Roger's Blog
A place to put my thoughts...
Retirement
07/01/24 05:43 PM
On August 11th, 2024, I retired from a career in restaurant supervision. For a lot of reasons, it was time.
My mother and father were strong believers in their children having jobs long before you reached the age of 16, which is when many of the youth in my era got their first job. They felt you should learn to be financially independent as quickly as you could. They felt there were many important lessons you learned in life from the workplace. More than anything, they wanted their children to quickly learn how to manage money by developing a budget and learning to save. My first job was at 10 years of age. I got a job picking up trash at the drive-in movie theater where my mom was working as a secretary. Every Saturday morning, my mom would drive me to the theater's parking lot, and I would join an elderly couple with picking up all the trash left from Friday night's shows. This was a pretty terrible job but there weren't a lot of job market options for 10-year-olds, so I felt fortunate that someone would at least give me a paycheck at that age. To say the least, I learned a LOT about life with that first job. If you can imagine all the interesting and disgusting things that people would throw out of their vehicles, you probably aren't even scratching the surface on how bad things could be. Nevertheless, I got a paycheck, which meant I had to create a budget for my "expenses." No, my parents didn't charge me for rent, food or utilities, but I was given some clear guidelines on how this money was meant to be spent. 50% of my paycheck went to my savings account. This was to eventually pay for a car, once I was old enough, and any other large purchases I might have in my future. At this point, most 10-year-olds of my time didn't think about the possibility of college but my parents knew that, whatever my future held, having a savings account would be the key to my future.
If it seems like this was a clear violations of child labor laws and that my parents did something wrong, understand that I wanted to have a job at 10. I wanted to become independent as quickly as possible. I even wanted to have a savings account, mostly so that I could buy my first car as soon as I obtained my driver's license at 16. However, I will admit that I hated seeing 50% of what I made go into my savings account, while I was only initially allowed to spend 10% of my paycheck on buying "whatever I wanted." I also missed out on some serious "Saturday cartoon years." However, I am extremely grateful to my parents for making me save at a young age. However, that eventually had some negative side effects once I actually did get out on my own.
I had jobs from that point in my life on, so when I retired at 62, I had 52 years in the workplace. Granted, when I was 10, I only worked one day a week. However, as I got older, I worked more and more hours until, by the time I was 16, I was working between 30-40 hours per week between two different jobs. Of course, that was in addition to going to high school like everyone else (and still getting pretty good grades). That did allow me to buy my own cars from the time I could drive, and it allowed me to pay for almost all of my costs when I began my college career at Indiana University. I was very proud of these things. I also was able to buy most things that I wanted at a pretty young age, and I always liked that because I had bought into consumerism pretty strongly. My particular weakness was music, as I had a relatively large collection of albums that provided me with a lot of pleasure. It also allowed me to leave home for good as soon as I began my freshman year at IU. I vowed that I would never live with my parents again, and I held true to that promise to myself, despite having the normal struggles that all young people experience when they leave the nest.
The downside to paying for my own college education was that there was a lot of pressure on me to succeed because it was on my own dime and, if I failed, I wouldn't have much in savings to recover with. So, my work week increased to over 40 hours while I was in college. This made it even more difficult to succeed because that meant I had less time for studying. However, I still managed to make acceptable grades, so I was still on track to reach my goal of becoming an accountant. Unfortunately, as I worked my butt off that first year at IU, I started questioning whether accounting was truly the career I wanted. I was, and still am, very good with numbers, and my father provided me with what I later realized was an incredible understanding of how businesses work at a young age, so it seemed like a natural extension of my strengths. What I questioned was whether or not I wanted a "desk job" for the rest of my life. Oddly enough, that's what my later career years ended up being but at that time, I panicked. First, I was worried about all the money I had already spent on my first year of college, especially if this wasn't the right career. Second, I was the first person in my family who went to college, and I had no idea that changing your major was a common occurrence, and nothing to be concerned about. My panic resulted in having a tough conversation with my parents about temporarily dropping out of college while I worked out what I wanted to do. That conversation ended up being less difficult than I anticipated, and I wonder if my father really wanted me to go to college based on his reaction.
