This is a continuation of my monthly series that records what’s happening in my final stretch to early retirement. If you’re interested in previous posts, they’re here.
There are 8 months and change until I quit my job forever. That amount of time at once feels short and long. On the short side, I remember vividly what I was doing 8 months ago – work and non-work activities. Though if I try to think back more than 1.5-2 years, I only remember the non-work activities, which gives me reassurance that I’ll realize none of these nonsense job dumpster fires will ‘matter’ in retirement – or ever did really matter.
However, on the flip side, 8 months represents almost 75% of a year passing and that seems like a substantial amount of time. So I’m dealing with a weird time paradox and have been trying to combat it by shifting my mindset to “this is the last time.” This is the last X date that Y shit will be happening.
Recent, specific examples include:
This is the last November 20th I’ll be on a lunch break walk with my partner only to receive an urgent “fire drill” email that I need to go home to respond to immediately because:
A) Someone is incompetent
B) Someone waited until the last minute to do something and wants to make it my problem
C) Someone wants to have their ego stroked to inflate their sense of self importance
*sigh*
This is the last November 21st I’ll get an email at 1:30pm that a monthly business review meeting is the next day and they need ALL THE INFO THAT’S EVER EXISTED by 5pm.
This is the last December 3rd I’ll have to cancel plans with friends to work late.
And of course this is the last December 4th when this shit will happen:
Urgent Email❗️: We need X information RIGHT NOW before an executive gets on a plane, but our product (that we're currently marketing…) isn't working! Can you get us the info ASAP?
Me: You told us to keep all the information in this product so there's no offline copy🤷🏾♀️ pic.twitter.com/qrFg1SnF6U— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) December 4, 2019
More general monthly examples that bring me comfort include:
November: This is the last Thanksgiving I’ll have to plan around my work schedule (or be told last minute that I can’t take time off, which happened this year)
December This is the last December I’ll have to fly on weekends and work while trying to enjoy time with family
January: This is my last time working New Years Eve and my last time requesting PTO for the year
February: This is the last time I will work on my partner and my anniversary or on Valentine’s day
March: This is the last daylight savings time change where I’ll lose an hour of sleep and have to wake up (tired) for work on Monday
This 8 months is also counting down the amount of time I have to listen to this daily ridiculousness on long and unnecessary conference calls:
This is the last time I will have to let what pays me, that I do not feel passionately about, define who I spend my days talking to. This is the last time I will allow a corporation to decide when I take time off or even when I’m allowed to see my loved ones after hours. This is the last time.
So I’m doing all I can to realize that my time dealing with these things is limited. In a relatively short amount of time I won’t have to deal with the limitations and annoyances of work – instead I will just deal with the annoyances of real life 😉 . I’ve kept up and even ramped up my DGAF status and have found new ways of how pursuing financial independence has changed how I act at work.
I’m still turning off work emails on my phone after 5pm and only check it if it’s absolutely necessary (e.g. for 1 second at 9pm to check if our team in India has questions about something that has to be done by morning). Everyone has my number – it’s at the bottom of every email I send and no one has called or texted despite thinking something is important enough to email the whole team about at 10pm or 4am.
I did get an email with the subject line “Help!” that was sent at 11pm the previous night, which made me chuckle when I got it in the morning. Turns out it wasn’t urgent after all…I’m actually surprised I haven’t had any comments about this change in my boundaries that I enacted all those months ago, but it seems no one has even noticed my post work hours absence.
My industry seems to pride itself on hiring workaholics, but when it comes down to it, everything can get done during business hours. During this past holiday season, I’ve seen people (unnecessarily) answering emails while on vacation and even having that “text if it’s urgent” line on their out of office messages and it makes me tired to see to be honest. This is more my speed:
My colleague's OOTO message😍🤣: "Hi! I am out of the office today and will return your email tomorrow. For all emergencies, please call 911."
— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) December 16, 2019
My company and clients both claim to put work/life balance above all else, but that’s not true in practice. Leadership talks out of both sides of their mouths. So I’m surprised, but happy to report that despite this reality, putting up these boundaries hasn’t had any negative consequences at my job. Various revelations and mind tricks have helped me battle my impatience up to this point and now I’ve finally arrived at the year of my retirement and everything being “the last time.”
While I know I might need to earn money after quitting my job if all goes to shit, it won’t have to be at this current level (and I doubt I would be able to get back to my current level immediately given a long hiatus anyway). So these are the last instances of this kind of ridiculousness and that knowledge has made my impatience beast finally settle down and go into hibernation. Let’s see if it comes back with a vengeance later 😉 .
Have you ever reached a point where a goal seems both close and far away? How did you cope with it?
