I went out to a public square for live music last night. After finding a seat in the bleacher section, I glanced around and thought to myself, look at all these old people. God then handed me a mirror and I settled back into a blue study while contemplating my new neighbors. I wanted to reflect on this seemingly rash decision and how the whirlwind three months that preceded the move brought me here to a retirement community. But first, I had to mentally replay the preceding two years — the Covid years.
In late February of 2020, I arrived back home from speaking at a large cybersecurity conference in San Francisco. I had been to this annual event at least 18 times over the previous 30 years, so this was nothing out of the ordinary. The SARS-CoV-19 virus had just started hitting the news at that time. I had been notified by the conference organizers that one participant (out of about 45,000) had been at the vendor showcase with a case of the Wuhan Flu. We were asked to be careful. Within two weeks, however, my seemingly normal life came to a screeching halt.
My employer decided to use the pandemic as a factor in cutting my position and letting me go. So, I was locked down, isolated, and stripped of gainful employment within a few short days. Nothing would ever be the same.
At first, I tried to carry on as I would have in the past. I went back to the job market, hunting for a ‘new opportunity’ as they say on LinkedIn. I found most employers, colleagues, and friends I reached out to were being overly cautious about taking on new employees: no one was hiring. Companies weren’t sure of how long the lockdowns and remote work would last. The type of work I had performed was mostly executed while traveling on-site at clients or at tradeshows and business events. All that had stopped with two weeks to flatten the curve.
Those two weeks, and then the months that followed, started to drag on. I am an extrovert with a capital E and after a few months of homebound isolation, I felt defeated and lonely. I have a loving and understanding spouse of well over 40 years and she saw the strain. I tried to volunteer to help veterans. The organizations I contacted would only take me if I became an employee so I could be vetted. Would they hire me, even for minimum or no pay? No, they said. Covid, they said.
I tried to parlay my two decades of teaching graduate school at places like the National Cryptologic School and The George Washington University into a job at a local university or community college. Would they hire me as an adjunct to teach, even for free? Nope.
I then turned to civic affairs and offered to serve on town boards and committees. I had been on the planning and zoning board for my local town in Maryland a couple decades ago, so I had some experience. I was told to get in line. Apparently the line is over 20 years long. I should have signed up when I first moved into the area 21 years ago was what the city manager told me. Get in line and we’ll call you if and when we need you.
Do you know what it feels like to have half a century of education and experience under your belt and you can’t even give away your work? I do. And it feels really, really strange. And not in a good way.
I tried to resurrect abandoned hobbies and side interests. I pulled my dusty guitar from the closet and put new strings on it. My wife sent away for some jigsaw puzzles and set them up for me in the lounge. I went for long daily walks and took binoculars to inventory the neighborhood birds. I still held out hope for a new position and sent out a slew of resumes while keeping tabs on my professional network, to no avail.
I belatedly realized my entire social being was centered on my job. I had traveled the globe and had friends and colleagues on nearly every continent. I could be stuck on a long layover in London, Hong Kong, Paris, Santiago, Costa Rica, or even Johannesburg and would know someone to call who would cheerfully open their doors to me. Yet, I didn’t know my next door neighbors in my suburban town beyond a monthly wave of the hand as I went to the mailbox.
Our small cul-de-sac of 21 years was one of strangers. There had been a couple two doors down with whom we exchanged visits and meals on rare occasions, but they had moved away to their retirement home. Bill had retired as an airline captain a couple of years earlier and Lynn decided to sell her large dental practice and invest that money in a new place to live. They moved to a seaside town in South Carolina where they bought a fishing boat.
During a scheduled meeting with my investment broker, our introductory chitchat turned into a therapy session. I laid out my concerns with the loss of income and we used that jumping off point to reevaluate our family financial situation. As we ran the numbers and discussed options, he stopped, looked up at me over his glasses, and said, “Why don’t you just retire like Bill and Lynn did?”
That suggestion came as a total curve ball. Retire? Like, stop working altogether? That just wasn’t me. I had thought about retirement, of course, but I always assumed I would keep a toe in the workforce by consulting, teaching, writing, and even some part time work. But to just walk away?
My in-laws used to always ask me when I planned to retire. Most of them had had state government jobs with generous public sector retirement programs. My father-in-law had been a corrections officer for the state and got in when they still had a 25-year retirement option. He ended up staying a couple extra years, but he was able to comfortably retire in his late 40s and forged an ass imprint into his Lazy Boy, never to work again.
He never did any of those things he talked about before retiring. He didn’t travel, attend concerts or shows, didn’t take up the family truck farm business, nor did he bother with much of anything outside basic home maintenance. He watched a LOT of old westerns and cable news television. So, when he would ask me when I planned to retire, I saw him in the recliner with the remote and replied, “Hopefully, never.”
So, when my broker floated the retire idea, it was as if he recommended I go run off with the circus: it was a foreign concept. But the words had taken hold. I was realizing I was likely no longer employable. Who’s going to take a risk on an old Boomer who could retire? My career had moved on without me. Maybe he had a point.