At the time, I was supporting my educational and living costs with a delivery job at Domino's Pizza, back when they had only about 400 stores nationwide. My manager had continually tried to talk me into entering the management program because he felt I would be a good manager and because there was a tremendous opportunity to open your own franchise. I decided that, for the time being, I would enter the management program and explore my future options. I found that I truly enjoyed being in management. I felt I could become a better manager than the ones I had worked for, and I enjoyed the hard work that the Domino's system encouraged. At the same time, I met my future wife through a fellow worker. Debbie was a pizza maker I worked with, and she introduced me to her sister, Maurica. We became friends and, over time, I decided that I wanted to pursue more than a friendship with Maurica, and we eventually married. This ended up being one of the best turn of events in my life, as I still love Maurica, and we are still best friends. Over time, I decided I did not want to open my own franchise but I still enjoyed management. This led to more hours. I was working over sixty hours a week but I was happy with what I was earning, and I had developed a strong work ethic from my parents' upbringing. I learned to work hard and play hard, which helped justify the hours I was working.
Over time, I was given upper management opportunities which led to even more hours. At one point, the Domino's Pizza franchisee for whom I worked gave me a "4000 Plus" award. This award was an acknowledgment that, over the course of one year, I had worked over 4,000 hours, averaging over 80 hours a week! At the time, it was a badge of honor. In reality, I was really enjoying my career, so putting in the hours was not as hard for me as it may have seemed. However, as I became less happy working for Domino's, the hours became a true burden. Maurica had given birth to our daughter, and I was unhappy with the number of hours my job offered me to spend time with my family. I eventually went to work for an independent pizza company in Bloomington, a city I had come to love from my IU days, where I could work more reasonable, yet still heavy, hours. Over the next two decades, I continued to enjoy working in a non-corporate environment, and we achieved a lot of financial goals that I am very proud of. Then, COVID hit, and things turned upside down. The owner and I agreed that we needed to keep our stores open and do all we could to stay in business. We all know how many independent restaurants didn't survive COVID. While we achieved our goal, and then some, the next 2 years were very hard for me. It seemed like there was no break from work. We were one of the few ways people could get food, so we were extremely busy. However, customers seemed to get more demanding and less understanding. While most people were sitting at home getting paid not to work, those of us in foodservice were being over-worked with little appreciation of our situation. I am certain that, during this period, I was experiencing a minor mental breakdown. Likely, it was from decades of working too many hours, putting my job first too many times. In 2022, my situation at work worsened, so I set up a plan to retire from my position on my 62nd birthday.
Due to my mental and physical fatigue, I felt it was time to pass the torch to the next generation of management, and I was happy with the person who was going to take over for me. I had one last project before I left, and by working right up until a few hours after my normal quitting time on my last day, I completed the project and was ready to retire. It is a decision I have not, and likely will not, regret. Some people struggle with retirement because a lot of their identity is based on their career. Based on my history of throwing myself completely into my career, some may think I was a likely candidate for this problem. However, I knew this would never be the case, and it has not. All of those years putting my career first, I always dreamed of a day when I could do "what I wanted, when I wanted." That is now the life I lead.
Since our daughter lives in Florida, Maurica and I agreed that we needed to move to Florida once I retired. We were fortunate enough to sell our house for a good price quickly, so in December of 2023, we moved to Ocala, FL. I absolutely love the location where we are located. We live in a 55+ community located right on a major thoroughfare, so we are within a 5 minute drive of groceries, supplies and doctors. The weather is hot but, since losing all the weight I have, I now prefer heat over cold, so the extreme heat of summer in Florida is quite bearable. While we will truly miss Bloomington and the great friends we made, I am thrilled with the next chapter in our life. We get to avoid the cold (and the snow and the ice). We get to see our daughter and son-in-law anytime we like. I get to play ping pong four times a week in our active community. And, through the "magic" of VR, I get to play golf and ping pong multiple times a week with great friends, as if we were in the same room. All in all, I couldn't be happier with my life. It makes all the hard work I gave to my career over the years worth it. I owe my success over the years to too many people to mention. Over the years, I've had the pleasure of working with awesome people who advanced both their and my career. If you were kind enough to work with me, thank you! My memory isn't good enough to remember everyone, so I don't want to provide a partial list in fear of leaving a lot of people out. Just know that, if I worked with you, I enjoyed it, and I wish you the same happiness that I am now allowed to enjoy.
