Today is a big, stupendous
day in my life.
Wednesday, October 28 is the day that I am formally, officially, retired.
My retirement was actually official on September 1, but the way the government handles Social Security is that you skip a month to get paid, and then they pay you based on your birth date.
Thus, since I was born on the 28th of April, my first payment is October 28, and bingo!, today is that day, so today I am officially retired, at least in my mind and in my pocketbook.
My payments will then revert to the usual payment schedule after that, and I will be receiving my next payment on November 3.
So, the saga that began on October 10, 2019—the day the company I worked for since 1996 went out of business after months of teetering on the brink—has officially ended.
I did not want to retire, I really didn’t, but job market conditions forced me to do so against my will.
I could not fight complete and total apathy against older workers, nor could I fight the coronavirus. These were two incredible obstacles that I had to face head on, and while I knew that the former would thwart my chances—and I knew it even years before I lost my job—I, or should I say we, had no idea that a medical situation would throw the entire world into total chaos like it did.
So here I was, fighting to find a job and doing it completely and totally alone. I put up a good front, did my best to find something—yes, I did my due diligence—filled out all the forms the state required of me via my contract with them to find a job, but it simply was not in the cards.
I contacted everyone I knew who I thought could help me—friends, relatives, former fellow employees—but absolutely nothing worked.
So in between looking for a job, I did so many other things to fill up my time.
I helped my elderly parents with whatever they needed me to do. I helped out my own family with whatever they needed me to do.
I wrote a novel. I picked up on my hobby of record collecting, and digitized hundreds of record albums and singles.
And when people were crying that they were bored when the pandemic struck and they were at home looking at the walls, I had had a head start on all of this, and I was as busy as a bee, and I put up a couple of videos on Facebook to attest to that fact.
Sure, there were days that I had no idea what I was going to do next—and that was at 8 a.m. in the morning—but on other days, I was never, ever bored.
The worst part of the whole year-long ordeal is that I had to watch my son be put on furlough from a job he loved, sit on the couch watching TV waiting patiently for the call to come back, and then being told six months after the fact that he did not have a job.
Not only didn’t he have a job, but he had no social activities, all of them canceled due to coronavirus concerns.
Now, at least, some of those activities have come back, and he has something to look forward to, but as far as getting another job, we have been everywhere, done everything we could do, spoken to people who might be able to help him, joined all the job groups for those with disabilities, but right now, he still has nothing.
So it is déjà vu all over again for me, as I go through the same thing with my son as I went through myself.
But maybe there is hope, based on my own circumstances.
Nearly at the end of my unemployment and with nowhere else to go, to apply to, and no one else to speak with, I was contacted by a former Pentagon executive who had taken over the trade association covering military resale—military stores including commissaries and exchanges—and he told me that he needed a writer who could cover the industry on a freelance, remote, basis.
He remembered my work for the past nearly quarter century, where I covered that industry, and he thought I would be a good fit for this job, which I could do at home.
We agreed to a salary—something that would not throw my Social Security retirement payments into a dither—and I was on contract with them.
I went right to work, and have been working for them for a few weeks now. The work is fun, the work can be strenuous, and while I came to them cheap, it was nice to get my first paycheck a few weeks back.
It is a nice job to have for right now, and while I am on contract, I hope it lasts into the foreseeable future.
It isn’t the job I hoped to get, buck heck, did it come at the right time!
So I hope it is déjà vu all over again for my son, who maybe can get something like I have on a part-time basis, which he was working on when he was furloughed.
Hopefully, with all the work we have put into finding him something, that job is just around the corner for him.
I hope so … I really do … he needs to go back to work as soon as possible.
I said the exact same thing to myself during the past year, and while it became nothing more than a pipe dream for me until the very end, I hope it turns into a cornucopia of plenty for my son.
He doesn’t deserve to be where he is now, and my wife and I are hoping for the best for him.
And speaking of my wife …
She has been the true “Rock of Gibraltar” for myself and my family during this crisis time.
Without her, I don’t know where I would be or our son would be.
She has worked on the front lines during the coronavirus period as a bank teller, and don’t tell me that what she is doing is not on the front lines. It is, and has been during this entire horrible situation that we are in.
People spit at her, they put gum in the ATM machines to vent their frustration, they tell her off as if she can do anything about their inane personal situations, and yes, she has been exposed to the coronavirus, and we have all had to be tested.
Happily, we are fine, but don’t tell me that she hasn’t been on the front lines as much as any essential worker, because she has been.
She, herself, will probably be retiring in the coming months, and it will be a well-earned retirement. At least she will be able to go out on her own two legs, unlike myself, who had my legs taken out from under me when my company tanked.
But back to today …
This ends up a grand day for me, and while I do wish that I didn’t have to go through what I ultimately did to reach this day, I thank God for my family—including my parents, and yes, I do wish my recently deceased father was here today to enjoy this day with me—my extended family, and my friends, without whom I could not have gotten to this point in one piece.
And yes, I thank you, the readers of this Blog, who have also helped get me through the muck and mire that I have been through.