Next up: Part Two
During covid while working remote, 90% of every 1 on 1 skype call started with 15 mins of bitching about the company, the excessive overtime, the stupid polices, management, etc. It’s hard to realize you’re in a dysfunctional situation until you get out. Looking back, I should have realized that it was an alarm bell. Fortunately, I ended up in a better place, although it took a while. I’m not ready to retire yet, but I’m now at the point where, when talking to my Dad once before he retired said “I’m tired of the politics, the bullshit, and the idiots.”Report
It’s amazing how much expertise this country tosses into the trash bin.
Ageism seems to be the one ism without any meaningful advocacy.Report
The AARP actually advocates against it, but in an economy where we deludedly tell ourselves that mysterious “market” forces set wages, experienced workers command a premium that companies don’t seem to be willing to pay. As the Great Resignation rolls on I expect that to change somewhat, but it’s hard to tell exactly how that plays out.Report
“experienced workers command a premium that companies don’t seem to be willing to pay” I can vouch for that. At my former company, I and the other Lead Finance guy were told repeatedly that we were the two highest paid staff in the Group (of companies in our division) outside of management. Naturally if you compare titles and pay for all our group, the finance guys in the mid Atlantic are going to make lots more money than the folks in Florida or Ohio. Lo and behold, the two highest paid staff are now gone and they are refilling the jobs with junior staff–and all that institutional knowledge and experience is now gone. Meh.Report
I’ve never seen a good explanation for Rex Tillerson’s attack on the Foreign Service, but I think it’s exactly this. When a CEO sees a highly, skilled, prestigious group that isn’t top management, he has to prove to himself they aren’t needed.Report
That was more about getting rid of “entrenched liberals” in the federal government.Report
we deludedly tell ourselves that mysterious “market” forces set wages
They’re not mysterious. They’re fairly well understood.
experienced workers command a premium that companies don’t seem to be willing to pay
This doesn’t make any sense. If companies aren’t willing to pay a premium for experienced workers, then they don’t command a premium. Conversely, if they are able to command a premium, that means that companies are in fact willing to pay for it.Report
There’s this weird tension between “you have to spend six figures on a degree so you can get a good job!” and “workers are pretty much interchangeable”.
I know that in IT right now, companies are pretty much all headhunting each other and the best way to get a raise at your job is to move to another job, work 8-9 months, then come back.
It doesn’t seem sustainable.Report
Welcome to unrestricted free markets.Report
True, but if we look at the EU situation where labor is more stringently regulated the trade off is for unemployment to permanently sit at around a 30% in good times up to much much higher in tough economies. I can’t say with any confidence that’s a better situation.Report
While the Euro area generally has higher unemployment than the US, no country got up to 30% unemployment even during the Great Recession. In Spain and Greece it surpassed 25%, but 10-15% is more typical of those countries, and for the Euro area in general, the average is in the mid to high single digits during good times.
You can see data here:
https://data.oecd.org/unemp/unemployment-rate.htm
This is using the international definition of unemployment, so the numbers should be more or less comparable.Report
It’s always been weird that companies will pay so much for recruitment and do so little for retention.Report
“My employees suck. I see them every day and they’re awful. Awful! But that other company is actually good! Maybe their castoffs will be worth a damn…”Report
“And their products are OK. Ours… Hell, we have a whole database full of bugs.”Report
When I was finally on the wrong side of a corporate acquisition, I was offered a retention bonus equal to a year’s salary if I stayed for a year or until the acquiring company let me go, whichever came first. Half up front, half at the end of the year or when I was terminated.
My final check included my substantial severance pay, the second half of my retention bonus, unpaid vacation time, and a couple of smaller things. Biggest check anyone has ever handed me.
Wrong side meaning we were acquired rather than acquiring.Report
I’ve been on the wrong side a few times, but it never amounted to more than keeping my job on the same terms working in a less pleasant environment.Report
One of the questions I used to ask former colleagues was, “How are you going to fill all the hours in the week after you’re retired?” I started answering that for myself before I was 50. I have a list of little software projects; things get added faster than I can finish them. I have a research and writing project that I doubt I can finish before I die.Report
I know what I’m doing when I eventually retire, presuming we’re not on Variant Omega Zed and all having to hide in our houses lest we catch a super-contagious immune-escape version of COVID: I am going to do volunteer work
and if anyone gets rude at me, or demanding, or puts more labor on me than I want, I will simply quit. Because it won’t matter, since I’m not being paid.
There’s a national park about an hour from me; if they would take me I’d happily lead walks or do programs or even pick up trash on the trails – I did the simple scutwork type of volunteer work at the park near where I grew up when I was in high school and I enjoyed it.
I have hobbies, but I also need to feel like I”m doing something that matters to someone other than me.Report
I give blood every 8-10 weeks and have a wife with progressive dementia. I don’t feel obligated to do any more “volunteering” than that.Report
Yeah, I get that. I’m totally alone, though, and one thing I learned from the pandemic is spending too much time staring at my own four walls and listening to my own thoughts makes me sad and weird. I wasn’t prescribing, I was saying what I was going to do.Report
I’m definitely following your journey, and at least on twitter I think you are doing it right. Enjoy the timeReport