Until my next entry…
My mother and father were strong believers in their children having jobs long before you reached the age of 16, which is when many of the youth in my era got their first job. They felt you should learn to be financially independent as quickly as you could. They felt there were many important lessons you learned in life from the workplace. More than anything, they wanted their children to quickly learn how to manage money by developing a budget and learning to save. My first job was at 10 years of age. I got a job picking up trash at the drive-in movie theater where my mom was working as a secretary. Every Saturday morning, my mom would drive me to the theater's parking lot, and I would join an elderly couple with picking up all the trash left from Friday night's shows. This was a pretty terrible job but there weren't a lot of job market options for 10-year-olds, so I felt fortunate that someone would at least give me a paycheck at that age. To say the least, I learned a LOT about life with that first job. If you can imagine all the interesting and disgusting things that people would throw out of their vehicles, you probably aren't even scratching the surface on how bad things could be. Nevertheless, I got a paycheck, which meant I had to create a budget for my "expenses." No, my parents didn't charge me for rent, food or utilities, but I was given some clear guidelines on how this money was meant to be spent. 50% of my paycheck went to my savings account. This was to eventually pay for a car, once I was old enough, and any other large purchases I might have in my future. At this point, most 10-year-olds of my time didn't think about the possibility of college but my parents knew that, whatever my future held, having a savings account would be the key to my future.
If it seems like this was a clear violations of child labor laws and that my parents did something wrong, understand that I wanted to have a job at 10. I wanted to become independent as quickly as possible. I even wanted to have a savings account, mostly so that I could buy my first car as soon as I obtained my driver's license at 16. However, I will admit that I hated seeing 50% of what I made go into my savings account, while I was only initially allowed to spend 10% of my paycheck on buying "whatever I wanted." I also missed out on some serious "Saturday cartoon years." However, I am extremely grateful to my parents for making me save at a young age. However, that eventually had some negative side effects once I actually did get out on my own.
I had jobs from that point in my life on, so when I retired at 62, I had 52 years in the workplace. Granted, when I was 10, I only worked one day a week. However, as I got older, I worked more and more hours until, by the time I was 16, I was working between 30-40 hours per week between two different jobs. Of course, that was in addition to going to high school like everyone else (and still getting pretty good grades). That did allow me to buy my own cars from the time I could drive, and it allowed me to pay for almost all of my costs when I began my college career at Indiana University. I was very proud of these things. I also was able to buy most things that I wanted at a pretty young age, and I always liked that because I had bought into consumerism pretty strongly. My particular weakness was music, as I had a relatively large collection of albums that provided me with a lot of pleasure. It also allowed me to leave home for good as soon as I began my freshman year at IU. I vowed that I would never live with my parents again, and I held true to that promise to myself, despite having the normal struggles that all young people experience when they leave the nest.
The downside to paying for my own college education was that there was a lot of pressure on me to succeed because it was on my own dime and, if I failed, I wouldn't have much in savings to recover with. So, my work week increased to over 40 hours while I was in college. This made it even more difficult to succeed because that meant I had less time for studying. However, I still managed to make acceptable grades, so I was still on track to reach my goal of becoming an accountant. Unfortunately, as I worked my butt off that first year at IU, I started questioning whether accounting was truly the career I wanted. I was, and still am, very good with numbers, and my father provided me with what I later realized was an incredible understanding of how businesses work at a young age, so it seemed like a natural extension of my strengths. What I questioned was whether or not I wanted a "desk job" for the rest of my life. Oddly enough, that's what my later career years ended up being but at that time, I panicked. First, I was worried about all the money I had already spent on my first year of college, especially if this wasn't the right career. Second, I was the first person in my family who went to college, and I had no idea that changing your major was a common occurrence, and nothing to be concerned about. My panic resulted in having a tough conversation with my parents about temporarily dropping out of college while I worked out what I wanted to do. That conversation ended up being less difficult than I anticipated, and I wonder if my father really wanted me to go to college based on his reaction.
