Retirement – 6th Anniversary

It’s hard to believe that it has been another year since I “retired.”  Yes, October 31^st, 2023, marks the sixth anniversary of that significant milestone for me.  And I have that in quotation marks because while it has been six years since I left full-time employment, I technically am still working part time with teaching and doing some consulting work.  But I do have an update to share on my “semi-retired” status.

After six years, I find that I never even think about my previous full-time job.  To me, I find that very surprising considering I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for more than half my life (35 years).  Now, it is so nice to be able to get up in the morning, not to the sound of an alarm clock, but just on my own and think about what I want to do for the day—not what I have to do.

So, what have I been doing with all this free time?

Well, if you have followed my posts over the past 12 months, you know that one thing I have done to stay busy is to build miniature models.  I have built two doll houses since then and have another one in progress.  And in the past 12 months, I also discovered my love for LEGOs—big LEGOs purchasing and building three different kits like the model car below.

During the year, my wife and I have done some travel, although not as much as we would both like. There were several family factors that contributed to our reduced travel over the past 12 months.  But we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on those so over the next year of retirement, we should be taking more trips.

During the warmer months, my pool maintenance activities have also kept me busy.  While we keep our pool open year-round, it is really the hot summer weather we have that has me fighting off algae growth on an almost daily basis.  But seeing family members enjoying the pool always makes it worthwhile for me.

I also continued to read every day.  Not having had the time earlier in my life to read very much, I take advantage of it most evenings after dinner by reading for a couple of hours.  You will hear about the best of those books in my annual “best of books” posts in January 2024.

And of course, with two grandchildren in town, I spend part of my time performing enjoyable “Granddaddy duties.”

Earlier, I mentioned that I had an update on the “semi” part of my semi-retired status.  Now that it has been six years since I actively worked in the industry, I have decided to discontinue my professional level teaching altogether.  It has really been three factors that led me to this decision.

First, as you know with the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, many in-person activities were put on hold or totally eliminated.  Last year, the organization for which I have taught for over 25 years made the decision to remain a virtual educational provider and no longer offer in-person training.  While training online at least allowed the courses to be offered during the worst of the pandemic, never returning to in-person training meant that I would never get to travel as a part of my teaching.  I have written before how much I always enjoyed the travel, getting to visit places I never would have visited otherwise.  And I really miss going to Amsterdam having been there over thirty times.

Second, not teaching in person, I really miss the interactions I had with the course participants.  It did not take long for me in the virtual world to loath sitting in front a computer and just speaking when I sometimes could not even see their faces (despite encouragement, many would not turn on their computer cameras).  Previously, I so much enjoyed walking around the room and seeing their reactions to my words, allowing me to either confirm their understanding with smiles or nods or stop to address their puzzled looks.

But it was really the third factor that as the saying goes, “broke the camel’s back.”  Not working for a major pharmaceutical company and not serving on industry committees, I no longer had access to paid industry publications nor fellow experts in the field, both of which helped me to stay up to date on changes in governmental regulations as well as common industry practices these fellow experts had implemented in response to those changes.  This was really brought home to me this past spring when I taught my course on Stability and a participant asked me a question about how to deal with a certain change that I had no idea had even occurred.  While I was able to provide my suggestions, I realized with that question that I could no longer offer real life examples of how I had in fact updated our own practices to be in compliance with this new regulation.

And for my other course on Method Validations that I taught with another scientist for almost 25 years, I became aware in the past 12 months of proposed major changes that will completely modify how the process is performed.  No longer would the many years of experience I had be relevant.  In essence, I would no longer be qualified to teach on that topic.

So, in August when that teaching organization e-mailed me about teaching the Stability course next spring, I indicated to them that for the reasons in this third factor, it was time to pass the baton for the course to another scientist still active in the industry.

I know I will miss the teaching, but it never really was the same after it went virtual because what I will miss the most is the in-person teaching I did for all those years which I actually lost almost four years ago with the beginning of the pandemic.

This now represents the first step towards dropping the “semi” from my retirement status altogether.  I guess over the next 12 months, I will see if I still want to continue doing the consulting that I have been doing since shortly after I retired.  Stay tuned for another update next year!