Today is the 28th of October... that means that my retirement is exactly 14 months 12 days away. It feels like a jail sentence to me right now. I am so tired of the routine., the drive, the monotony of it all. I am feeling trapped. I cannot retire any earlier. Waiting until January 2026 increases my retirement benefit by a few hundred dollars from where it is now. I know that little bit will make a world of difference to my financial security as I age. I had hoped my vacation would rejuvenate me, but instead I feel like it just showed me what I am missing.
I wish we all came with an expiration date. It would make it so much easier to plan for retirement. Do I die at 70? Well I should go ahead and retire now so I can enjoy what few years I have left. My savings would easily last me till then. But what if I live into my 80's or 90's? What then?
My job isn't a bad job. I get 14 paid holidays a year, a personal day, three weeks vacation, and two weeks sick leave. The people I work with are all really nice and we have been together from 3 years to 13 years. The job has become boring. It's just that I have been doing the same thing for over thirteen years. Very little has changed except the people in charge. I am glad though that working where I do keeps me away from so much of the politics that go on in other city departments. The convention center is a bit of an island on it's own and functions a bit differently that the other city departments. We also fall under the Parks Department umbrella and are lucky to have a very capable and kind director. When I came to work here I just never envisioned myself working here for as long as I have. I just got stuck. Older women are not a hot commodity in the job market. We really aren't a commodity at all. The path of my life changed and I became totally financially responsible for myself - 100%. So I had to make the decisions that were the best for my future security.
When I look back at the jobs I have had there really isn't one that I look back on and say I wish I had worked there longer. My first job was at McDonalds in Austin. I was there maybe 8 months before I quit. I only took it to save up money for a trip to Pennsylvania to visit my friend Cathy in the Summer of 1976. She was graduating. That Autumn I entered into a Work/study program at school and was employed by the local Sears store in their Customer Service/Parts/Lay-away department. I worked 3-4 hours a day five days a week. I hated it but I had to stay through the school year. When I left there I went to work at Frost Bros. Department store. It was a high-end store but I was in the children's department. It was a bit boring. I then went to State Farm Insurance - regional office as a file clerk. Oh that was hell, again I only stayed about 4 months. After that I signed up for classes at Austin Community College and worked for a temp agency for over a year. I then worked about six months at Scarborough's Department Store. I did like the job but the pay was dismal so I left there to work at the Motorola Semi-conductor plant in Austin. I left that job to become a stay-at-home mom.
I was mostly a stay-at-home mom for the next seven years except for a nine month part-time job at a mother's day out program. The two younger kids went to work with me. I think I worked twenty hours a week. It was okay, but nothing I wanted to make a career of. Once all the kids had entered school I saw an ad one Sunday for a part-time job at the Austin-American Statesman ( newspaper). it was for a tour guide that would conduct educational tours of the facility for school and civic groups. I immediately applied and was hired. I was working for the Marketing departments Newspapers in Education. I loved it!. It was a fun job, in a great environment and the people I worked for were great. But things changed over the next few years due to insurance issues and safety concerns so the tours became few and far between. I helped out with other events in the department and eventually took on the role of Office Manager for the Capitol 10K race that they sponsored. It would be full time work for three months of the year. I really enjoyed the work and my co-worker. I was really good at what I did and over the next few years took on a larger role with the job. It will always be my favorite job that I ever held. It was so satisfying to work so hard towards a goal and see it all come together on one day and be as successful as it was. During my time there we were rated in the top three 10K's in the nation. We would have over 20,000 runners registered. Life changed though and in 1995 I found myself living in Ireland.
