Observations Along The Road... at Dreamwidth

As I post this, it is now approximately 30 days until I retire from Circle A, and start the “life of leisure” (which with all of my hobbies, isn’t all that leisurely). I enter this new stage of my life with a mix of hope and fear.

First, why am I retiring? There are a number of reasons, but the primary one is that the fun has gone out of work, because….

• The technology has advanced beyond my expertise. I grew up in the era of monolithic systems, waterfall models, and the TCSEC. Today, the kids blabber on about Kubernetes, containers, agile development, model-based system engineering, DevSecOps, and more. I feel that fundamental notions of assurance and understanding of fundamental design are being lost. I’m also increasingly lost in the low level minutæ of cryptography and transmission protocols. I can’t add value when I don’t understand the details to know what is wrong.
• The work friction has been increasing. By this, I refer to things such as return-to-office and changes in the office. Pre-COVID, I had a vanpool and could sleep on the way in, and only drive sometimes on the way back. Now? The commute has always been bad, but without the vanpool (which died during COVID), it is unbearable: 60+ minutes to get in; 90-120 to get home. I no longer have the patience for it. Combine that with a push to return to the office, and I no longer want to waste the time in traffic.
• The office space situation is also changing in a direction I don’t like. We’ve also gone from private offices at work to cubicles, and now they are talking flow, and commons, and caves, and people having only shared spaces, with having to move to a “telephone booth” to have a private Teams meeting. That might be great when you are coding, but when you are dealing with proprietary meetings and attempting to deeply review documents, it doesn’t work. Management increasingly believes that issues such as the commute or the work environment can be compensated for with emotional support puppies, food trucks, sleep pods, and plants. Perhaps for the “kids” that don’t have lives. For the older folks, it isn’t all that attractive. Oh, and the kicker? The remodeling for this new space starts … June 20. When do I retire? June 30. When I mentioned this, the response was “Now you get to pack up your office 10 days earlier”. Sigh. So, my last 10 days I’ll be working from home or hoteling.
• Laptops. My work laptop is nearing end of life. When I got it, we could still have admin privileges on laptops, meaning I could easily install all the software I needed to do what I do at work. With a new laptop, I’m going to have to go through the IT support people to get lots of software approved (perl, HTML editors, emacs, mariaDB, PaintShop Pro), and that is pain I no longer want to deal with.
• Performance reviews. I will be ecstatic when I no longer have to face annual performance reviews. This is not to say I get bad reviews (I get glowing reviews), but there is an increasing emphasis on setting goals, and — even more annoying — the assumption that everyone wants to be a leader or a manager. I’m sorry, but some of us just want to be technical experts sitting in our corner: the person people go to when they need help in specialized areas. We used to have a separate technical track for that, but that seems to have been refocused on technical leadership (i.e., bringing in project funds).
• I’m also tired of the need to be a salesman. I have a coworker who has a wonderful tool they’ve been developing, and they have the skills to market this tool to leadership well. They’ve tended to develop it in isolation, and so while it touches on my specialty, they haven’t been working with me to ensure that area is correct. On the other hand, I have a tool I’ve been developing since 2009, and I’m not a salesman. It has been a continual fight to get funding for the development of this tool, and I’m just tired of it. People like the tool and what it does, but not enough to provide steady funding for its development.
• Having a clearance is increasingly stressful. There’s the standard friction of travel restrictions and not talking about the specifics of what one does at the office. With the current administration, there are increasing worries about taking positions that disagree with 47. I just don’t want that sword hanging over me.
• Then there is the current administration. We have an administration that doesn’t care about science, that is in the “do it fast and break things” mold. They may care about space, but they see it as an unrealistic toy. Further, this administration only wants “wins”, and they don’t necessarily like organizations that provide honest assessments of mission success. And while I did agree with the creation of Space Force (one of the few things Trump did right), what we really need is a Cyber Force. But this administration has no commitment to cybersecurity, based on what they’ve done to CISA, NSF, and how they talk about the RMF. They really don’t care if someone attacks our systems. Given how I care about cybersecurity, I really don’t want to have to work in that environment. Further, I sense some rocky times ahead for the Ranch, even though they might not see it yet.
• Lastly, I find that it is harder to keep focus when I’m reviewing work documents. I can do a page or three, and then have to do something else for a few minutes. However, when I’m doing my highway research, I can be focused and fall into the rabbit hole of research and history for hours. I find I want to do that more: fall into historical rabbit holes and do that research. That, more than anything else, tells me it is time: I don’t want the last third of my life being spent doing something that isn’t fun and engaging.

So I think it is time to retire. I think I have enough to keep me busy in retirement, from increasing the research on the highway pages, getting more involved with my synagogue’s men’s club, running the conference and other activities, plus picking up some activities I’ve dropped, such as genealogical research. I also want/need to get back into mall and community walking, which stopped after a bout of plantar fasciitis and my wife’s leg injury.

What’s scary about retirement is all of the planning: both insurance-related and financial. I’ve been trying to figure out all of the insurance, and I think I’m just about there. We’ll have retiree medical (which is an Anthem Medicare Plus PPO with Senior Rx Plus plan that folks seem to like well, and we’ve been using the Anthem PPO for years), and I’m arranging for AARP Dental. Medicare is confusing: but we’ve finally got acknowledgments that Part B will be effective 07/01/2025 for both of us.  The retiree medical (monthly) will be the two Medicare Premiums  ($185) plus approx. $225, and it looks like the Dental is about $110.

Finances originally looked good, but then Trump started his tariff games. I won’t give specific numbers on a public forum, but I’m lucky to have a full pension from work. We’ve turned on Social Security for my wife; we’ll turn on mine after I reach 67. We’ve got investments: Roth 401(k), 403(b), IRAs, and normal investment accounts, all of which have been hammered by this administration. So I’m less confident on the investment front than I was originally. We should also start out with a nice chuck of funds from accrued vacation I haven’t used (over 300 hours). I may also, after the required 6-month period, return to Circle A as a Retiree Casual, which provides up to 500 hours a year, no benefit. It could be a useful supplement, and I could still support a specific program that needs my experience.

They make it appear as if retirement is a simple decision. You decide to retire, you pack your desk, and you go home to enjoy your sunset years, driving your RV across the country. The reality is that there are so many decisions you need to make (and often, the time to make them is well before you retire). Where you work, and how long you stay there? Is there a pension plan? Where should you invest, and what type of investment account? Medicare timing, and Medicare parts A, B, C, D, G, N, J. What order do you draw funds from retirement accounts in order to minimize tax? IRMAA, which is an income limit, based on your income two years ago that impacts your Medicare premiums? Will my income keep up with the cost of living?

While working, you don’t realize the simplicity of a weekly paycheck and employer provided healthcare. When you retire, you have multiple income streams, all with different amounts, some of which you need to determine how much to withdraw. It clearly isn’t simple.

Complicating everything here is the 47 administration, which keeps threatening Social Security and Medicare. Even if they don’t do anything, the fear they induce is confusing. But, of course, you know they are going to do something that makes things worse (we’ve already seen this with the SSA and Medicare websites). Then, of course, are their tariff games and tax games, which destroy predictability and tank the markets. Investing was good and strong under Biden. Trump 47 has spooked the market and brought us to the edge of recession. For those who will be depending on investments for income, this is a really bad thing.

I know I want/need to retire. But there is fear that comes with it.

So, I’m entering this last month with a mix of excitement and trepidation. Wish me luck.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as T-30 or The R Word Gets Closer by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.