Retirement date - your thoughts?

[Yppej]

My company is very rigid and hierarchical.

People can volunteer for tasks they want (I've done so) and you usually get it provided it's not a promotion or would involve the company spending any money training or equipping you. When it comes to getting out of work folks do the passive aggressive mess up then I won't have to do it anymore, it will get dumped on someone else and they will have no say. I have been dumped on. If you are a patronage hire with connections in the company you are likely able to shed the work you do not want.

There is zero discussion of career paths, no mentoring, top down only evaluations, opposition to any process improvements, no employee involvement in goal setting, no town halls, no suggestion box, no system improvements (we have an old DOS based program), and open job descriptions are written in a way to exclude internal applicants.

[ApatheticNoMore]

saying I'm not going to work on x, wow prima donna much? I can't imagine that working out well, and the places it works out well are not places you want to work at (where prima donna's are getting their way - oh no you really don't want to work there).

So don't say what you won't work on because maybe nobody else wants that work either and they are paying you for it afterall. However one can ask for a lateral transfer if they want to do another role and can make the case, or mention that they would like to work on a, b, c or move into doing more work in a, b, c. This may or may not work depending, but it's more the thing where they worst they can say is "no" and yes some places they will say "no".

[Rachel]

Rachel,

If the decision is to continue in your current position for X number of years, there may be some ways (both straightforward and devious) to improve your work life:
Amend your role so as to do more of what you enjoy and find intrinsically rewarding, and to do less of the other job activities.
Manage stress more effectively. (Do people at work encourage/practice Nonviolent Communication "NVC"?)
Improve the aesthetics of your individual workplace, your commute (audiobooks?, able to stop at a gym/indoor track before/after work?)
In my experience, it was an improvement to buy a skipping rope that I stowed in a bottom desk drawer and I used 1-2x per day instead of a "coffee break" at that time.

"Amending my role" is an interesting concept. I have in the past just quietly stopped doing some of the more odious or ridiculous tasks, been scolded for it, but not fired. Perhaps a bit of scolding is a reasonable price to pay for not doing some tasks that are counter-productive and non-rational, regardless of whether the higher-ups can see it that way. I wouldn't advise this strategy for a person beginning a career, but for someone who is in the final pages of the last chapter it could work.

Love the jump rope idea! Now all I need is a thing called a...what is it...a coffee break? Not sure I've heard of that.

[Rachel]

We have vague standards. Anonymous people are invited to write in their thoughts about the person being evaluated. The higher ups then select out the worst things, add their own nasty digs, and call it "helpful feedback." This is literally how our job evals are done. I'm not making it up.

[Rachel]

saying I'm not going to work on x, wow prima donna much? I can't imagine that working out well, and the places it works out well are not places you want to work at (where prima donna's are getting their way - oh no you really don't want to work there).

So don't say what you won't work on because maybe nobody else wants that work either and they are paying you for it afterall. However one can ask for a lateral transfer if they want to do another role and can make the case, or mention that they would like to work on a, b, c or move into doing more work in a, b, c. This may or may not work depending, but it's more the thing where they worst they can say is "no" and yes some places they will say "no".

Saying flat out "No" in my workplace is a great way to get shown the door. Quiet non-compliance is more what people do if they don't like certain parts of the job. The higher-ups actually model this behavior themselves.

[Yppej]

I am feeling better about being able to retire eventually. I found out that Social Security when looking at your 35 top years of earnings adjusts the older years for inflation.

Also 2017 was my 31st year of paying into the system, so assuming I am not laid off and work continuously by the end of 2021 I will have 35 years paid in, no years with $0 earnings to drag down my average.

[Rachel]

Sounds good, Yppej. It's nice when you see the light at the end!