Thinking I might retire on 12/1!

[Yppej]

Frugal-one it reads like you are saying only people who worked in helping professions deserve to kick back and enjoy retirement.

[Gardnr]

Frugal-one it reads like you are saying only people who worked in helping professions deserve to kick back and enjoy retirement.

I didn't perceive it all that way. He was replying to the quotation he included. That quote made it sound like retirement must include volunteering. I concur with Frugal-one. I too am in a helping profession-giving 110% every working hour is mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting.

I don't think volunteering should be an expectation of anyone in retirement. It is awesome that the opportunity is there for everyone who wants it. I see myself volunteering at something at some point, but for me? I'm taking a long bit of "time off" before i even consider it. I have a list longer than my arm of activities I want to do when I stop paid employment.

[iris lilies]

We volunteer all the time, but I dont view that as helping society, primarily
I view it as doing interesting stuff.

That work is for me, not for thee, you see.

[Tammy]

After 20 years as a pastor's wife, and now 20 years as a nurse, I totally agree about people in helping professions really needing to do only what they want to do in their time off. I imagine retirement should be the same way.

Once I stopped going to church, working in the nursery, teaching Bible school, spending every night at various church functions, I was a lot happier. I finally learned that my 40 to 50 hours as a nurse drained me emotionally, and my time off needs to be all about me.

[Tammy]

In that same thought might apply to people working any career 50 hours a week. It's time that it's taking away from doing what you really want to do. But I do imagine that it would be simpler to have a job where I don't interact with any people because of the emotional drain that happens in those helping professions.

[LDAHL]

In that same thought might apply to people working any career 50 hours a week. It's time that it's taking away from doing what you really want to do. But I do imagine that it would be simpler to have a job where I don't interact with any people because of the emotional drain that happens in those helping professions.

That's very true. I think pretty much any gainful employment "contributes to the world". It's not magic elves who pay the salaries of the "helping professions". It's the taxes and charitable contributions of mortgage underwriters, air traffic controllers and used car salespeople. If someone doesn't want to help others, that's their own personal decision. But it's the same decision for everybody. There is no professionally based moral elite.

[Williamsmith]

I struggle with this volunteer concept. On the one hand, you all are right....you do have to take personal time. But I see how organizations which rely on volunteers can suffer due to the lack of willing participants. Volunteer fire departments stand out as a prime example to me.

While I was working I managed to squeeze in 10 years of coaching baseball, a deacon in a local church, a lay minister who visited grieving people and a scout leader.

Now that I am retired and living in a condo community, I have the board of directors trying to shame me into serving as volunteer maintenance director. I flat out told them to go pound salt. My phone doesn’t get answered ...everything goes to voicemail. I don’t answer to anyone, don’t get compensated so am not beholding to anyone’s sense of control and I don’t particularly enjoy interacting with other humans unless it is on my terms.

I don’t think they believe me when I tell them that I have little patience to deal with problems, have a temper that suffers fools up to a point but snaps like a hair trigger. In other words, I feel I’ve done more than my share. Don’t poke sticks at the sleeping bear.

[iris lilies]

Well William, you bring up jobs that must be done such as Firefighters and condo maintenance. It is ia tricky thing to base Must Do jobs on the back of a volunteer.

My volunteer dealings are more in the realm of "these jobs are nice if someone does them, but lives are not lost/babies dont die if they are not done. So, I view these volunteer efforts in my realm as if the job really needs done, they will come to do it, and if no one cmes to so it perhaps it doesnt really need to be done.

This week I signed up to work at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I have a very specific job in mind: I want to deadhead iris during bloom season. i love cleaning up flower stalks and making them neat and tidy during bloom season. But in order to get to that job I will have to put in some time weeding the beds and etc. so that the supervisor knows I am trustworthy to allow free reign in the iris Beds next spring.

[Chicken lady]

My father otoh worked 43 years in a for profit customer service/sales oriented job he hated. He briefly assisted with my brother’s scout troop and he refereed high school football (because he is a former high school player who loved the game and my brother and I did not - he attended only games he reffed and required meetings, nothing social) He was an antisocial introvert.

now in retirement he is the church treasurer, a small business coach and accounts auditor who gets “paid” with the occasional company t-shirt or hat, mentor to a young single father, a volunteer at the soup kitchen, and a fantastic chef who hosts friends for dinner parties and weekend visits. I think his job was so draining he didn’t have anything left for “helping”. He offered to teach math (he has an engineering degree and was willing to take any required tests) at the local high school for free, but they told him that was illegal.

[Williamsmith]

Well William, you bring up jobs that must be done such as Firefighters and condo maintenance. It is ia tricky thing to base Must Do jobs on the back of a volunteer.

My volunteer dealings are more in the realm of "these jobs are nice if someone does them, but lives are not lost/babies dont die if they are not done. So, I view these volunteer efforts in my realm as if the job really needs done, they will come to do it, and if no one cmes to so it perhaps it doesnt really need to be done.

The fire department example is one that is playing out in my neck of the woods. Fewer and fewer younger people are stepping up to train and respond to emergencies in rural areas that can not afford to man a paid department. There is a growing pool of retirees who are still physically able to volunteer but a lot of them are like me.....been there done that.

Now in the case of the Maintenance Director, it is a job that has to be done but the people it serves are plenty capable of paying someone to do it. That some one needs to be a non resident to avoid conflict of interest. Many have second homes they maintain, drive high end SUVs, have restored muscle cars parked in storage facilities that they drive a few times a year and have a $100,000 plus RV they tool around in. Yet they want to cheap out and force someone to attend to their maintenance issues on a volunteer basis. Sometimes rich....is stupid.