Retirement – 7th Anniversary

October 31^st, 2024, marks the seventh anniversary of me retiring from fulltime work.  If you have read my previous retirement posts, you know that I have often written the word retired in quotation marks (“retired”) or as “semi-retired.”  But this year, I have taken several more steps towards permanently removing those qualifiers and I suppose I will continue to post these annual updates until I have actually done so.

In 2023, I made the decision to discontinue the professional level teaching that I had done for almost 30 years.  In that post, I outlined the three reasons why and you can click here if you want to read the details.  This past March, I did relent and teach my Stability course one last time to allow the organization for which I taught more time to find a replacement course director.  It was bittersweet teaching for the last time although as I have said previously, teaching virtually is no where near as pleasant or fun as the in-person teaching I did pre-pandemic.

The first step I took closer towards full retirement this year actually occurred just before yearend in 2023.

Since September of 2019, I have been consulting for the organization for which I had been teaching all those years.  In the summer of 2019, I was contacted by the company owner and the program director that I had worked with for so many years while teaching.  I learned the program director was trying to retire, and the owner wanted to hire me to take her place.  I indicated to them that I was not interested in taking on essentially another fulltime job since I had just retired from one less than two years previous. They then asked if I would be willing to consult parttime for them.  After meeting with them to learn in more detail what they had in mind for me to do, I agreed.

A couple of years later they did in fact hire a replacement for the program director.  I continued to consult as he learned the ropes and gained experience in what all the job entailed.  In December of 2023, the company owner set up a meeting with me in which she shared that the new program director had gained enough experience, that he could take on the roles I had been previously performing.  While it felt a little like I was being laid off for the first time in my career, that feeling was quickly replaced with joy and the knowledge that I was one step closer to really being retired.

Then in June, I thought I was about to become fully retired.

I have been consulting for my former company since September of 2022.  Each time I neared the expiration of my assignment, it was extended another six months or so.  In the middle of June, I was back up to do some additional training, my fourth session in three years.  I had another great trip and the teaching I did was most enjoyable as it was in person just like I used to do.  My consulting assignment was scheduled to expire at the end of June and so I anticipated I might meet with the head of Analytical to learn my assignment would not be extended.  But turns out he was out of the office on an international business trip and so I missed meeting with him.  As I was about to head to the Newark airport thinking this was likely my last trip to New Jersey, I received a text message that my assignment had been extended until the end of March 2025.

I again had mixed emotions.  I was actually glad it was extended as I felt like we were making great progress on the process improvement initiatives in which I had been involved.  And I was really enjoying the work.  But at the same time, I realized it would be another nine months before I might actually become fully retired.

So, the second step I thought I might be taking to reach full retirement this year was thus delayed.

The third step towards full retirement was one I actively took.

During the year, I was approached by several companies to do some additional consulting work.  Had these offers come along soon after I retired, I likely would have accepted them as they all sounded interesting and would allow me to continue to utilize my 35 years of experience.  But seven years out from retirement, I did not want to spend more time consulting.  Rather, I wanted to have more free time to spend on my hobbies, visits with grandchildren, and travel.  So, I turned each one down.

The fourth step I then took this year was to delete my LinkedIn profile.  This would prevent companies contacting me about potential consulting roles.  In so doing, I knew I would not miss the requests for linking and the weekly e-mail messages about how many times my profile was found on a search or had been viewed.

I didn’t even know you could delete your profile, but my brother showed me how he had deleted his.  I had no remorse as it was out of date since I no longer taught professional level courses.  If I had not deleted it, I would have needed to update it, and I really did not want to do that.

So, over the past 12 months, I have made some significant progress on becoming fully retired.  I have not reached that final goal yet, but as the saying goes, I can see light at the end of the tunnel.  And I know for a fact it is not an oncoming train loaded with more work!