Probably retiring soon

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I (m72) haven't yet retired mostly because I still like my job, at least on the good days. And I think another reason is it took me until my 60s to learn how to get on well with a group of coworkers and not be admonished for "not considering my audience" when communicating with others and so forth. And there isn't anything I'm eager to take up such as a hobby when retiring.

Luckily I can afford to retire although there are clearly financial advantages to not retiring.

Nevertheless, the situation in the US will likely lead to my being let go, surely as somebody for whom that's not genuinely frightening, I shouldn't be bothered.

There are definitely things I will likely do in retirement. My wife wants a dog, but I don't feel I have the time and energy to give a dog the proper attention it needs, but once retired, that shouldn't be a problem. Just as an example.

I've had the attitude for some time that I'll retire when I know the time has come, either because I wake up one day and decide I want to, or because I'm no longer needed or wanted on the job. I actually thought this would be happening at the end of FY2023 because the project I was supporting was shelved, but instead was told they really wanted me and had other work. And at least some of them must have known how old I am.

One way or the other, I probably don't have that many years left anyway and even fewer healthy years.

I think my boss was 75 when he retired. He left a week after I did!

I learned how to play golf before I retired, in addition to my gardening hobbies.
But, they are both good weather hobbies, so I do stuff like my taxes when it is nasty outside with ice covering the lawn.

Would you get severance pay if you get fired or a larger retirement check if you stay a bit longer? If so those might be good financial incentives to to wait till you get fired or plan to retire at the end of this year if you don't. Next year's taxes will be easier if get your last paycheck before the year ends

The issue is that I'm a contractor at a civilian government agency, and as you know, they are aggressively reducing staff levels at such agencies. I am hard pressed to believe they'd keep contractors on when government employees are being canned. However it's impossible to know what will happen because there's been so little clarity. A lot of it seems intended to just scare people into quitting.

But I can afford to retire, so the prospect of losing my job is simply not as frightening for me as for most everyone else. I actually feel sort of guilty about that, although I've been through many scary times in the past. Severance pay isn't really an issue, I may be eligible for some, but probably not much. It has mattered in the past. In 2009 I was unemployed for about 10 weeks, but was getting severance pay the whole time.

The question is, would you be better off continuing to work until you are laid off or the end of the year or not. If you don't need severance and can do it now, you might be better off doing so right now rather than waiting. Especially since the current administration will consider you a DEI hire.

As for what to do, what are you interested in and can afford. I am sure, being on the spectrum, that you have an interest in something that will take up your time.

Finally, I know that there are different rules for Social Security for government workers but as soon as you decide to pull the trigger, apply for retirement benefits immediately. With the recent firings, I would not be surprised if it takes them 6 months to a year to process those. Like you, at least I would be able to financially get through that period but still apply early.

I am not a government employee. If I am going to be let go, it will be sooner rather than later. No reason to rush the process. As a contractor who has been on the job almost 13 years, I don't think I'd be considered a "DEI hire"

To be clear, I already get SSA retirement benefits and I have a 401K with my current employer and retirement accounts of various sorts. I don't need to apply for anything.

Again, I am not a government employee (which I said yesterday but it's too late to edit that so I am commenting again).

Almost 5 months later and still employed in that job. It seems that nobody questions my competence nor are they predisposed to think my age is affecting my performance.

The other aspect to this is that I don't think I really got the knack of getting along in a workplace until my 60s, so having that "social ability" is sort of a novelty. I have now been in that environment over 13 years and every day, now that we've all returned to the office, I see people I've known for over a decade and have worked with, and almost all have a positive impression of me and are happy to see and talk to me. This is such a change from most of my career when I struggled with miscommunication and making enemies.

Which sort of raises a different question as to whether a person on the spectrum (but not seriously impacted by sensory overload related to noise, light, and so forth) can actually overcome those challenges, as the prevailing wisdom tells us we can't. Which also brings into question whether I personally am diagnosibly on the the spectrum (but see my sig for my story on that matter).

So I'll retire whenever the time comes, I just don't yet exactly know when that will be.

It's often said here that autism is a spectrum so I think this can vary by autistics.

I used to be majorly bothered by loud noises but I gradually built up a tolerance. I was kinda forced to be in noisy environments as a kid, teen, & adult. My dad worked in construction(he retired a couple years ago) & he sometimes did some of the work at home. He's also a major DIYer with various projects at home. Sometimes I assisted but even when I didn't the noise was sometimes inescapable. The three jobs I had were in noisy environments. My first was dish-washing & the washer machine & kitchen were very noisy. My other two jobs were doing custodial in retail while the stores were open & at my second job I sometimes worked around floor scrubbers & buffers. I'm not as sensitive to loud noises like I used to be & I can tune lots of things out that I couldn't when I was a kid.

