The Precipice

This year, 2023, is my thirty second year of federal employment.  I am standing on the precipice.  It is the year I become eligible to retire.  Life is essentially filled with a number of dramatic checkpoints.  First and foremost there is birth, how can you argue that it is not important?  With its occurrence we literally win the lottery of life.  Facing the competition of between 200 and 500 million sperm one got through and made us.  Holy shit, what are the odds?  It has got to be up there with winning the Power Ball.  Of course like winning the Power Ball there is no guarantee it will end well and often it does not.

Senator Roscoe Conkling, NY

The next big moment comes when you enter life and assume responsibility for your self and existence.  This often follows being kicked out of your parents house.  Sometimes removal is more gradual and evolutionary as you work your way through college and then find a career.  This is usually a period marked by severe economic dependency.   

Post parental life makes up the bulk of our existence as we muddle our way through days, months and years making good decisions and bad ones.  Some of us chose to create families while others prefer a more solitary existence.  It is during this time we make the decisions that will define the rest of our life for better or for worse.  

The consequence for me of one of my early life decisions was that I went to work for the Federal Government.  It is a path that provides security yet deprives one of any chance to “make it big.”  Roscoe Conklin the 1800’s era obnoxious pro patronage Senator from New York created the phrase/label Snivel Service to describe government employees.  We have proudly worn it ever since.  The hallmark of a government job is the predictable life of the civil servant.  You never get rich but the odds are you won’t go hungry.  

The fruits of a decision made early in life for the Snivel Servant begin to be realized in the late 50’s because unlike most Americans, we have pensions and health care.  It may not be enough to buy a mansion and live on a beach or a golf course but it is sufficient to live an enjoyable post working existence.  With the exception of positions with mandatory retirements like law enforcement, when to separate from working life is really left up to the person.  Obviously, the longer you stay the more money you will get in benefits.  On the flip side is the unwelcome reality that the time line to death whenever it comes, will also be shorter.  

The date you decide to “call it quits” is undoubtedly a notable checkpoint in life.  This is the time when you leave your working identity behind and leap off a precipice.  This year I find myself in that position.  It is not forced, I could indeed stay longer.  I could even do something like accept another foreign assignment.  The reality of that decision however, would be an obligation to stay not days but years longer.  To trade work life for human life.  It is a conscious decision to expend healthy time left in a working capacity for whatever reason.  It could be monetary or one of personal need and sense of fulfillment.

After 32 years I am tired.  Like an aging senior almost everyone I have known in my career is gone.  They have all taken the leap into the abyss.  Successful or not it is hard to say as each has their own circumstance.  Some have spouses that are still working, some saved a boat load of cash.  Still others will find new jobs.  While I have been blessed to have a job that has allowed me extensive variation of duty, I feel like it is time to let my mind go.  To escape the positives as well as the negatives and look for something different.  The scary part is what?  It is also can I really live without a job?

My wife is having a big problem with this.  I live in a traditional 50’s single family homemaker household, think Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best.  Just kidding, if only.  No I live in a household with a wife that has worked sporadically and a son still trying to finish his masters.  That’s a lot of responsibility for one consistent income and the thought of transitioning to one based on pensions and investments.  My wife currently doesn’t make the money but she pays the bills and I am sure worries that decisions made by me will impact the ones she has to make. 

I pore-over my home made lists of investments and predicted pension payments hoping that the calculations I am making are valid.  I make them again and again always haunted by my failing grades in high school algebra.  When I look at the news I see stories of declining values that seem to evaporate the cash reserves on which my life and the life of those I support will depend.  

My wife is more impacted by this than I am.  I have seen fluctuations and understand declines as opportunities and not as tea leaves forecasting a negative future.  While disappointed that I can’t see the calculations I want at the moment, I hope for the best.  My wife has terrible difficulty thinking in this manner.  She sees investments as savings accounts and any temporal decline is met with grief as if a thief has vanished with her money like a dissipating fog.  This is combined with a fundamental skepticism about my ability to forecast or manage our future.  I don’t believe I have ever failed thus far in life but it is simply more a quality of her own character and belief in information.  

Leaving your source of income is indeed frightening and rapidly rising inflation makes it even more terrifying.  It is the moment when fixed income really comes into play and little outside of working again will mitigate it.

In my last months on the job I find myself contemplating extending.  I have even thought about 

going overseas again for a tour.   I mulled over various assignments, even applied for one.  I did not get it and it was for the best.  It would have been an economic hit.   Still at this point in my career every rejection is felt almost like an insult.  When I look back at my career and think of all that I have done I can’t help but feel slighted when not recognized as the top person.  

Right now I wait to find out about a promotion that if granted would increase my retirement calculations at the price of continued service.  The process of waiting for a decision is excruciating as every day until that point is a day of uncertainty about my future.  Every frustration at work is met quickly with a feeling of frustration and then resignation.  Basically a thought something like, “I should just quit right now.”  

I suppose many of those I am following have had the same fears and frustrations.  Each has worked through it in their own way.  The odd thing is that on the one hand I will soon have the power to make my own decision about my life and career.  At the same time I have never felt so scared and limited.  Standing out of the precipice I think I can see what is below me but I am terrified it is simply a mirage.