On being semi-retired

Last August, Neill, the guy who takes care of our 401K and 403B and WD40 and I don’t know what all else, said, “You can retire in March, 2007.” Excuse me while I kiss this guy! Barbara was already receiving more income in retirement than she was when teaching school, and my Social Security benefits would begin in March, and suddenly all those years of payroll deductions had accumulated to the magic number and we left Neill’s office pretty giddy.

In January, I told my boss that I was retiring. He asked if I was interested in doing contract work, and I said that I was, but on a significantly reduced schedule – like half time. I had already decided that I wasn’t ready to come home and wonder what I was going to do for the rest of my life, and since I didn’t have a lake cabin to occupy my time, nor do I golf or fish, I thought I could ease into this venture by working part time. The need for what I do professionally is entering the twilight years as well; we’ll go out of style together. I figure that there’s a need for my skills about another nine to twelve months, at least from the standpoint of my present semi-employer. Of course, I said I was going to be out of the computer business before the year 2000. I’ve been wrong before.

Of course, the real reason for wanting to work part-time is that I’m not sure Barbara and I can stand that much togetherness. You know, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I know of early un-retirements under those circumstances. Homicide is not unheard of. She has her office in one end of the house and I have mine in the other, and she has long suggested that a sound proof room where she could go off and shut the door would be a good idea. Remember, this is the woman who used to call my boss and say, “Can’t you send Bob somewhere? I really need some time alone.” Well, her schedule at Austin Grad had her away from the house all day on Mondays, and she volunteered at her old school Friday mornings, so I arranged to work Tuesday through Thursday and it was almost like the before retirement schedule. We meet up Friday noon, go do our shopping, have Saturday to do whatever, Church all Day Sunday and signing on the ground, and then… then gloriously, for me Monday is a free day. Better than free, it’s a sit on the patio, drink coffee and watch the tomatoes grow day. You can do that in Austin for another week or two this time of year.

People ask what I do with all my time now that I’m retired. My standard answer is “First, there’s coffee on the patio and then there’s Oprah, and Ellen and Dr. Phil and those three women – and oh, there’s Jerry Springer!” The truth is I have never seen any one of those programs. What I really do (so far) is fodder for later blogs. Then there’s work. When my boss agreed to the 3-day work week, he didn’t mention that he still expected me to work 40 hours a week. The company is trying to meet a significant deadline, so I’m logging extra hours – and getting paid a righteous sum to do so.

A friend kept telling me that I should become a contractor. Now that I are one and am making twice as much money as I was as an employee and working half as many hours (in theory, at least), I wonder why I didn’t do this twenty years ago! Of course, there are the little things like taxes to be paid, and both portions of my Social Security deductions (I sometimes wonder if my deductions and benefits wave to each other as they pass in the night) and insurance payments (now there’s a blog subject for sure). But I’m having fun being semi-retired in Austin.