I hope this isn;t me after the other old guys at work retire!

[Ralphie ★]

[Longjohn ★]

My record of being the oldest dinosaur to still be running a press is secure. The new owners of the forge are shutting it down.

[Ralphie ★]

2 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

My record of being the oldest dinosaur to still be running a press is secure. The new owners of the forge are shutting it down.

One cow-orker will be 71 when he retaars in June.  Of course our work is not physical like running a press!

[Longjohn ★]

2 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

One cow-orker will be 71 when he retaars in June.  Of course our work is not physical like running a press!

I think the second oldest guy still running press was 58 when he bid on an easier job. I was 66 1/2 when I retired.

[Ralphie ★]

26 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

I think the second oldest guy still running press was 58 when he bid on an easier job. I was 66 1/2 when I retired.

That is sad they are closing the place.  The rust belt gets rustier.

[Ralphie ★]

35 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

My record of being the oldest dinosaur to still be running a press is secure. The new owners of the forge are shutting it down.

Bobby! 

 

[JerrySTL ★]

I have a buddy who is still working at 75 years old. He's a government employee who thinks that the Air Force will stop flying if he quits. 

[Longjohn ★]

11 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

That is sad they are closing the place.  The rust belt gets rustier.

What comes around goes around. I remember when Mercer Forge bought Jackson Forge with the intent of getting their customers and then closing it down.

[Longjohn ★]

2 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

I have a buddy who is still working at 75 years old. He's a government employee who thinks that the Air Force will stop flying if he quits. 

He might be right. The forge didn’t last very long after I retired.

[donkpow]

I think I might have 'oldtimer's disease'. I blame the crash.

[shootingstar]

54 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

I have a buddy who is still working at 75 years old. He's a government employee who thinks that the Air Force will stop flying if he quits. 

Honest, that is soooo sad that his job defines his identity.  He will have a defined pension so does he really need to work for financial reasons too...?  

My professor brother-in-law said he hopes to work past 70. He's my age...nearly 62 yrs.  He earns a healthy salary which is high enough that his name is on list of publicly released annual document of non-profit employees who earn above a certain income. He will have a great pension as longtime university prof. for past 30 yrs. so far.  His wife died (my sister) and his mid 30's adult 2 children have been independent/living elsewhere for past decade. He has a great relationship with his children.  It's a shame there's nothing else he sees to do better to do with his years ahead. 

Unlike the U.S., Canada's health care system makes it a bit easier financially to retire..at 65 or a bit past that.

[MickinMD ★]

The Baby Boomers born in the later 50's are now reaching retirement age in droves.

There were so many Baby Boomers among us 142 teachers at Old Mill High, Maryland's largest high school that, 7 years after I retired in 2006, I looked at the school website and recognized the names of 11 teachers.  The school had been partly a magnet school for the gifted and talented in the north half of our county but the county school system couldn't find enough people with the advanced and other high certifications we retirees had that it lost the magnet position.  One of the reasons for the rush to retirement was the disgust with "No Child Left Behind" and the fact it cheated millions of kids out of proper academic or vocational training and the frustration with having low-academic-ability kids forced on you in upper-level classes, slowing down the teaching of the kids who were rightly in those classes.

[JerrySTL ★]

14 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

Honest, that is soooo sad that his job defines his identity.  He will have a defined pension so does he really need to work for financial reasons too...?  

He actually has three pensions available as he's retired military, civil service, and social security. He's owned the same house since 1980 and it's paid off. Older cars also. I don't understand it. 

[Kzoo]

20 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

Honest, that is soooo sad that his job defines his identity.

And some people truly enjoy what they do for a living.  Why might that be sad?

 

[shootingstar]

15 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

He actually has three pensions available as he's retired military, civil service, and social security. He's owned the same house since 1980 and it's paid off. Older cars also. I don't understand it. 

In CAnada, we don't have retired military unless one actually was in the military.  Yes, he (and myself at a lower govn't pension), that is correct there is Canada Pension Plan which is equivalent to Social Security.  One has to carefully plan withdrawal from private banking retirement plans  so that one doesn't cancel out the  CPP due to taxation.

Company pension plans are getting rarer and rarer in Canada.  So more folks rely on CPP and saving in their private banking pension (registered retirement savings plan) and other investment vehicles (tax free savings plan (TSFA)).  

[ChrisL]

20 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

Honest, that is soooo sad that his job defines his identity.  He will have a defined pension so does he really need to work for financial reasons too...?  

My professor brother-in-law said he hopes to work past 70. He's my age...nearly 62 yrs.  He earns a healthy salary which is high enough that his name is on list of publicly released annual document of non-profit employees who earn above a certain income. He will have a great pension as longtime university prof. for past 30 yrs. so far.  His wife died (my sister) and his mid 30's adult 2 children have been independent/living elsewhere for past decade. He has a great relationship with his children.  It's a shame there's nothing else he sees to do better to do with his years ahead. 