Reading your post I felt happiness for you and just the tiniest bit of dark, seething envy. Sorry, can’t help it. 🙂
I have a little over FORTY months left, according to my plans, and it feels like an eternity. Especially now that I have to work with a “problem” colleague, an otherwise pleasant person who does very little, with that little being often wrong. Everything I say washes off him, and I’m the one getting angry and losing sleep.
And don’t get me started on conference calls… we can stream movies in 4K, but call audio quality is about the same as in 1912. 🙂
What I do to survive is to look one year behind me. There I was, equally frustrated and stressed. And yet one year went by, one day at the time. And so will the next one.
Enjoy all your “last times” at work. I look forward to doing the same when my final year finally comes!
Haha I like your honesty! I know I’ve simultaneously felt both of those emotions while reading blogs during my journey as well. 40 months isn’t a super long time (and at least in my experience that usually speeds up to less than you initially project). I get it feeling like an eternity though. It felt similar to me until about 2 years out.
Ughgh I’m so sorry you’re dealing with a problem colleague – that’s the worst. Maybe only topped by a problem boss on my annoyance scale. I hope you can find a way to not let them affect your sleep and mental well being. And if you do please tell me because I haven’t found that lol!
Seriously on conference calls. I’ve worked for some of the biggest tech companies in the world and their conference call software doesn’t even work well. I have no idea where they’re putting their resources, but some of it is definitely in the wrong place…
Looking a year back is a great strategy. Though I do realize that a year ago me and then two years ago me was actually a little more stressed cause I cared more. I’m getting to a lovely level of DGAF status where I do great work, but otherwise say fuck everything else. I’m curious to see how this evolves and hope it doesn’t move straight into senioritis. That would be no good 🙂 .
I’m doing my best 🙂 and thank you. You got this! Hang in there.
Nice piece. Those 8 months are possibly going to feel like the longest 8 months of your life.
I’d be interested to know your strategies for dealing with One More Year Syndrome. Care to share?
Uh oh…I hope not! My original strategy for dealing with it was to set up an end date and a booked trip so I couldn’t back out. I did that and have booked that trip, but in the last year when this was original plan something hilarious happened: I have absolutely no urge to do One More Year to be safer. In taking this blog public and meeting so many wonderful people in this community I’ve learned of so many ways to make money that have nothing to do with a corporate job so really this community cured my One More Year Syndrome. Now I might even have One Less Year Syndrome cause I have to stop myself from rage quitting when someone says something idiotic 😉 .
Thanks for that very interesting reply! You made some very important points there so hopefully you won’t mind if I just reiterate on them. 1) You set a hard PUBLIC deadline. 2) The need for a perceived safety margin, can be alleviated by additional (non-corporate) income streams. 1) Is a good argument for having a blog, even though I feel like the last thing the world needs is another PF/FIRE blog. 😉 2) Well your blog is the obvious income stream that you have. Do you have any other sources of income planned? (Sorry I might have missed that in a previous post you made).
I obviously disagree that the world doesn’t need another PF/FIRE blog 😉 . One of the reasons I ignored FIRE for 2 years was because I didn’t feel welcome in the space – it seems like in 2012 there were only white male programmers who didn’t spend a lot of money. And here I am a black woman who works in marketing and buys anything she wants. I didn’t see myself represented so for that reason I think there’s always room for more voices in this space to make others feel welcome.
My blog is not an income stream 🙂 . In fact, most blogs never make money. They are not a great plan to do so either. Last year this blog made -$839.29 as in it cost me almost a thousand dollars over any money it made and that’s after me writing for 5 years. I do not have other sources of income planned exactly as I hope I won’t need to use them, but I do have a list of things I wouldn’t mind doing remotely for a little money, such as transcription and helping friends with blog backend stuff.
Oh no, I think the world definitely needs your blog (one of the best!). Technically (going by the numbers) I hit FI in 2018 and did take some time out (7 months) but here I am working again – I must be addicted or something! So I was thinking maybe I need a public blog with a stated deadline, but I was more thinking the world doesn’t *my* PF/FIRE blog with me being an OLD, white, male programmer and all! hehehe – I will have to come up with another solution for dealing with that OMYS problem!
On the blog numbers I’m a bit surprised your blog’s not profitable, but looking back over some past posts I see now where you went into those numbers. Still, with your stash numbers I think you will be absolutely fine – which I guess is the whole point of going by the FI numbers! Yay, freedom from worrying about income streams! 🙂
Haha thank you. Congratulations on being FI – that’s awesome. And hey if you like working I won’t try to convince you to stop! Thank you for keeping the world turning while bums like me lounge on a beach 😉 .
I’m sure you have some unique perspectives to offer despite fitting pretty well to the FIRE stereotype of 10 years ago 🙂 . Not sure a blog would really help with your OMYS though – it’s too easy to just change that countdown clock 😉 .
