I was shown the pasture today. Thankfully it wasn't the glue truck.

At 1000, I was invited to a meeting in the boardroom. Much to my surprise, there was my boss, having driven down from Mansfield in a snowstorm. The head of HR was there, and we had my Boss' boss and the VP of HR on video conference.

They gave me a letter and my last paycheck and started to launch into a heartfelt and complicated dissertation

"OK," I said. "Let's get to the nub. No problem. I'll go turkey hunting."

I've been there 5 years. I was retired already when I took the gig, and just didn't like staying at home and writing novels. It was a nice gig, but I have always had a propensity for working myself out of a job. I finished up my big projects before Christmas. They were shutting down the plant starting last June. I thoroughly accepted getting aced. I'd been waiting for it since August. I was just happy I got past the 1st of the year; they have to pay me for 3 weeks of vacation on top of the severance package.

My boss was new to all this. She stuck with me while I cleaned out my desk and let me go around on the floor and wish folks goodbye. I haven't had so many women cry over me leaving, but that's how it goes. I made it home by Noon.

What now? If anyone needs a bit jockey, I'll talk to them. I've got 40 years in the profession. However, I've got 200 acres of prime deer and turkey land that I'm aching to get back to. I also have a new Brown Bess musket that needs to be broken in. I think this may be my last round-up. Tell the girls at the whore house I'll miss 'em. Somebody drop by the saloon and tip the bartender for me.

Enjoy!!!

I had one of those in October. I took the entire month of September off to chase elk.....then hunted another state for elk the remainder of October/November.

Best year of my life.

Well, you don't sound too broken up about it.......much better than if you were 35 with two small kids, a mortgage, and two car payments.....

Good luck,

Tim

Retired last January at 59 1/2. [bleep] paid for. Net worth slightly over 7 figures. Killed Kodiak bear, Alaska Yukon moose, deer all over the place, run beagles and bird dogs, trap etc. I wouldn't go back to work if they paid me!!!!

Congrats

Retire for good now

You should send her a card or something, that was real decent of her to make that drive.

Congratulations on retiring again!!!

Many people who get the ax will sabotage things as they go. It's standard practice to have someone stay right on top of them until they're out the door. Someone who has access to a computer and isn't closely supervised can do a lot of damage in a few minutes. Someone in a shop can toss a couple bolts into a machine's gear box and cost them many thousands of $$. You can bet that she was under orders to stay on top of you.

So, not a vax issue?

You lucky bastard. I wish I would get fired so I can go do something fun, like actually work. I love going to work but 15 minutes after I get there, HR and coworkers are trying to beat me down. Enjoy all your free time.

Enjoy it, my friend... I retired four months ago and am loving every minute of it... Very best wishes to you...

Shaman,

Good luck, just hang out here.
------------------------

Years ago I had a part-time job in a casino in biloxi, they fired a guy/blackjack dealer while he was in the pit [where dealers/floor-person work] . He was P'off he grabbed all the $1000/$500/$100 dollar chips and threw them across the casino, turned around and grabbed them off another game.

It was over $20K they couldn't account for, although they did get quite a bit of it back.

Could be worse. Take the good and enjoy it

Congrats. I’d give my left nut to be in your shoes.

I retired last June and now every day is Saturday. When someone asks, “what do you do now?”, the answer is, “whatever I want”.

I retired at 58, leaving three days before my departure date because of using up sick leave. On my last “official “ workday I was elk hunting in New Mexico and at close to 5PM I shot a 345” 6x6. If that wasn’t God telling me it was time to enjoy life I don’t know what is…

Enjoy your retirement this time and don’t look back!

Shaman, enjoy it! It sounds like you are pretty well setup for some decent hunts.

I’ve noticed there seems to be two basic types of people:

Those that live for work, or their job,

And those that work to live.

Which one are you?

