HAPPY NEW YEAR and HAPPY NEW STATUS!!! After working since
1980 as a behavior specialist, behavior analyst, behavioral health worker,
substance abuse technician, mental health worker, caregiver, and now a relief
intake coordinator/behavioral health worker, I have decided to cut down on my
work hours and try my hand at semi-retirement. Prior to that, I was a physical
fitness instructor in the Philippines for 2 years. If anyone is counting, that
would be 38 years of working full time except for a brief 6 month stint of
being unemployed after being laid off in 2013.
Why just semi-retirement and not full retirement? Well,
there's this thing called medical, dental, and vision insurance that I still need
from something called a job, and I am reducing my work hours to the most
minimum required to still obtain the insurance benefits, although I have to pay
more for them. By the way, if it at all matters, I'm 59 and a half years old
and 5 and a half years away from qualifying for Medicare.
Since November 2016, I had been considering cutting back on
my work hours. Our full time schedule calls for three 12 hour shifts a week, and
in the past 5 months, I particularly, had been assigned to work 2 nights a week
on the psych units as a behavioral health worker with the patients, and 1 night
a week as a relief intake coordinator in an office (which pays slightly more). I
had been waiting to see how much of a pay increase I would get which I found
out at the end of November. It was decent enough so I started calculating my
monthly expenses against my possible income based on the lesser working hours,
taking into account the taxes which would be taken out automatically from my
paycheck. Based on this, I figured I might be able to survive with still a
little leeway for unforeseen expenses, without dipping into my retirement nest
egg.
Finally, a month ago,
I emailed my Nurse Manager with a request to change my status from full time to
part time, effective New Year's Day 2017. My last shift working full time was
New Year's Eve.
I haven't figured out what to do with my free time between
nights off yet and that's something I'll have to ponder. I've been having
insomnia lately so maybe I'll be able to maintain better sleep patterns. Whatever
happens in semi-retirement, it's going to be a new journey.
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| New Year's Eve at work |