And yeah it’s great that money doesn’t have to be a consideration for this hobby at all! Woohoo freedom!
I love the idea of thinking about “lasts,” what a positive way of thinking about things! I hope it helps you weather through it all. I’m happy to hear the guardrails are working and you haven’t had anybody mention it. If everyone did this, it would make it easier on us all!
Haha I’m glad you think this is a positive way to look at things instead of the coping mechanism it is 🙂 . We shall see, but I think it’s helping. Agreed everyone should do this – the lack of boundaries in modern workplaces is staggering to me.
Keep at it. I’m pretty sure 8 months will fly by. It might seem like a drag now, but hang in there.
I like the 911 auto response. People like to think they’re an important part of the team, but the truth is everyone is just a cog in the machine. Anyone can be replaced. 🙂 They won’t miss you when you’re gone.
Doing my best 🙂 and I hope you’re right. I’m hanging in there! And I completely agree – everyone is replaceable and I don’t have any false notions that people will miss me when I’m gone 😉 .
This is why I’ve been rolling my eyes a little at the “financial independence isn’t that important, enjoy life now” posts I’ve been seeing lately. Because at the end of the day, even in today’s age of massive workforce shortages, corporate culture still pulls this BS, and always will. Your employer, as long as you are employed, will still have control over a significant portion of your life and rarely do they respect work-life boundaries. Hiring practices are just as bad as they’ve always been, I’ve learned from my own experience, others applying for jobs and from workforce experts. And these crazy employment practices continue too.
My sister’s job is another good example. She works for a major online retailer located in our little city. A couple of years ago she got a new manager who imposed all these crazy restrictions. There was no need for it; everyone was getting their jobs done. Now they’re having a hard time hiring people and keeping them. Gee I wonder why? And her department was the only one to undergo that change. Someone just wanted to foolishly make their stamp through arbitrary rules instead of exercising actual leadership.
To be clear, I do think there is a balance to all this but some of us want to get to FI as soon as we can, because this stuff won’t change. If it hasn’t changed in this time of desperation for employers, it never will. FI puts us in control. And you will be in the driver’s seat in about 8 months, which is awesome!
Interesting! Now that I think about it I might be with you based on my career and experience. I can’t conceive of a way that I could make my work fit me any more. I work from home, I work from across the world, I have a boss that doesn’t give a shit what I do – I have it all, but I still have 3 weeks of PTO a year and I still have to ASK someone when I can take it. Maybe it’s my rebellious nature, but that’s not and never going to be ok.
Ugh I’m so sorry that happened to your sister. I hate when people feel the urge to ‘make their mark’ and oftentimes do it in ways that irrevocable make things worse for the team (and at times the company). Absolutely wild.
There’s definitely a balance, but there’s also me weighing becoming a librarian or something now and taking a pay cut vs dealing with this bullshit for a few more months and then GTFO completely. To me it’s obviously worth it. Even that fictional librarian job will most likely be filled withe annoyances so I might as well get paid a lot to deal with them 🙂 .
8 months until it’s time to flush this toilet. it’s all true that most of that stuff can get done during regular work hours. somebody else’s issue doesn’t make it your emergency.
You’re hilarious as always. Maybe I should use that line in my resignation letter 😉 . All wise words Freddy!
Eight more months gives you the perfect amount of time to craft a witty resignation letter. I’d be revising that letter each time something annoys you at work over this time period. 😎
Oh my goodness that’s a great idea. I already wrote my resignation letter in my head, but it was way too straightforward and boring. I’m going to start writing these variations!
Reading your post gave me flashbacks to my days in corporate America, particularly the one about needing ALL the data by 5pm because, you know, someone’s going to die without it. It’s amazing what we consider necessary at work and even outside of work. Sometimes I think I miss corporate America, then I get reminders like this one. Thanks! Hang in there! The end is in sight!
Uh oh I’m sorry to give you flashbacks, but am so happy you escaped! And yes the misunderstanding of the word ‘urgent’ in workplace culture is truly fascinating. What sparks you to think you miss corporate America? I’m just curious because me and my Mom (she’s been retired for 5 years) have never thought that. Hanging in there!!
I’m 14 months away from retirement and I’ve also found I’m more comfortable setting boundaries that work for me. When you’re not trying to climb the ladder and impress senior leaders anymore, you don’t need to show up at every meeting or be guilted into volunteering for projects. I’m loving the freedom to say no and not worry about it.
I planned lots of vacations using up all 4 weeks of my vacation to get me through this final year. Once I get to the summer, I’ll be coasting from then on. It’s like being a senior in high school.
Enjoy this time!!
