It seems an unsettled time in the world of work for several of my friends.
One was laid off a couple of months ago and still hasn’t found a job. As I’ve suspected for a while, she’s ready to quit the world of work and retire. Because of various opportunities lost, though, she needs to be her household’s principal wage earner for at least the next 10-15 years – almost an impossibility when you have only secondary income skills.
Another lost her job when the business she worked for closed for good this spring. She called last night to report that she is able to pay her bills this month, but only because she’s working about 20 hours a day. That’s right – 20 hours a day.
Two other friends, a teacher aged 60 and a business woman, 70, are also “burnt out” with work, but they’ll be retiring next spring, with comfortable incomes and substantial non-cash assets.
I have another friend who is, thank goodness, not under-employed and doing well in her job. She couldn’t retire today, but she doesn’t really want to.
A few years ago, she made some smart, disciplined decisions about her career, “bailing” out of technology and parlaying her prior background in finance and a refresher night course into a career change.
She paid her dues for a hard year at a public accounting firm, but now she’s the business manager of a prestigious local organization less than a 20 minute drive from her home.
Another friend, a man, commuted hundreds of miles a week for a full year before getting a transfer close to home. He loves his present job, has said that taking vacation almost seems unnecessary because he’s so happy with the work itself.
I wish I knew the reason for the differences among these friends’ situations.: luck, choices, attitude?
Education alone doesn’t answer it, or talent, or hard work.
Here’s my unconventional list of things that seem to have made a difference.
It helps to have made the right bet (luck) on which skills are going to be marketable as long as you need to work. My friend the teacher has had an almost 40-year run, and is pretty much guaranteed the opportunity to continue working on a part-time basis even after she retires.
It helps to have an aptitude and the personality for jobs or environments that offer a lot of security. For example, my friend the former commuter is by temperament a great “fit” for a large organization that values respect for authority and obedience to rules.
A big factor is either not having kids, or having them young, so that when you reach your fifties, you are only responsible for yourself. That way, if the bottom falls out, you can more easily cut back while you regroup.
Being savvy enough to pick the right “dues paying” opportunity is a factor – delivering papers at 2 AM is hard work requiring enormous discipline, but it has zero payoff, as opposed to working 70 hours a week as a staff accountant during tax season. Having done that only once, my business manager friend found she could pretty much write her own ticket afterwards.
Maintaining good health is important. Keeping an eye on joint assets if you’re married is crucial, as is negotiating smart and having the best lawyer you can find in a divorce.
It helps to have long-term relationships with “survival” type professionals, like mortgage brokers and skilled craftspeople. It helps to either be born into a family of resourceful, helpful people, or to marry into one. My son lucked out in this regard, and I’ve been the indirect beneficiary as well. Heaven knows, our own extended and blood families – a dysfunctional lot – have been completely useless in that regard (whatever good qualities I have must have come from my unknown father, may he rest in peace).
These days, you’ve GOT to have skills that can’t be offshored. Everyone in the list above who’s “doing okay” or better have jobs that require large amounts of interpersonal contact.
I had a long conversation last week with a guru in my own industry who predicts that even programming, done in an intense, interactive way called “Extreme”, is a profession that can’t be completely offshored. He may be correct: I’m paying a visit today to a client who can’t seem to get a deployment exactly right, and who can’t figure out how to VPN me into their server. Couldn’t do that if I were in India.
In the world of assets, sometimes people win in trading up primary residences, and some lose. There’s something to be said for buying a first home that will be a lifetime home, or at least sticking with a house for a decade or two rather than turning it over in 2 years.
Well, that’s the worldly wisdom I’ve gleaned from recent musings about my friends. At some point, maybe I’ll pass this along to my grandkids, who might retain a nugget or two as they are faced with their own choices.