'd very much like to be able to take more time off than one week at a time. I'm just afraid that permanent time off, as in, retirement, is going to be both boring as hell and financially difficult to manage as I struggle to get by on two thirds of my salary. Things aren't getting any cheaper and I know that I'm going to have to live far more frugally than I do now. The good thing is that my car should be paid off by then, freeing up a big chunk of income by then. Still, I do worry about things like finances, boredom, having to go back to work again and lose time off that I want to travel, particularly in summer when everyone else has the same thing in mind and having decent health insurance as I grow older. I'm not Medicare eligible for another 12 years. That's a long wait to have to suffer under what may be a really bad private retiree insurance plan by then. So there are a lot of plans to make in the next few years so that I can retire and do so without being forced back into the job market and trying to score a job at age 56 that I may not want but need to make ends meet. A lot of thinking, planning and considering to do and as much as I do not want to do so, I really do have to start thinking in terms of long term plans. I'm to a point in my life where I really do have to think ahead 5-10 years down the road. Where do I want to be in that time frame? What do I want to be doing with my life? How or where do I want to live? Can I survive on two thirds of my final income at work? What sacrifices are going to have to be made as a result? Lots to think about, and I really do need to start doing some serious planning in the months and years ahead. Three years will go by in a blink, and before I know it, my last day of work will be here. I'm both nervous and excited at the prospects of what lie ahead. A new life awaits. It will be up to me to decide what kind of life that's going to be.
A little over three years from now, I will be retiring from my career with 30 years of service to the library where I have worked for the past 27 years. I know how fast that time will go, as it's hard to believe that the year 2010 is over half way gone now. Summers in particular seem to fly by so quickly that one minute it's Memorial Day and the next thing you know, it's Labor Day and Back-To-School time. So I know that time can whiz by very quickly. That being the case, I know that my retirement day is going to come up very fast and I'm already feeling somewhat anxious about this whole thing. I'm excited about the prospect of being able to go places and do things that right now, I haven't got the vacation time available to do. We're short handed at work due to a 10% staff downsizing and that's likely to remain the case for the long term as this Great Recession drags on with no real recovery in sight. So I'm no longer allowed to take more than one week of vacation at a time, and in particular, it gets difficult to secure vacation time in the summer when just about the entire staff wants the same weeks off that I do. Only in my case, I can't reschedule when the events I travel to on vacation take place. I have to go when they occur. And unfortunately, that means that someone's going to lose out because rather than parcel out vacation by seniority (which is how it used to be done), now vacations at work are parcelled out on a first come, first served basis, meaning you'd better get your vacation requests for the year in on the first working day back to work after New Year's Day each year. Otherwise, there's no guarantee that you'll get your desired vacation dates. It sucks, but there it is. My vacation requests receive the same consideration as the most junior co-worker who's only been there a short time. When I was a junior staffer so long ago, I sacrificed my desired vacations so that the senior staff could have theirs, and I figured, I'll wait my turn so that when I've been around a while, I will get the same consideration for my years of service. No more. Everyone's on a level playing field now, regardless of seniority, and it somehow feels unfair that I can't get my desired time off after so many years on the job if I don't get in my request as early as possible after New Year's Day. Well, once I retire, I will no longer have to concern myself with that. I can do what I want to do, go where I want to go and stay as long as I want without having to worry about putting out a boss who's trying to keep a department staffed in the busy summer months when everyone wants to go on vacation.
My biggest fear is that I will get totally bored very quickly and regret my decision to retire. I really love having access to so many good books, movies and CDs. Through my job, I've been very fortunate to have been exposed to some wonderful authors who I might never have heard of had I not worked in a library. I've had a wonderful opportunity to foster my interests, which are vast and many. I've met so many wonderful people, gotten to travel to interesting places throughout Summit County on our vehicles, learned more than I ever did during my four years in college, and become a better person as a result of my years of working there. But by the same token, with our downsizing and the recent catastrophic illnesses on the part of several co-workers, I've had to take on a far heavier workload than I ever anticipated. Part of me doesn't mind this. Honestly, I'd rather be busy than bored. It just means having to prioritize my work and decide what needs to be done now and what can wait until later. I have to meticulously plan each day and hope that when I get to work, some monkey wrench hasn't been thrown into the works to screw up my day, like an unexpected call off or something. But overall, I have no complaints about my job other than the fact that I'd very much like to be able to take more time off than one week at a time. I'm just afraid that permanent time off, as in, retirement, is going to be both boring as hell and financially difficult to manage as I struggle to get by on two thirds of my salary. Things aren't getting any cheaper and I know that I'm going to have to live far more frugally than I do now. The good thing is that my car should be paid off by then, freeing up a big chunk of income by then. Still, I do worry about things like finances, boredom, having to go back to work again and lose time off that I want to travel, particularly in summer when everyone else has the same thing in mind and having decent health insurance as I grow older. I'm not Medicare eligible for another 12 years. That's a long wait to have to suffer under what may be a really bad private retiree insurance plan by then. So there are a lot of plans to make in the next few years so that I can retire and do so without being forced back into the job market and trying to score a job at age 56 that I may not want but need to make ends meet. A lot of thinking, planning and considering to do and as much as I do not want to do so, I really do have to start thinking in terms of long term plans. I'm to a point in my life where I really do have to think ahead 5-10 years down the road. Where do I want to be in that time frame? What do I want to be doing with my life? How or where do I want to live? Can I survive on two thirds of my final income at work? What sacrifices are going to have to be made as a result? Lots to think about, and I really do need to start doing some serious planning in the months and years ahead. Three years will go by in a blink, and before I know it, my last day of work will be here. I'm both nervous and excited at the prospects of what lie ahead. A new life awaits. It will be up to me to decide what kind of life that's going to be.
1 comment:
1. Don't forget that right now you are having your pension contribution deducted from your paycheck. That's not taken out of your pension, obviously. You also won't have to pay local or state tax on your pension income. So, 1/3 less doesn't add up to as big a reduction in take home pay as you think. Don't worry so much until you've done the math.
2. "I think it's time for me to retire" can be a useful negotiating point with your employer. Sometimes keeping an experienced employee for a year or two longer can be worth a few extra benefits or even dollars. It's worth a try!
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