My last job was eliminated less than a year before I could retire. I got on with a local school district doing maintenance and relief bus driving for 9 months and then hung it up. I needed that last 9 months to get me to Medicare or I'd have been gone with the last job.

I was through Dec 31, getting used to it. Congrats!!

You guys are killing me. I was retired and back to work several times. I just told my boss last week I would work until December and then I'm done. My wife turns 70 this December coming up and when she quits, I'm quitting. I'm having second thoughts. I want to go now. But, I need at least one more bolt action rifle. Just one, well maybe 2. Then I can be done.

kwg

Congratulations, I’m jealous.

I am 8 months away from a legitimate retirement.
I may have to pull the plug before that to deal with family medical issues.

The last time I got fired (12 years ago) I laughed in their faces and told them I would have a job offer within a half hour, and it would take them years to replace me.
Both of those predictions proved true.

You should thank them. Retirement is what you make of it! Your day, your time, your choice!

LinkedIn has a setting that says you are looking for work.
Set that and wait for a work-from-home gig. You'll be getting emails almost immediately.

I retired in September. I figured I’d want to go back to work by now. NOPE! I’d never not gone to work and didn’t know what to expect. Didn’t take me long to grow accustomed to not going.

I didnt get another bolt after retirement, I got a 16 GA Citori Hunter. I haven’t been able to use it yet, as I’ve been too busy doing other things.

Retirement is great, have had offers for work. Ah let think NOOOOOOOOO

Shaman, I too am jealous.

My date is Mar 1, 2023, after more than 40 years with this employer, and the same job classification since 1985.

I could walk out the door today, and use a few weeks of sick leave and then take vacation for 11 months. But I would rather take the vacation hours as a severance check.

Momma needs a much newer car to cover the next twenty years.

shaman, do they even know what a favor they did you?

Now go enjoy that property of yours.

PS- I've been unemployable for a while now..😊🤣😆

Now for the dark side: Some of y'all have already guessed it.

1) I'm unvaxxed, and wholly unrepentant and I reported officially to management that status less than a month ago.
2) I had my malignant left nut removed in August.
3) I was less than 6 months away from being fully vested in retirement.

You can form your own conclusions as you wish.

As to the rest of it, I did the grand and honorable thing 9 months ago to stomp my feet and write emails about my situation. My local server farm was woefully out of date. The hardware was purchased used in 2015. The VMWare hosts were going down just looking sideways at them and the UPS that held up the server room was beeping at me, telling me the battery was shot. I wanted a refresh, and they said no. I then lobbied for help in getting everything moved off to the cloud so I could be done with primary responsibility. I got that, and spent the next six months migrating everything to the corporate cloud.

I got the last server turned off 31 December, and unplugged the UPS on the way out the door. My main duties of keeping the site afloat was officially over. When I walked into this in 2016, I was shepherding a site with 20 servers, 300 users on 3 shifts, and running its own ERP system. I left with 3 dozen users, and everything in the cloud. I couldn't even find a purchaser to buy me network patch cables. The last one retired in August.

Thanks all for the good wishes. I just spent the last 30 minutes watching Youtubes on how to accurize a Brown Bess. I think I have enough DBC left for one more (BIG) bore.

Shaman I visited your web stie recently. Looks to me like you're having too much fun to be working full time anyway. God bless and enjoy.

Good luck and shoot straight y'all

Congratulations on the early retirement, now go enjoy life!

Ah well, there’s always work out there for those willing to do it. I had that happen to me on Wednesday, April 10, 2019. I wasn’t too surprised as the big boss was a suck ass cuck who brought in his buddy to be over the rest of us. I was among the last of the team to go. Most everyone else had quit or been fired in the months leading up to me getting the axe. They paid me through the rest of the calendar year along with six weeks accumulated vacation + medical. It was glorious. I had a job interview on that Friday and three job offers before the end of the month. Paid off 1/3 of the remaining balance of the house with the double income. Unca Sugga sure appreciated it too when tax time rolled around. Ended up making 50% more at the new job than I was previously with a much more generous retirement plan to boot. Success is the best form of revenge.

