So go there. Get lunch or dinner or … You’ve got all day.
As you know I’m from LA too. Growing up & in college we used to drive 40 miles for a different or quirky lunch or dinner. Greater Miami where I live now is similar to LA in being pretty spread out with several interesting and unique but widely separated areas.
So once again, these days I sometimes drive 40 miles for lunch. It’s totally worth it just to see more of the world than your immediate neighborhood.
I retired 6 years ago (almost to the day) and my job had evolved to include very little of the things I liked, and a whole lot of meetings, paperwork and vicious internecine politics. So it was a relief to close that door behind me.
Most of the years in that position, however, were divided between EMS response and teaching EMTs and paramedics.
I still can’t hear a siren without a huge pang of nostalgia and a desperate desire to be in the back of that ambulance.
I can see that. As a doer, you liked / loved your job. As a manager of doers, you hated your job.
But your problem today isn’t retirement; it’s promotion.
I’ve been both. But I retired from a doer job, not a manager job. Which makes it harder.
I do miss that doing and have wistful thoughts when I see some other doer doing my old job … while things are going well.
OTOH, when I see a clone of former me wrasslin’ with that jumbo can of worms it’s very nice to sit back, sip my cocktail, and say “Better you than me, Bub.”
OTOH, the nature of my former job is that I get to see my coworkers & counterparts in action pretty often. Probably like you.
And when I do I have a stock taunt at the ready: “Neener neener; you’re working and I’m nooo-oo-ot!!” It’s especially satisfying to repeat while holding your BF/GF/SO in one arm and a cocktail in the opposite hand.
I miss (just a little) sussing out network problems in advance to prevent customer complaints and helping clients fix their equipment and software troubles. That’s it.
The few coworkers that I considered friends are retired too. We get together once a month or so.They don’t miss the job any more than I do.
I’ve been retired for 8 years now. I do miss the people but we have frequent reunions over lunch, with the few people still working, increasing number of retired people, and those who changed jobs after the layoffs. I volunteer, have just gotten a book published, with my wife, might be involved in another, judge some contest, have been on the Steering Committee for a conference, and still write a column. Much easier without having to commute.
I thought I would miss programming but I found I didn’t.
I miss some of what it’s like to work for a living. One of them is having a sense of purpose in my life other than myself. What I did for a living had a lot to do with being in the swing of things, some of which mattered to me. It felt good, when I was much younger to actually feel like I was making a contribution to Society (after a fashion), and I miss that idealism. Of Youth, I guess. I also miss many of my co-workers, a fair number of whom are no longer among the living. It’s the same, needless to say, with friends. My retirement has become a kind of disconnect, and not just from work. I have very few serious, intelligent conversations with people these days. The older folk in my community, where I’ve been living for just over a year now, nearly all, regardless of their educational background, engage almost entirely in “happy talk”, sort of “I’m copacetic, you’re copacetic” and how to stay that way. Whatever. Not my thing. Otherwise, I’m alright, and I do believe in God, and thank him every day, one way or the other, for all that I have and, more to the point, have been given or earned in my life. Lots and lots of gifts. For all this, I’m a lucky guy.
Here’s my analogy:
My time in the working world was like my time in the army. It was meaningful, a source of pride, genuine comaradary, and time very well spent.
Curious question, for everyone here who is happy to no longer be working, how do you fill your time? Is there something which gives you structure, such as days volunteering or an involved hobby? Has anyone gone back to school?
I’m about 10-15 years away (pension pot depending) and am already looking forward to the freedom of it, but fantasise often about how I might fill my days. I often think I might like a part time ‘doing’ job, such as retail work, to keep me sociable and active. Or maybe go back to school and study something that gives me a new outlet, if only as a hobby.
I work from home. So it sort of feels like I’m semi-retired really. The crew knows I’m going to retire in about a year. I’m getting someone ready to fill my shoes. I am not taking on any big multi year projects. I’ve been there for 32 years.
My wife will retire at about the same time. We have discussed this.
We will probably be moving. We want a house big enough for us each to have our own office. Our own space. We do not want each other ‘under foot’. We already have that, but as we age we need to get closer to civilization.
Like the OP, it has become overwhelming for me. After 32 years, my brain really is full.
