Working Life: The Eternal Grind (4 Viewers)

Follow me here….what if you were already retired and stumbled onto this thread. You might end up retiring from retirement which means (exorbitant hand motions) you’d actually end going back to work.

Or if you look at work as tiring and exhausting, maybe retirement just means tirement all over again, which means more work.

THIS IS SO META. I’m going to head to the can, take a dump, and contemplate all of this.
 
Retiring from retiring ought to = ending the interminable rounds of golf, cruises and $10.75 early bird buffet meals, and dedicating yourself to some project or volunteerism that might actually make the last years of life feel meaningful.

/scold
 
Hmmm…I retired at the end of last year after three careers and 40 years of professional level jobs. Retirement is real and rocks.

My view at this moment … the mighty St Lawrence river
 

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There was a meme somewhere that said
“You work in front a medium screen all day, to sit down and watch a large screen, while playing on a small screen.” Lol that hurt.

I have no idea what direction my work life is headed, but I really hope that I can retire from having to work for money in the next 5ish years (prob more like 10, but my eldest is 8. I’d rather stop working as much now, have that time, and then can pick up more financially motivated work in a decade when they’re leaving the house). I can make money doing anything, and if I had to guess would say I’ll end up doing full time coaching or non profit work for fun and to pull in some form of money.

The most interesting/my favorite people are older, retired folks who say they “still have no idea what they want to do for a living when they grow up”. Serial entrepreneurs, volunteers, etc.

I think kids have it right man. They want to grow up and have fun and help people. Once my current phase of work/career is done in the next couple years, I’ll either start a new challenge or move on to having fun and helping people. And if folks ask what I do for a living, I’ll share that I’m enjoying life and spending time helping folks via XYZ.

To each their own, I don’t know that I would fully retire into purely hobby type stuff, and even if I did I think my wife would not be super jacked to have me not creating value for either us or others in some meaningful way.
 
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we get paid per party we work. casino events business. I usually set up/break down the parties. We usually come out ahead when parties are short and we get the same pay per party mostly. this one just happened to be out of town and really sucked.

we just recently switch from 1099 contract employees to W2's. And they just kept the pay pretty much the same.

Ugh I had this same issue recently.

Have been a bartender for nearly 22 years now and used to work ALOT of events.

Needed a job earlier this year and took one with a beverage catering company. Cool, I thought, I’ve done this before and I’m good at it. After my 2nd event with the company, I realized that as an independent contractor(1099 like you) that I wasn’t eligible for OT under California law.

I would travel 2 hrs out of my way unpaid, work 11-12 hrs at minimum wage, and receive almost zero in tips, THEN travel back another 2 hrs to get home.

Nope. Did one more event with them because I stick to my commitments, but I was done
 
Ugh I had this same issue recently.

Have been a bartender for nearly 22 years now and used to work ALOT of events.

Needed a job earlier this year and took one with a beverage catering company. Cool, I thought, I’ve done this before and I’m good at it. After my 2nd event with the company, I realized that as an independent contractor(1099 like you) that I wasn’t eligible for OT under California law.

I would travel 2 hrs out of my way unpaid, work 11-12 hrs at minimum wage, and receive almost zero in tips, THEN travel back another 2 hrs to get home.

Nope. Did one more event with them because I stick to my commitments, but I was done
And the owner of that business is out posting on the interwebs that "No OnE WaNtS To wOrk AnYmOrE"
 
Hmmm…I retired at the end of last year after three careers and 40 years of professional level jobs. Retirement is real and rocks.
My view at this moment … the mighty St Lawrence river

Hmmm. one more old fart retrospective here. I retired in 2011, after 8 years as an Army officer in 'Nam and other fun places, then 38 years of high-level computer work and international standards development for DoD and the US Patent Office. My wife worked two more years while we cleaned up the loose ends of our lives and moved from Alexandria, VA to Sarasota, FL. She then worked three years from down here, with us going up to DC one week each month, which gave us a great transition from the working life to retirement. life.

This is our back yard view, where we finish our bottle of wine every night after supper:
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Yeah, it's not downtown DC, but you can get used to it. Daytime's not too bad, either:
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I do volunteer computer work (for free) on a small scale for places that interest me, like the country club we belong to, to keep the tennis court operation running smoothly. I'm there playing five mornings each week:
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My wife, on the other hand, is a pure political animal, having spent her life working for the Governor of Colorado and a Colorado congressman, then in national-level healthcare management, finally retiring from a senior vice-presidency at the National Health Council. She has become heavily involved in politics down here, especially with the League of Women Voters and Planned Parenthood, which amount to damned nearly a full-time unpaid job. But she still gets out to the tennis courts for four mornings each week.

And we do travel for 8 to 12 weeks each year, mostly to Europe and fairly long cruises (trans-Atlantic, Hawaii, Panama Canal, with Australia and NZ in the works).

What I would emphasize about retirement is that there's not much point in detailed planning, other than financial. It will become what you make of it on the fly -- we had no idea what we'd be doing, really. You'll probably develop a lot of new friends and relationships that may come as surprises. And there may always be new complications like COVID that turn everything upside-down.

When I retire I will never see 8 am again. Probably not 9 am either. That is unless I am coming home from playing poker all night. Just sayin.
I thought that, too. But then I found out that with thousands of active tennis players in the area, you need to be up by 7:15 most mornings to run your computer programs to beat the tennis club computers and get 8:00 or 9:30 am tennis court reservations to beat the Florida heat. Nothing is ever simple... :cool
 
It’s now been 19 months since I’ve had to do anything and I am loving it. Doing what I want when I want to is everything I hoped it would be. After 40 years of answering the bell for work each day I only wish I was younger so I could enjoy it more. My advice, don’t go any longer than you have to, the grass is greener on the other side.
 
We need a minivan love thread. No better bang for your buck if you need a family vehicle that can also haul 4x8 sheets of plywood.
Also I definitely want to semi retire rather than retire, at least to start out the process. I feel Ike I’ll at least need a little non-investment income coming in.
 
We need a minivan love thread. No better bang for your buck if you need a family vehicle that can also haul 4x8 sheets of plywood.
Also I definitely want to semi retire rather than retire, at least to start out the process. I feel Ike I’ll at least need a little non-investment income coming in.
My dodge caravan on US129…aka “The Dragon”.

Planted.

Had to get new tires after that run.

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We need a minivan love thread. No better bang for your buck if you need a family vehicle that can also haul 4x8 sheets of plywood.
Also I definitely want to semi retire rather than retire, at least to start out the process. I feel Ike I’ll at least need a little non-investment income coming in.
Minivans are awesome for golf trips. We rent one every year for our pinehurst trip. Lots of storage space and room to sit. 4 guys and plenty of room for clubs and luggage.
 

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