Last summer the VP took me to lunch and told me the big boss had been fired and my supervisor demoted. He begged me to come back. I politely declined but that was the best damn lunch I have had in quite some time. I’ve 7 years to go before I hit 59.5; but will probably hang it up then. I’ve enough money saved to be comfortable and am getting to a point where I just don’t care anymore.

I don't know why they fired me, I wasn't doing nothin.

Losing a job is better than losing your nuts…
Wait, what?!

Congrats on retiring though. The current atmosphere in this country has made every aspect of trying to make a living miserable.

I pre-bought our place in NM 18 years ago and waited for the suits to offer the next general downsizing buyout. Only had to wait a little over one year. Took it and retired at 56. Never a regret.

I'm at 8 years from being done.

Granted, I'll probably hit at shows and sell welding art, but only on my time.

Congratulations, Shaman.

Enjoy.

Me too, but it was May.

Congrats Shaman, have a great spring turkey hunt!

Know exactly how you feel. American corporations for the most part suck.

I retired 8 years ago at 51...

They paid me a chit ton of money to never come back... and I agreed.

I didn't get a party... and absolutely no one cried.

--------------------------------------------------

Congratulations on your retirement...

Enjoy the hell you raise on your own.

"Many people who get the ax will sabotage things as they go."

One fellow who departed the firm where I worked saw it coming. He froze about 20 pounds of potatoes and stuffed them in the backs of file cabinet drawers and beneath desks and in pockets of coats that were hanging in lockers. It took about three weeks for the smell to start and it was months before they found all of the spuds.

Shaman: I wish you luck in the rest of your forever!
I retired at age 50 and am starting my 25th year of retirement bliss, enjoyment, discovery, fulfillment, stress-less living and spending money as fast as Ifuckin can!
If I had known how wonderful retirement would be I would have retired 4 years earlier, when I first could have.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
P.S.: Stress kills - enjoyment extends life.

same thing happened to me almost exactly a year ago. i started a thread about it. it also was not a surprise and yet it was somewhat. only being 59, i wasn't quite ready and was really hoping for a layoff when i was 61 so i could collect as long as possible and then take SS. but i took a job and surprisingly it is probably one of the best i have ever had. but its still a job so i am hoping they axe me in a year or so. kind of doubt it though. company is booming. just my luck.

its nice to have options and not be schitting a brick when this happens.

You have 200 acres, and you went back to work? For God's sake man, enjoy yourself and stay retired! If money is tight, that's one thing, but working just to have something to do? I had to retire years ago, and I never looked back...... and I'm never bored. I can't say I loved my job, so maybe you did. I do miss a few good folks I worked with, but I keep up with them.

No idea about the specifics of your situation or your state's employment laws but I would think you'd be eligible to draw unemployment benefits off this company, therefore may also still be able to get the 6 months in you need to be fully vested since you still would be on the company's employee roster until unemployment benefit ends.

good one.

My job yesterday was to reload 100 rds of 270 ammo. The rifle has not been out of the safe for about 5 years, so it's time to give it some exercise. Today, I went through the entire safe giving everything an annual cleaning.

Hahaha. She was told to stick with him to make sure he didnt fughk something up.

Have a good time taking time to be in no hurry to do nothing that you don't want to do.

Enjoy!!!

Sheesh. Rem, Winny, WTH? 5 years? You dont deserve it.

Hahaha, tff. Best laugh of the day. Thanks. GOD bless. WINNER, winner....

Welcome to your second round of retirement!!

This was great.....thanks and best to you.

Congrats.
I've been retired for 10-1/2 years. Never had any urge to return to the rat race.

Shaman, I should have retired a few years earlier, when i was still tough enough to hunt like i used to be able to. Lived and worked in the desert a few years too long as i cared for my patients and didnt trust others to take care of my glaucoma patients.

