Well, that’s great. So just figure out what sort of part time work you might actually enjoy, to supplement your income/lifestyle.
Likely gotta be full-time.
I’m looking at Bank Teller, Library gigs, Local Government, etc.
Might consider a move back to Chicago.
I got a Liberal Arts degree, general computer training, got into college with a National Merit Scholarship.
Anybody got a good job lead? Maybe Chicago City Government?
None whatever.
The woman who handles this is out until after New Years.
I think your L.A. degree and National Merit scholarship matter less when you’re approaching retirement age. It’s much harder to find a job at that age. I’d recommend you stay at least until you find something else.
StG
And who wants to move to Chicago in the winter?
By the way, I worked with the Census and just loved it*, and the people who ran it were so organized, yet flexible where needed. A number of them worked for the Post Office and recommended a job there.
So that’s on my short list of “If I start getting hungry” jobs.
.
*It was like being a spy. My job was finding people who didn’t return their census form, and refused to talk to anyone on the phone. So I had to track them down, then charm them: “Look, I don’t trust the government either, so just give them the number and gender of people living here, and they won’t bother you any more!” (I’d found out this was the minimum info that Uncle Sam actually needed).
Just out of curiosity, and pardon the hijack, why did they need gender?
Indeed dot com. Chicago is hiring, Librarian gig at Rush University Hospital.
This sort of question got asked about 10 years ago, when the federal government in Canada axed the long-form census, and people started asking “why does the government need that info, anyway?”
Turns out that there’s a lot of public agencies that use census info for planning purposes. Municipalites and school boards, for example, use it for projecting things like future school enrollments.
Once a municipality has the number of opposite-sex couples, living together in one household, between the ages of 20 and 40, by census divisions (ie neighbourhoods) they can get a pretty accurate estimate of future birth rates for that neighbourhood. That’s really important information for planning school builds and playparks, child support agencies, and so on, rather than being caught flat-footed when a major birth spike shows up when all the 5 year old kids are signed up for kindergarten in the spring to start in the fall.
Without needing any personal information, completely anonymous.
I’m sure there are other examples, but that was one of the most straightforward ones that I remember.
Now that’s a great benefit!
Chicago is going to be way more expensive to live in compared to where you are now. Do you have friends and/or contacts there?
I know a lot of posters are going to tell you not to do this, but you should talk to Human Resources. They could confirm that you are reading the situation correctly re transfers, your boss wanting you out and your pension and benefits if you retire. At this point, it seems you have nothing to lose.
One last thing. Do you belong to a union? Anything that would get you an employee advocate to help on your side?
Good luck with everything. I hope we’ll see some posts with good news from you.
Unions.
In Tennessee.
HA!
Seriously, no.
Maybe not Chicago itself, but every suburb has a municipal gov’t and need people to staff it. I’d pick a smaller town for a lower cost of living, but that also means lower pay. Did you have any bucket list towns to retire to?
A friend in a similar situation found a job at Trader Joe’s. He’d been a COBOL programmer, and was forced out. He got severance, and had a pension but couldn’t afford to live in it if he took the early retirement reduction (he was around 60 when this happened.) So he needed an income for a few years to tide him over until he could take normal retirement.
After he got used to it, and critically, after he developed enough seniority that he usually got his pick of shifts, he really liked it. The work was easy without being completely mindless. It was physical without being physically stressful. (He mostly stocked shelves.) He enjoyed his co-workers, his interactions with customers were usually pleasant (yes, i can help you find this thing you want) and i guess the pay and benefits met his needs.
So consider that kind of low-skill job, as well, if your health allows. I think a lot of companies are looking for that kind of labor.
No, as I had not considered the smaller towns.
Hmmm…
I think Trader Joe’s, Costco, and perhaps Duluth Trading are amongst the best in the retail world. Aldi has their cashiers sitting down, as they do in Europe.
I thought I mentioned this earlier - but check on this, too. It would be very unusual if you could lose your pension if you were dismissed for any reason at all. In fact, I’m not sure it’s even legal to withhold a pension from a vested employee under most circumstances - maybe they can if you are dismissed for committing some crime that involved your state job , small possibility they can for violating some policy but I’d been shocked if they could withhold your pension simply because your boss isn’t happy with your performance. Don’t go by what anyone has said - talk directly to the pension system. As a state employee ( in a different state) , I spent years hearing people say " I’m not going to lose my pension behind this". Guess what - until 2011, even someone convicted of a felony connected to their state job would still collect their pension in prison. And even when they passed that law in 2011 - it only applied to people who joined the system after the effective date.
* And before someone mentions Andrew McCabe he didn’t actually lose his pension as a result of the firing that was later overturned. He lost the ability to retire under special provisions for law enforcement personnel who worked until age 50 - but he still would have been able to collect under the provisions that apply to non-law enforcement Federal employees even though he was fired.
Chicago is not the place to move to. It’s the place to move from. I am from Chicago, have lived most of my life in the city, now live in a “village” (population 27K) about 40 miles west of the city. It is not cheap. One bedroom apartments average about 1K a month. It’s cold in the winter and hot and humid in the summer. Jobs are available but they are mostly in the low paying food service industry.
It does seem that no matter where I am, I meet people who’ll say “Yeah, I’m from San Francis… well, originally I’m from Chicago.”
Even in the frozen tundra, it seems like a third of my neighbors are from “Chicago… well, a suburb”.
So, my diabolical plan is that, with all those people leaving, you can take one of their jobs! (and apartment?)