I can easily entertain myself on a computer for about half a day. I plan to take up the guitar again. My wife and I play a lot of chess and cribbage. I like cooking. My days will be pretty full.
While I like our crew just fine, I don’t socialize with them at all. Parties, no way. I don’t even go to meetings in person. Ya see, I’m hard of hearing. When in any group of chattering people, I can’t make out a thing.
I’m a loner. A couple of close friends is just fine. I think I/We will do fine in retirement.
I do not miss working. I had a job that I really liked, working for a good company. I was treated well and made pretty good money. I was worried that I would miss the job or get bored, but it did not turn out that way for me.
My wife and I spend much more quality time together. We walk three to five miles every day. I have a new hobby that is keeping me active.
I left on good terms and I keep in contact with the owner of the company, and I could show up there this morning and he would gladly put me back to work.
I retired about 2.5 years ago and don’t miss a thing. I worked from home full time with my teammates a continent away, so never got to know anyone well enough to miss. I fill my time with my main hobby, PC gaming, walking, reading, and socializing with friends at the pub.
At first I spent a fair amount of time getting my house fixed up but that’s pretty much done. I screw around on the internet, get a little exercise each day. I go to over 150 concerts a year and have a huge friend group from that. I’m fine with doing lots of nothing.
I think I would need to take up a physical activity, something craft based perhaps. I spend my working life on a computer so don’t want to do that when I retire
I retired in February. I miss the consistency of work, having a fixed schedule. I’ve had a lot of fun traveling this year, but i did too many things. With forced me to choose. My husband jokes that i need a job so i don’t work too hard. I also miss training and mentoring young actuaries.
My primary social life was never at work. I have lots of friends in my dance community, and i also play bridge, volunteer at my temple, and am part of a community of puzzle collectors. I’ve also kept on touch with a handful of college friends. And i have family in the area. I’m thinking of inviting a handful of work friends to my home, just to catch up. But if that doesn’t happen, i won’t be lonely. But… As a retiree it’s more obvious that i need to work to maintain my social connections. That is, i need to make plans, actually get together with people, etc. it’s easy to just “go to work” each day and see people.
I worked in a manufacturing facility, and I mostly miss the ability to scrounge materials destined for the dumpster. While I was there I got big pieces of the greatest knot free thin plywood imaginable. Big aluminum sheets that were used once and tossed. I’m sure I could go back today, and they’d let me scrounge but I can’t small-talk those people, some of whom were ok.
I’ve been retired for almost three years. I do not miss the work or the job one bit. I miss the people some , but I stayed in touch with some and I see more at retirement parties *
I don’t have any structure to my days which is fine - what I like best about retirement is that I do not have a set schedule. Probably the thing I liked least about working was the schedule or really , the fact that I had a schedule. The hobbies I have don’t involve more than a very loose schedule - maybe I need to weed my garden this week but it doesn’t really matter if it’s this afternoon or Saturday morning. I wouldn’t join a bowling/bocce/pickleball league where I had to be at a certain place at a certain time or do the sort of volunteer work that requires you to show up at a certain day/time.
My husband is retiring at the end of the month and that means we’ll do some things I wouldn’t have enjoyed doing solo but that were hard to fit in while he’s still working. Same-day Broadway tickets, tapings of late night shows. Basically acting like a tourist even though we have lived our whole lives here.
* I worked for a government agency which around here typically means that coworkers sell tickets for retirement parties and the flyers get widely distributed including to retirees. It’s not “cake in the conference room Tuesday afternoon”
I resent being forced to arise and go somewhere on someone else’s schedule. I resented it when forced into Kindergarten at age 5, and continued resenting it through all my schooling and careers, and resented having to drive to work on my last day.
Been retired 5 years now, and have turned down 3 offers to return to the mother ship and/or her competitors. Responded to the last one with Decker’s quote: “I was quit when I come in here… I’m twice as quit now.”
Huh? Is this a thing?
I’ve never heard of a concept like this.
Does anybody buy tickets to a private party?
I can see being expected to make a donation, maybe. And of course buying a gift is appropriate sometimes. But nobody prints, say, wedding invitations with a ticket price denominated in dollars.
Printing flyers and selling tickets makes sense for a charity event. But for a private individual?
Am I not understanding something?