I had two best buds. We were going to retire and spend the golden years hunting and fishing. I finally quit at 69 and one bud was dxed with brain tumor.

Couple years later my other bud was selling his fruit/veggie packing business in the valley for 48 million and we were finally going hunting and fishing a lot. He donated 600,000 lbs of food to organizations for the needy every year. He just died of Covid.

Enjoy what time you have left. Every day retired is like being on vacation. Got family or friends you love. Get with them, bud.

Family and friends arent just something. They are everything

Way to go! You'll love retirement once you get to actually do it. But first comes, Dad/Grandpa, can you help us out? We need a new outlet put in the kitchen and a drain pipe is leaking and......and......
I remember the last couple days I worked I got asked by a couple of the bosses how I was going to get out the shop's gate since they were taking my company ID before I left for the last time. I said I would wait for someone to pull up to the gate and use their ID, then go out with them when the gate opened. I was told I would be fired for that. I laughed and said that's great. You fire me and I get a half years pay. Since I was taking a early buyout I was already getting a half years pay to leave. That would mean I get a whole years pay. I would leave on Friday and still be retired on Monday. They didn't do anything. I still left as I said I would.

100% spot on.

Go turkey hunting, good luck, and enjoy your retirement, Shaman!

It was kinda funny in a dark way. She kind of kept wandering off why I said goodbye to folks. At one point I had to go out in the hall to find her and bring her back.

"Come on back in!" I said. "You gotta keep me from stealing."

See, I've been on all sides of this. I've been the boss and the guy cleaning out the desk, I've also been one of the two burly guys on the escort to the parking lot. This gig was nicer than most. With data processing jobs, the risks are so high that I've been led out and my effects left the next day at the dock.



BTW: Yes, I will be able to collect unemployment. That's another wrinkle. I was planning on announcing my retirement in June. All told, the severance, vacation pay and unemployment will make this nearly a wash.

I have 18 months left until I pull the pin and get out of this wind-blown schitthole. I have a place up north about a hard baseball throw from The Tanana State Forest. and I doubt I'll miss dealing with the drunks, druggies, crazies and just plain stupids.

I may come back and work stints on contract here and perhaps other communities, but that'll be short fill-in stints and on my terms this time.

i was involved in a big bloody layoff years ago. i was the senior IT guy and knew how everything worked. the first round the HR VP came to me and my boss and swore us to secrecy. he said he needed to make sure no one could do anything on the systems because due to the number of people and the size of the campus, it would take all day. i had to think a little but then said ok, you tell me when and i can bring the place to its knees in a graceful manner in a matter of a minute or so with no loss, which i did. my boss followed me around while i did it and he was amazed and i think somewhat scared that i could do that. they kept me around for another 7 or 8 years and i was one of the last 11 people out of thousands to go. i was also the last IT guy, including my boss.

i used to tell my boss that the Golden Rule is actually, "Don't fugg with the people who cook your food, or admin your systems". he found out how true it was.

Congrats on your retirement Shaman!

I’ve been retired for (15) yrs. now. I retired at age 56 from 31 yrs. of teaching mathematics. When I retired, my school asked me to come back for one more year. The way the law works in my state, my retirement pension would still pay me if I worked for just one year after my retirement, so I taught and drew both my salary and my pension check, so I was double dipping. Worked for me.

I taught school long enough, and taught enough overloads, that my choice with the state pension was to retire at 103% of my salary or continue teaching at, of course, 100% of my salary. It was a no-brainer, so I happily retired.

My wife retired last year, so we are enjoying life to the max. I hunt as much as I can in two different states for Antelope, Deer, Elk & Moose. We go to Hawaii every year and I go to Africa every year now to hunt. We want to start exploring the Caribbean as well. Life is good, and I highly recommend retirement as soon as you can financially swing it. If you’re like me, and some others on this thread, you’ll never go back to work.