My girlfriend is very likely on the spectrum & she's always been majorly bothered by loud noises in general. In our previous apartment our neighbor started playing music with heavy bass a lot & the frequent kinda forced exposure made Cass even more sensitive to bass & now heavy bass can affect her like a PTSD reaction.


I'm glad your job is still going very well for you. It def sounds like working there right now is a positive part of your life

As a new development, I and most people working on my contract have been furloughed, but then if the shutdown ended today we'd be back at work. Personally, although I personally support the aims of the Democrats who refuse to sign off on the Republicans' spending bill until they revise some of their other budgetary commitments, I happen to think the Democrats should cave and find another hill to die on. They need to focus on fixing their eroding political support and prolonging the shutdown won't do that. Apparently most Americans blame the GOP at present however if the shutdown drags on I predict more and more people will shift blame to the Democrats.

Having said that, I can see how this situation could lead to my retirement. I won't go into detail about that, but I am certain most people will get the general idea. So obviously it has caused me to think more about retirement and consider the possibility I may soon be retired. Still don't know how I feel about it, but I believe I feel readier than I did 6 months ago.

So what I am dealing with, is that for various reasons there is a lot going on in my life, and if I were working now I am not certain I could handle all that. I have been hurrying to get all my ducks in a row so that if called back to work, I would be comfortable returning.

However, I am not certain I'll be called back, in other words even if the shutdown ends now, they may have decided in the meantime to reduce the scope of the contract such that my services are no longer needed. That would mean that I am officially retired going forward. So this might be the sign I was waiting for.

A major reason I went so long without retiring, apart from the obvious financial benefits, is that I came to find that after decades, I had gotten the knack of getting along with co-workers. After years of getting the same negative feedback, such as being told that if asked the time, I would answer by explaining how a clock works, I developed an approach to interacting with people in a way that they appreciate. It seems that people who know me at work, mostly government employees, are genuinely nice to me. Not only that, but people younger than my own offspring seem to treat me as an equal, insofar as technical matters are concerned. They genuinely believe I know what I'm doing and respect my work. This in a technical discipline in which youth is generally seen as an advantage. In contrast, my own son often gives signals that he thinks me a bit too old to deal with certain technical stuff, for example I was using the SWA app in his presence to check into a flight exactly 24 hours before departure, and the app crashed, but to him it seemed as though I was too old to deal with the technology and should avoid traveling on SWA in favor of an airline that does seat reservations (BTW SWA is supposed to start reserving seats so maybe their "traditional" approach wasn't so "cool" after all). TBH it seems that my coworkers seldom if ever behave in a way that acknowledges my advanced age, despite looking every day of it (in my opinion).

It's not unheard of for people to claim that autism makes you come across as younger, but it's not generally presented as a positive. But perhaps there are situations in which it helps.

Nevertheless, I largely dread getting called back. It seems I was maintaining a pace to which I don't feel eager to return. I guess I'll just continue to go with the flow. We'll see.

You experience shows that people with autism can learn social skills. It just takes us a lot longer.

Also, in order to learn social skills, we need to be in a more or less accepting environment.
We can't learn them if we are the target of bullies. We never get the chance to learn them.

Some of us learn valuable job skills. That can create a more accepting environment.

I grow a gorgeous flower garden for the neighborhood. I still have roses that are blooming in the 3rd week of October in Connecticut!

I'd like to post an update. So I was called back in the day after 11 November and things seemed more or less as they had been, and I have gotten a couple of paychecks. But although I was productive after that, I don't really have much to do there at the moment, and very few people will be there this week anyway so my being at the office could be very difficult, so I just said I'd take the week off, and I'll take Leave Without Pay except I will still get my Holiday Pay for New Year's. Making this more uncomfortable is that I have to be off the week beginning 11 January to go to a wedding in Africa, this is non-negotiable although my wife and I admit we'd rather not be going. After returning the following Wednesday I don't foresee any future long absences. But I hadn't announced that I'd be away for that wedding so I'll have to call my boss tomorrow (couldn't bring myself to do it today).

Having said all that, I am still facing a challenge from family issues and having to take frequent time off for personal matters. Trying to make up the time used for that is adding stress to my life. I may have to see whether I can go to a 32-hour work schedule (which I did when I first turned 70) and if I can't do that then I may quit.

I still like the work but since I first created this thread I feel increasingly ready to throw in the towel.

Might as well announce that I retired shortly before Easter. Of course, this is my first opportunity to announce that here.

Might provide more detail later. Not a bad thing of itself though.

^^^congratulations!
I retired in 2006, at that point I asked myself did I want my life back no matter what, and I said yes.