Thanks to all, and to all a good day!
Wednesday, October 28 is the day that I am formally, officially, retired.
My retirement was actually official on September 1, but the way the government handles Social Security is that you skip a month to get paid, and then they pay you based on your birth date.
Thus, since I was born on the 28th of April, my first payment is October 28, and bingo!, today is that day, so today I am officially retired, at least in my mind and in my pocketbook.
My payments will then revert to the usual payment schedule after that, and I will be receiving my next payment on November 3.
So, the saga that began on October 10, 2019—the day the company I worked for since 1996 went out of business after months of teetering on the brink—has officially ended.
I did not want to retire, I really didn’t, but job market conditions forced me to do so against my will.
I could not fight complete and total apathy against older workers, nor could I fight the coronavirus. These were two incredible obstacles that I had to face head on, and while I knew that the former would thwart my chances—and I knew it even years before I lost my job—I, or should I say we, had no idea that a medical situation would throw the entire world into total chaos like it did.
So here I was, fighting to find a job and doing it completely and totally alone. I put up a good front, did my best to find something—yes, I did my due diligence—filled out all the forms the state required of me via my contract with them to find a job, but it simply was not in the cards.
I contacted everyone I knew who I thought could help me—friends, relatives, former fellow employees—but absolutely nothing worked.
So in between looking for a job, I did so many other things to fill up my time.
I helped my elderly parents with whatever they needed me to do. I helped out my own family with whatever they needed me to do.
I wrote a novel. I picked up on my hobby of record collecting, and digitized hundreds of record albums and singles.
And when people were crying that they were bored when the pandemic struck and they were at home looking at the walls, I had had a head start on all of this, and I was as busy as a bee, and I put up a couple of videos on Facebook to attest to that fact.
Sure, there were days that I had no idea what I was going to do next—and that was at 8 a.m. in the morning—but on other days, I was never, ever bored.
The worst part of the whole year-long ordeal is that I had to watch my son be put on furlough from a job he loved, sit on the couch watching TV waiting patiently for the call to come back, and then being told six months after the fact that he did not have a job.
Not only didn’t he have a job, but he had no social activities, all of them canceled due to coronavirus concerns.
Now, at least, some of those activities have come back, and he has something to look forward to, but as far as getting another job, we have been everywhere, done everything we could do, spoken to people who might be able to help him, joined all the job groups for those with disabilities, but right now, he still has nothing.
So it is déjà vu all over again for me, as I go through the same thing with my son as I went through myself.
But maybe there is hope, based on my own circumstances.
Nearly at the end of my unemployment and with nowhere else to go, to apply to, and no one else to speak with, I was contacted by a former Pentagon executive who had taken over the trade association covering military resale—military stores including commissaries and exchanges—and he told me that he needed a writer who could cover the industry on a freelance, remote, basis.
He remembered my work for the past nearly quarter century, where I covered that industry, and he thought I would be a good fit for this job, which I could do at home.
We agreed to a salary—something that would not throw my Social Security retirement payments into a dither—and I was on contract with them.
I went right to work, and have been working for them for a few weeks now. The work is fun, the work can be strenuous, and while I came to them cheap, it was nice to get my first paycheck a few weeks back.
It is a nice job to have for right now, and while I am on contract, I hope it lasts into the foreseeable future.
It isn’t the job I hoped to get, buck heck, did it come at the right time!
So I hope it is déjà vu all over again for my son, who maybe can get something like I have on a part-time basis, which he was working on when he was furloughed.
Hopefully, with all the work we have put into finding him something, that job is just around the corner for him.
I hope so … I really do … he needs to go back to work as soon as possible.
I said the exact same thing to myself during the past year, and while it became nothing more than a pipe dream for me until the very end, I hope it turns into a cornucopia of plenty for my son.
He doesn’t deserve to be where he is now, and my wife and I are hoping for the best for him.
And speaking of my wife …
She has been the true “Rock of Gibraltar” for myself and my family during this crisis time.
Without her, I don’t know where I would be or our son would be.
She has worked on the front lines during the coronavirus period as a bank teller, and don’t tell me that what she is doing is not on the front lines. It is, and has been during this entire horrible situation that we are in.
People spit at her, they put gum in the ATM machines to vent their frustration, they tell her off as if she can do anything about their inane personal situations, and yes, she has been exposed to the coronavirus, and we have all had to be tested.
Happily, we are fine, but don’t tell me that she hasn’t been on the front lines as much as any essential worker, because she has been.
She, herself, will probably be retiring in the coming months, and it will be a well-earned retirement. At least she will be able to go out on her own two legs, unlike myself, who had my legs taken out from under me when my company tanked.
But back to today …
This ends up a grand day for me, and while I do wish that I didn’t have to go through what I ultimately did to reach this day, I thank God for my family—including my parents, and yes, I do wish my recently deceased father was here today to enjoy this day with me—my extended family, and my friends, without whom I could not have gotten to this point in one piece.
And yes, I thank you, the readers of this Blog, who have also helped get me through the muck and mire that I have been through.
Thanks to all, and to all a good day!
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