Unlike the U.S., Canada's health care system makes it a bit easier financially to retire..at 65 or a bit past that.

My oldest sister is 72 and still works by choice.  She’s been a paralegal for a law firm for decades and she’s pretty much the queen bee there.  She is physically able to work, loves her job, loves the people and has a grumpy retired husband at home all day so it gets her out of the house. 

We had a zoom chat recently and she said she has no desire to retire but is working less hours now.

[shootingstar]

12 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

My oldest sister is 72 and still works by choice.  She’s been a paralegal for a law firm for decades and she’s pretty much the queen bee there.  She is physically able to work, loves her job, loves the people and has a grumpy retired husband at home all day so it gets her out of the house. 

We had a zoom chat recently and she said she has no desire to retire but is working less hours now.

I'm hoping brother-in-law scales down to working part-time. Though according to his ratings by students whom he teaches, he is a good teacher, he actually finds some of the younger student classes frustrating. Teaching remotely..is also alot more challenging. Especially  classes over 100 first year students which is typical in engineering faculties.

I'm sure he is also the one running around, driving and occasional errands for his parents who are both in their early 90's.

BIL has done some travelling but often it's tacked onto an international conference that he attends/presents at. He does read literary novels....true literature and has for past few decades.

[shootingstar]

20 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

And some people truly enjoy what they do for a living.  Why might that be sad?

 

We may love our work..but we do slow down abit. Seriously.  When I worked for the judges...there were a few over 70. These were really great, bright and gracious guys still. But even they, knew they were slowing down, despite their celebrated brilliance among lawyers in CAnada. I'm talking about such judges who have national public profiles...talked about in the news media because of national investigative commissions, some high profile criminal cases they heard/wrote judicial decisions and the books they wrote for the legal profession.

[Some Old Guy]

3 hours ago, Philander Seabury said:

Becoming extinct would really stink.  

[maddmaxx ★]

2 hours ago, Longjohn said:

He might be right. The forge didn’t last very long after I retired.

Much to my chagrin and horror, Pratt and Whitney survived laying me off with relatively few problems.   

So did my last company.

[Some Old Guy]

2 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Much to my chagrin and horror, Pratt and Whitney survived laying me off with relatively few problems.   

So did my last company.

After I retired, my ex-bosses tried to get me to return on two different occasions to act as a consultant on programs with which I was uniquely familiar.  I declined both times.  They somehow got along without me.  I'm sure it wasn't easy.    

[maddmaxx ★]

4 minutes ago, Taylor said:

After I retired, my ex-bosses tried to get me to return on two different occasions to act as a consultant on programs with which I was uniquely familiar.  I declined both times.  They somehow got along without me.  I'm sure it wasn't easy.    

I went back a couple of times because the money was good but it was never with the intent for it to be more than a few weeks.  The hobby shop keeps asking if I'd like to do some repair work for them but the pay is poor and my life is more valuable.

[shootingstar]

We like to think we are indispensable to our employers.

Nope.

There are 2 younger generations behind us, some who are bright, quick, etc. At work, I found out that some of my colleagues wanted info/educational sessions weekly or more. I had suggested boss that we scale down to every 2 wks. I'm happy to learn but feel we are spinning around in circles..until boss gets her own strategy straightened out in her mind how to redeploy staff expertise and advance our services.  She's new and has about 20 yrs of more work ahead.  (She has 2 young children).

[shootingstar]

I will add my boss....is my niece's age...mid-30's. She bends alot to the command of senior management. What was really noticeable my former boss who was just a bit older than I, was resisting in certain areas that made no sense/were antiquated. Covid which forced working from home and going digital as much as possible for entire organization, laid bare some residual old thinking.

[BR46]

4 hours ago, Kzoo said:

And some people truly enjoy what they do for a living.  Why might that be sad?

 

The last years of my employment I hated the job.....mostly because of management. 

I started planning for retirement when I was 20 and was shooting for 57. I could have backed off to part time when I was 55 but Wo46 didn't like the idea. 

At 58 I walked out the factory door for the last time 

3 hours ago, Taylor said:

After I retired, my ex-bosses tried to get me to return on two different occasions to act as a consultant on programs with which I was uniquely familiar.  I declined both times.  They somehow got along without me.  I'm sure it wasn't easy.    

They could not pay me enuff to go back 

[shootingstar]

2 hours ago, BR46 said:

The last years of my employment I hated the job.....mostly because of management. 

I started planning for retirement when I was 20 and was shooting for 57. I could have backed off to part time when I was 55 but Wo46 didn't like the idea. 

At 58 I walked out the factory door for the last time 

They could not pay me enuff to go back 

I never even thought about retirement until I was around 57 yrs. or so. Up to that time, it was about just saving money with no plan ahead, paying off mortgage, taking trips with dearie whenever I found vacation time and taking every opportunity to learn and grow in any job I had. I really have enjoyed my career so far.  These upcoming months probably won't be inspiring because our whole organization is in shrinking mode.  That's ok.  For me, it won't be forever.