Semi-retirement... It's pretty darn good! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 06:19:43 am
content: Hi,Happy New Year!In early 1980's, I started with IBM working on card punch machines and small "mainframes", as well as complex odd-ball machines with racks of vacuum tubes in them. I have seen an immense change over the decades and have always adapted.As of now, I am semi-retired from my electronics design business and decades of being employed with various companies. I have now given away some major projects to good peers, and only kept a few smaller projects. Working 300 hours in one month almost burnt me out last June, and quite frankly it is time. Do you live to work or work to live? Now it is two days a week max.I am enjoying it. A mate dropped over a couple of NAD amplifiers for me to fix. I actually think I will enjoy electronics a lot more by not being under pressure and stress from paying customers. In retirement, I have plans. One is to design and build a novel ham radio tower. It will be a telescopic aluminium tower to hold a beam that is self supporting during hoisting, with a motorised elevation mechanism. Also considering running a seminar for engineers and managers with valuable tips and hints with electronics and product design - from a process perspective, to hardware and firmware, including DFT and DFM; also including the human factors to watch out for. Outside electronics, I am tempted to attend the Twilight Zone's Rod Serling Convention in Binghamton in New York if it is on again this year. I also might learn how to cook food for which I am currently grossly incompetent with. Other plans is to work on the wife's ToDo list.Already, I am getting more exercise and my mind feels clearer. Anyone else here retired? Do you miss full time work or are as happy a pig in the proverbial? Or do you want to work until you kick the bucket?

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 06:38:01 am
content: Not retired yet, but I switched to 3 day weekends many years ago to get more free time.Having lots of free time tends to start out great, but there's an annoying correlation you have to be careful about. Where you only feel motivation to do hobby/freetime stuff when you don't have time to actually do it.When you're forced to work and have no free time you have so much motivation to do your own stuff, and there's so much else you would enjoy doing but you can't because you have no time.But when you get a lot of free time it starts out great but after a week, month, year, you start to lose motivation to do anything and end up sitting around eating and watching TV. (everyone is different of course, and some people find it easier/harder than others)When your working you're being paid and feel obligated to get stuff done, or you will let down the team, but when you have free time you only have yourself to pressure you into doing stuff and that's often where the problems start.A lot of people find motivating themselves quite hard in the long term, but they find it easy to get motivated as a team or motivated to not let others down. Having a goal is important.You can hack your brain by starting hobby/free time projects with friends and agreeing to pressure each other to meet deadlines even though they don't actually matter.It's easier to get motivated to work on a free time project if you know you'll get yelled at by your friend if you don't get it done by date X.Also, feeling like you don't have any physical energy left to do stuff and feeling unmotivated can easily be mistaken for each other. So it can be a bit of a trap.99% of the time, if you can get motivated the energy will come.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 07:57:21 am
content: Congrats! Looking forward to the day! Still got about 25 more years to go.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 08:26:20 am
content: I guess I've been kind of semi-retired since I returned from Silicon Valley to New Zealand at the start of COVID.At first I deliberately didn't look for work for 1.5 years, then I worked 1.5 years in a local(ish) web development place (2.5 hours drive away), then took half a year off. I took a contract near the end of 2023 and worked 5 months in that, then had the rest of the year off. I expect to be re-starting with the same place next month, but with a planned 1 month on 1 month off schedule. Fortunately, getting "international" pay rates while living in a relatively low cost place makes that quite viable.I don't want to move overseas for years at a time for work again. Visiting for a few weeks is fine. COVID has made companies much more accepting of remote work, and NZ is still one of the best places in the world to hide from the troubles of the world, if you can afford it.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 09:01:54 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on January 08, 2025, 06:19:43 amRetired. I was lucky that, except for the notable exception of my last job, I wasn't "working" per se - I was being paid to do something I enjoyed. Not having to put up with the crap at my last job is pleasant.IMHO it is important to keep your mind active; the alternative of sitting watching the fog of daytime TV is (some say) a way of allowing dementia to creep in. So keep working, even if you aren't being paid.Only "work" on whatever interests you or you need to do (or your kids need you to do!). Continue with a project until you abandon the work of art.Take the opportunity to learn the things you've always wanted to learn, in electronicsandotherwise. For example, my father (a chemical engineer specialising in two-phase flow) decided to make himself a suit, just because he wanted to see what was necessary. He did, and it was wearable even if it wasn't well tailored.The TL;DR is that from my perspective it looks like you are doing everything sensibly

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 10:10:10 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 08, 2025, 09:01:54 amI guess your dad decided to suit himself, but wasn't quite suited for it. (Sorry, couldn't help the dad joke, but what your dad did was rather remarkable.)Trying new things is the spice of life and it prevents boredom. That's why I worked on hardware and firmware throughout my career. Both can get tedious but variety helps a lot, as does learning new things. Loafing around watching TV scares me. Even today I only watch the news on the Australian ABC regularly. Movies generally bore me but they help cure any insomnia. I have not watched any commercial TV in 22 years and won't start now. I believe free-to-air commercial TV will be dead within 10 years here anyway.I already manufacture and sell a device in Oz and the USA mainly, and that will continue. In fact it becomes more lucrative as I'll be paying a lot less tax than I do now on it. There is another novel electronic device I want to design and build and that could be a big project.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 10:58:15 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on January 08, 2025, 10:10:10 amAppalling pun. Wish I'd thought of itI don't think that was particularly remarkable. He also decided to made his own bacon. He also made ice cream and wine out of all anything and everything in the store cupboard. The ice cream was very popular, and inspired my daughter to start her own ice cream business (example flavours: golden syrup and cake, lemon and garden mint, Turkish delight, blueberry and spiced gin). The wine was.... less popular.QuotePrecisely.It is enlightening to understand the concepts of micromorts, how many you are "spending" every day merely by existing, and how many are "spent" by "dangerous" activities.It is easy to succumb to "I'll be dead soon existential boredom"https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/15/im-nearly-80-and-theres-a-void-in-my-life-that-hobbies-cant-fill

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 12:30:00 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 08, 2025, 10:58:15 amVery interesting answer in that Guardian Link. Never thought of it that way. "It's not what you want to do, but who you want to become." One of the issues many engineers have is "I am an engineer." above anything else. What are we really? If we define ourselves only by our profession, we are missing something and may end up in a big void. I learnt a lesson years ago when I was given a special role for two years, working with a team of IBM executives in Armonk NY to solve a US $110M problem. Yeah plenty of perks and recognition. But I seriously missed the humble oscilloscope. So I took the major decision to go back to electronics engineering which was the right decision family wise and probably profession wise and I have never regretted it. I think letting go would be hard for some people including me. Hence why I semi-retired and did not fully retire.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 01:00:37 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on January 08, 2025, 12:30:00 pmYup, that "objective" is eye-catching and brain-catching.To me an engineer is someone who has never lost their childlike sense of wonder, strives to understand fundamental principals, and likes making new things work. In that sense I hope I never stop being an engineer.Having said that, there are attractions to becoming a Lotus Eater and concentrating on the wonder of life under a log or a leaf floating down a brook. Finding something interesting in whatever situation you are in is not a bad starting point.Thinking about what you doand don'twant to be in 10, 20, 30 years is worthwhile. There's a slightly cheesy film where that's the main pointhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Good_Year

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 02:15:15 pm
content: I kind of retired when I went self employed. Just being able to schedule your own time makes life so much better even though work needs to be done. Since working from home became a thing during / after covid more people discovered that. I told them 'welcome to my world'.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2025, 02:40:25 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on January 08, 2025, 06:19:43 amI've been retired for 21 years and wouldn't even consider going back to work.