Ireland, what can I say.... Alan and I tried to run a pub in a little town called Toomevara in Co. Tipperary. that lasted seven months. To say it didn't go well is an understatement. Alan had been working in Pubs for years and had been training in England in Pub management. I thought he knew what he was doing. I felt I could manage the kitchen side of it and help on the business side as needed. I did a good job on revamping the food service and brought the quality up from pre-packaged convenience foods to all freshly prepared. Our food sales were strong, but the profit margin was very tight. Alan was terrible at managing the financial side. It was extremely stressful and was taking a heavy toll on our marriage. We did the right thing by walking away. For the next few months after we returned to the Dublin area I did the odd cash-in hand job. I did eventually get a position at a new Guinness Retail Designer Clothing venture where I was the assistant manager. I enjoyed the work but the pay wasn't the best. When I saw a position advertised for a commission sales position at Reid Furniture I jumped on it. I really enjoyed the sales, was soon promoted to Assistant manager and then manager. Being manager did not go well. The staff was upset that I had been promoted so rapidly, customers did not like an American being in charge. I soon grew tired and disheartened. I resigned the management position and returned briefly to sales before leaving for an (what turned out to be) worse job.
Gateway Computers... I should have known on my first day when all the other trainees except one older gentleman were all under the age of 25. I would have nothing in common with any one. I did great learning all the technical data I would need for the job, I knew I could sell, but I had no experience in phone sales though. I hated it. I was in a room with over 100 other sales agents but never felt so lonely in my life. As the weeks passed it became harder and harder to go into the office. Then one day I pulled into the parking lot., parked the car, turned the engine off and just sat there. I could not go in. I could not take another minute in that place. I started the car and drove off. I called out sick that day. Then called back the next and lied and said the doctor said I need to reduce my stress and take a break for awhile. I would not be back. Within a few weeks I was working at Hewlett Packard, in the inkjet cartridge manufacturing facility. I was in Product testing. It was an easy job, and everyone was so friendly. It would have been perfect except it was rotating shift work. I was there close to a year. I left to take a new job at IBM where I could commute with Alan who was already working there. We had just purchased a home and had a long drive so we needed to be working in the same area of town. I really liked IBM. The first year we were both on shifts. We then within a few months of each other both got weekday positions. I was an administrative assistant to 4 of the Senior Managers. I really enjoyed my work. The managers were really nice and I got on well with my co-workers. But just a year into that position was when Trevor (my son) died. They were great at giving me the time and space I needed. But after a year Alan and I had decided to move to Texas and start fresh.
It took me about a month to get settled in before I had a chance to start looking for work. I really needed to stay in Gatesville so that limited my options. But as chance would have it the week I began to look for work a Manufactured Housing retailer advertised for an office manager. The pay wasn't great but it was five minutes away, full-time but flexible and it was a small office and very laid back. It worked out great for the first three years. They then decided to re-locate to Temple thinking that sales would improve. I did not want to commute back and forth daily so I went to part-time working Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays. Business did not improve, in fact sales went down, but the companies expenses had gone up. Nobody was really happy anymore. Things went south when they thought to pull a practical joke on me that was thoughtless and cruel. They were idiots and I quit on the spot.
It took me nearly two months to find another job. There wasn't anything in Gatesville so I had to keep commuting to Temple. I got on as an office assistant with the City of Temple's convention center. It was supposed to be part-time but I was working 35 - 40 hours a week. after six months the Administrative Assistant position opened up, full time with benefits and I nice pay raise. I am still here fourteen years later with fourteen months remaining until retirement. It's not a bad job. IT's been fun at times. I make good money and I have been here longer than any other full-timer ( several are close behind me). There are two negatives, 1. the drive from Gatesville traffic has increased substantially over the years and I am so sick of it. 2. I am on my third Operations Manager (aka Boss) and she is planning on quitting sometime during the first half on 2025. It is a pain in the ass to be without a boss while they recruit a new one, then train a new one (usually me doing it)and then watch them slowly realize that the job they thought they were getting hired to do isn't the one they will be doing. This place destroys them. Everyone here refuses to take on that role because we all know what it will do to us. We are all quite content to just cruise through our days counting the minutes until we retire.
I can't say for sure if this will be the last job I ever have. I do think about applying for seasonal work with the National Parks Service or a summer position in Tourism in Alaska. I will also be doing volunteer work as long as I can. I will have options as long as I am alive and healthy. But right now I am just focused on January 9th, 2026.