14 months?? WOOHOO!!! That’s awesome you feel good setting more boundaries. And you’re completely right – once I let all that stuff go life was so much easier and “no” became my favorite word haha. Love that you used all your vacation. I always do the same. And uh oh on being a senior in high school – that hasn’t set in for me and I hope it doesn’t because if I remember correctly I had no motivation to do anything haha! I’ll do my best 😉 !
My company and clients both claim to put work/life balance above all else, but that’s not true in practice.
This, this, THIS!
All the contracts for the projects I do have this little ‘positive work/life’ clause, and yet they expect their contractors to answer messages sent at 10pm…. hmmmm.
Ugh why can’t people just be real? Your contracts actually have a CLAUSE?! Wow. What happens when you email them the clause language instead of a response to their ‘urgent request’ at 10pm 😉 ?
I’ve been holding onto this one for a long time: It’s been swell, but the swelling’s gone down, ciao!
We are light-years away from retirement but I love reading how you’re preparing to exit and enjoy your new path. I’m keeping my attitude appropriate for our own circumstances but I’m looking forward to our turn on the “last time” train.
Hahaha that’s an awesome phrase! That’s awesome you’re keeping your attitude appropriate for your circumstances…I definitely have not always done that – oops! The “last time” train is coming for you 😉 !
I can definitely relate to that close but far away goal. I felt it when I had one year left in the military. Once the clock started ticking, I also began using the “last time” phrase and it did feel pretty good to think about the last time I had to stand 24 hour duty, eat the terrible food, or complete a silly and unnecessary task that someone higher ranking ordered me to do.
As others said, it seems like a long time now but eight months will fly by and before you know it, your old work life will just be another annoying, but distant memory. 🙂
That’s awesome you used the same trick during your time in the military. Also great to hear about your experience to put my (not difficult) life into proper perspective 😉 . “Before you know it, your old work life will just be another annoying, but distant memory” I might have to put this on a sticky note on my work desk. Thank you so much lady!
I am 2 years into working and reading this post is making me so emotional and happy for u. I found your site through a podcast, sending you a virtual hi 5 when it comes to your thoughts on marriage. It’s more of something monumental for those in the wedding industry. I am excited for your next experience! Best wishes -Jenn S
2 years – hang in there! And that’s awesome – which podcast (just curious)? High 5 on opting out of marriage! It does indeed seem to be more about the industry than the ideal people spout. Thank you Jenn!
Was it simplymoneyminded millennial?
Oh cool! I was on that one – Simple Minded Millennials.
Haha yes. In Singapore, we kind of have to get married before we can own a house. Renting is uncommon as it is much more expensive. So it is usual to apply to get a house together first before proposing. It takes several years for the application process :/ – jenn
I have heard about that with Singapore – and that they don’t subsidize same sex couples the same way. And YEARS for the application process? Woah – that totally makes sense to apply before.
Haha, we have limited land space in Singapore. For newly built (and cheaper) houses, we have to bid and wait for a long time. For those who have more $, there are other ways to get a flat faster. The concept of renting is quite refreshing to me! Easier to move around and settle down somewhere else:)
That makes sense. It’s definitely easier to move at will for jobs and/or relationships when you’re renting. I also love how it’s a fixed cost regardless of what breaks – and that I get someone else to fix it without me having to be involved 🙂 .
Hello! I’m here after hearing/seeing your appearance on the ChooseFI podcast. Also a 30 year old female based in the Seattle area and expecting to FIRE this summer 🙂
I love your mindset around lasts, particularly to dull the daily annoyances at work. This past week was a particularly stressful workweek, and left me wanting to rage quit, as you’ve coined it. Hearing about your experiences and how you’ve responded has prompted me to see things from a different perspective, one in which everything is temporary, ESPECIALLY the nonsense of #corplife. Thank you for that!
Hi Jo! Welcome – thanks for stopping by. And WOW we’re basically the same person 🙂 . Congratulations on your upcoming FIRE date – that’s awesome!! I’m sorry you had a stressful workweek last week – I hope this one is better. I’m so happy I could lend another perspective. I swear I’ve been trying any perspective that pops into my mind to help me avoid rage quitting 😉 . Hang in there – You’ll be out of corp life so soon!
This resounds with me. I’m about 15 months away and many work place fire drills or “set yourself up because this future chore is gonna be heinous” convos happen around me. Of course I’m no jerk, so I’m setting things up right. But recently my mind has shifted to “setting up processes so I can hand them off” type narratives. Which has taken a ton of anxiety off but also is making me a better manager, since I’m now diagramming workflow and passing off responsibility about a year ahead of time some my work place tasks can be managed by people when I FIRE.
I’m so happy it resonated with you and that’s a great mindset shift. It’s awesome you’re setting your team up to succeed after you leave.