It has been a rough year, to say the least. On Friday I had a meeting with my financial guru. It was a combination of the annual review and to adjust things since my wife died. It came up that I could retire comfortably at any time.
This weekend all hell broke loose at work with an angry customer and I watched my heir apparent handle the problem the best she could, with my help, and realized I was not interested in the BS any longer. Yesterday I informed the board that I was retiring at the end of June. They were not surprised, and not very happy either. They have less faith in my replacement than I do. I told them they were wrong about Monica and to simply give her the support they gave me and things would be fine.
At the board’s request I will be shifting to a consultant position for the company, where I take care of things that come up that are over the head of Monica. I agreed because this will ensure that Monica succeeds, which is my primary concern. I plan to do this for the rest of the year at the most. After that I haven’t decided.
This is the second time I have retired. They were 23 years apart. The GF is excited and wants to run off for 2 weeks and relax. I have not said yes yet, but it is tempting,
Good for you! I know it’s been a hell of a year for you, and likely some perspectives have shifted.
At least you’ll have the consultant role. Sounds like a nice transition.
I retired a year ago tomorrow (maybe slightly prematurely), but I have not missed the bs part of it for one minute.
From the many things you have shared with us, this sounds like the right move for you. Good luck with the new position and path toward retirement. I am now 6 years into retirement. No regrets.
i am working toward a new venture, but have found in the almost 3yr since “retiring” that i didn’t miss “work” and, more so, that i wasn’t bothered by being “irrelevant” (which was my biggest concern). i used to hear in my youth about men who died shortly after retiring because they lost their sense of purpose. now that i’m in that cohort i’ve come to believe that those men chose to remain purposeless and, yes, that’s a problem. i’m happy for folks like you, gman and automaticjack.
I am eyeing my second and hopefully, final retirement in a couple of years. I am hoping my job will let me scale back to 3-4 days a weeks to give me something to do until Mrs. mck414 can retire. If not, I may just go bag groceries a few days a week.
Congratulations! Don’t set your consulting rate too low, it should be higher than your current effective hourly rate, since you would be doing the most valuable work that is highly specialized.
As far as getting away, go have fun, if you want to go off grid, and they need to reach you, have them pay for a satellite phone.
I was very professional - I never burn bridges, not that I had the urge.
As you might know or remember, I’m in an events band that plays 4 or 5 big shows a year. Although I competent in that roll I could be a lot better. I will now have time to work on that. Also, we have been doing the song Faith by George Michael and we do it acoustically with a bunch of us playing acoustic guitars. Mine has been turned off (at my request) because I not confident enough on that instrument. That needs to change.
I also have a grand daughter that needs to be corrupted. A Miata that I need to race more often, and a GF that wants to do as much as possible while we still can.
I’ve been hearing rumors about a nudist triathlon training academy. That’s it, isn’t it? I take it you finally solved that chafing issue. Good for you.
