Just curious though… Why do you feel you need to retire early? I mean, reality is that once you leave a w2 workforce, you’re going to have a tougher time getting back in. Is you and your spouse’s “job” that dreadful and that high pressure or that time consuming to consider quitting? Rather that quiting, have you simply considered either reducing your hours/efforts (“unofficially”) or transferring to a position of lesser pressure/work? It seems like that would be a better option… Because it seems like you’d get to keep most of benefits of being a salaried W2 wager (and there are benefits despite the sucky parts too). while at the same time freeing up some free time for what reasons…
I ask, because just this weekend I had a interesting conversation with a friend. I have a friend that’s been at a big company for some time. Not in major management position/etc….. Friend said over the weekend he wants to retire because he’s tired of the grind…When I asked, he was complaining about how much he works, how crappy his raise is, on and on and on… My response..
“Well, you work at a big company, and you’re not a director/senior manager..So let’s face it, whether your a steller employee or not, you’re looking at probably a 0.5% pay difference between being a “top employee” in your group/dept versus being a “mediocre employee”…
You chose to work your ass of on the most cutting edge/high profile/sexy projects because that’s how you are…You didn’t want to be like your coworkers that chose to be in the those lower profile/”boring”/maintenance projects…. So as a result, you get to stay working 70+hrs each week, arguably working on some of the sexist projects, to be paid 0.5% more than your coworkers who get to come in at 9am, leave at 5:45pm, and take 1.5 hr lunch breaks, call in sick or “work from home” when their personal life requires them to…..with probably very minute amount of decreased job security versus you
…I’m sure Dr. Jacobs thanks you for your efforts, because I’m sure you helped him collect a few tens to hundreds of millions more of stock options……
If you want to have a life, why don’t you just switch your role and do that less stellar project, cut your hours, and spend more time doing something else…It just costs you 0.5% pay difference, and it’s really closer to 0.25% difference after taxes…And hell, if you’re thinking about quiting and retiring, why must you do the company a favor and leave yourself. Why don’t you just drag it out, work less, collect your vacation accumulation, your benefits, your health insurance, and meanwhile just wait to be laidoff when/if it comes to that? On top of that, you’d get a severance package, being RIF’ed”
