I spoke with a colleague yesterday who shared that his depreciating 401K and disappearing home equity would probably delay his planned career bailout, otherwise known as retirement, in Feb 2009.
He joked that the proposed $700 billion business bailout was the government’s way of forcing baby boomers like him to stay in the workplace longer than planned. He was ready to move on and counting the days to an encore career. His already scheduled 21-day career bailout cruise would give him just enough time to think more seriously about what that encore career could be.
His planned career bailout was at least coming after 15 successful and enjoyable years doing work he liked. His company, like many others, was serious about keeping baby boomers on their payroll and so my colleague didn’t think he would mind working on his job longer than planned.
Our conversation, as it always does with him, made me think.
How many of us wish we could bail out of our own careers right now? How many of us would be devastated if we had to stay in our current job longer than planned? How many of us think our current work feels like a prison sentence and would stress significantly, if we knew we had to stay longer?
If you are considering exploring your career options and executing a personal career bailout you should know that the government will not - I repeat - will not, come to your rescue. No. Your successful career bailout from an unhappy workplace will have to come as a result of your own honest self evaluation; your own decision to no longer be shackled by work that paralyzes rather than excites and your courage to map a new journey for yourself.
As an eternal optimist, always thinking of possibilities, a tight economy or heaven forbid a layoff, could be the career awakening that many dissatisfied workers seek. It has worked for many people. This could be the time to reexamine not only one's finances, but one's life work and make a commitment to move towards more satisfying careers.
So, in addition to planning for life after layoff, we should also be thinking about life if we have to stay in our jobs longer than planned.
7 comments:
You hit a nerve with me today. I wasn't thinking of it from that perspective.
I was actually looking for a job and because of the economy, I stopped and friends are telling me to be grateful. I think I will keep looking though.
Great read! I have some solutions on my blog as to how to work a home business please come check it out here
Carol,
I think you are making a good decision. I find that being grateful for career where you are dissatisfied, will last a few days beyond the paycheck.
The stress of being in a career or job you don't like returns quickly. Let us know if we can help.
Marcie
Austinqpt,
will check it out!
Great post marcia -
As a boomer with nearly 4 decaed of business building experince I have put together a collection of useful free resources to help people with this very set of challenges.
Check it out:
www.theperfectbizfinder.com
Thank you for carrying this toarch.
Steve Little
ThePerfectBizFinder
Steve,
I will definitely take a look at the list of resources. This is a challenging time and people need all the resources they can find.
A new study of 1,000 workers in Europe found that stressful jobs accounted for 45 per cent of new cases of depression. The factors which the scientists isolated as being especially important were excessive demands on the job and extreme time pressures. Not only did they find that these workers, with an average age of 32, were experiencing a high percentage of job-related stress-induced depression, but there appeared to be a 40 percent increase in reports from workers of job stress. http://www.xanax-effects.com/
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