Birthday Answers

[susandennis]

sherlock999

1. What kind of work did you do before retirement?

I most spent the first part of my working life in corporate communications - a lot of that at IBM where I wrote speeches for executives.

I spent the last part of my working life building and populating web pages.

I loved both jobs.

2. What kind of advice do you have for someone approaching retirement age? What were your best retirement decisions and worst ones?

My worst retirement decision was not planning soon enough. I lost $18,000 in IBM retirement benefits because I just ignored the information they sent me. I never 'planned' to retire. I loved working. It was who I was. Retirement, to me, was inability to work and so not acceptable. I put money into 401K and I saved but otherwise, I really ignored the whole thing.

And then I got laid off from a job that I really did like. I admit that I did not really look that hard to find another. And then one day, I realized I was retired. Because I had not spent any effort into even thinking about it, it was not a smooth transition.

But now I love it and my advice is just that. Get yourself to a place where you can love it.

Comments

[carriea31.livejournal.com]

Regarding the first answer..... did you set out to work in that specific field, or did you get lucky enough to stumble into it and love it?

[susandennis]

stumble stumble stumble...

I wanted to get a BS in Math in college. BUT I sucked at chemistry and wasn't that great at physics and a BA in Math seemed stupid so I switched to Communications — it was a tiny department that had no women majors, so why the hell not.

I worked at newspapers and that got me to communications at IBM and then... the speechwriter was out one day and the head of the plant needed a speech and everyone else was intimidated by him so I said 'I'll do it!'

And I never looked back. Really. Found My Calling.