At the time, I was supporting my educational and living costs with a delivery job at Domino's Pizza, back when they had only about 400 stores nationwide. My manager had continually tried to talk me into entering the management program because he felt I would be a good manager and because there was a tremendous opportunity to open your own franchise. I decided that, for the time being, I would enter the management program and explore my future options. I found that I truly enjoyed being in management. I felt I could become a better manager than the ones I had worked for, and I enjoyed the hard work that the Domino's system encouraged. At the same time, I met my future wife through a fellow worker. Debbie was a pizza maker I worked with, and she introduced me to her sister, Maurica. We became friends and, over time, I decided that I wanted to pursue more than a friendship with Maurica, and we eventually married. This ended up being one of the best turn of events in my life, as I still love Maurica, and we are still best friends. Over time, I decided I did not want to open my own franchise but I still enjoyed management. This led to more hours. I was working over sixty hours a week but I was happy with what I was earning, and I had developed a strong work ethic from my parents' upbringing. I learned to work hard and play hard, which helped justify the hours I was working.
Over time, I was given upper management opportunities which led to even more hours. At one point, the Domino's Pizza franchisee for whom I worked gave me a "4000 Plus" award. This award was an acknowledgment that, over the course of one year, I had worked over 4,000 hours, averaging over 80 hours a week! At the time, it was a badge of honor. In reality, I was really enjoying my career, so putting in the hours was not as hard for me as it may have seemed. However, as I became less happy working for Domino's, the hours became a true burden. Maurica had given birth to our daughter, and I was unhappy with the number of hours my job offered me to spend time with my family. I eventually went to work for an independent pizza company in Bloomington, a city I had come to love from my IU days, where I could work more reasonable, yet still heavy, hours. Over the next two decades, I continued to enjoy working in a non-corporate environment, and we achieved a lot of financial goals that I am very proud of. Then, COVID hit, and things turned upside down. The owner and I agreed that we needed to keep our stores open and do all we could to stay in business. We all know how many independent restaurants didn't survive COVID. While we achieved our goal, and then some, the next 2 years were very hard for me. It seemed like there was no break from work. We were one of the few ways people could get food, so we were extremely busy. However, customers seemed to get more demanding and less understanding. While most people were sitting at home getting paid not to work, those of us in foodservice were being over-worked with little appreciation of our situation. I am certain that, during this period, I was experiencing a minor mental breakdown. Likely, it was from decades of working too many hours, putting my job first too many times. In 2022, my situation at work worsened, so I set up a plan to retire from my position on my 62nd birthday.
Due to my mental and physical fatigue, I felt it was time to pass the torch to the next generation of management, and I was happy with the person who was going to take over for me. I had one last project before I left, and by working right up until a few hours after my normal quitting time on my last day, I completed the project and was ready to retire. It is a decision I have not, and likely will not, regret. Some people struggle with retirement because a lot of their identity is based on their career. Based on my history of throwing myself completely into my career, some may think I was a likely candidate for this problem. However, I knew this would never be the case, and it has not. All of those years putting my career first, I always dreamed of a day when I could do "what I wanted, when I wanted." That is now the life I lead.
Since our daughter lives in Florida, Maurica and I agreed that we needed to move to Florida once I retired. We were fortunate enough to sell our house for a good price quickly, so in December of 2023, we moved to Ocala, FL. I absolutely love the location where we are located. We live in a 55+ community located right on a major thoroughfare, so we are within a 5 minute drive of groceries, supplies and doctors. The weather is hot but, since losing all the weight I have, I now prefer heat over cold, so the extreme heat of summer in Florida is quite bearable. While we will truly miss Bloomington and the great friends we made, I am thrilled with the next chapter in our life. We get to avoid the cold (and the snow and the ice). We get to see our daughter and son-in-law anytime we like. I get to play ping pong four times a week in our active community. And, through the "magic" of VR, I get to play golf and ping pong multiple times a week with great friends, as if we were in the same room. All in all, I couldn't be happier with my life. It makes all the hard work I gave to my career over the years worth it. I owe my success over the years to too many people to mention. Over the years, I've had the pleasure of working with awesome people who advanced both their and my career. If you were kind enough to work with me, thank you! My memory isn't good enough to remember everyone, so I don't want to provide a partial list in fear of leaving a lot of people out. Just know that, if I worked with you, I enjoyed it, and I wish you the same happiness that I am now allowed to enjoy.
Until my next entry…