Thought I would share a few realizations for me after taking early retirement.
Almost 16 months ago I decided to leave a job I loved to try “new things”. My Vanguard career started on 12/12/1982, and lasted over 32 years. The decision to leave was a difficult one, I so much loved the people, the culture and the purpose of the organization.
I am pretty sure my decision to leave started to percolate around my 30th anniversary. I began wonder if I had become too comfortable in my situation. After 30 years you tend to develop a “doctorate” in how an organization works. To use the often overused Vanguard sailing metaphor—was I sailing close to shore because I was afraid the world might be flat? So on 04/13/2014, my 54th birthday, Vanguard …show more content…
People move on and it is a natural thing. I am an ESTJ and love / need to interact with people. My guess is that I knew the names and background of 2000 + crew members when I left. Whenever we did the “Gallup 12 question” survey, I would boast that I had “hundreds of best friends at work”. After a year it is clear to me how silly I was with that boast. Working together 60 hours a week, for over 1500 weeks you meet a lot of nice people, and develop friendly acquaintances—friendship is different. Just knowing someone’s name does not make a friend. I have gone from having lunch with Vanguard folks from most days, to now just a couple times per month. It is not what I thought would happen, but it made me much more appreciative of those relationships where I did manage a friendship versus acquaintance.
3. Work that seemed so important “at that time” seems less important to me today. Goals and efforts around service adoption, project completion and many other things were very important to me. I would work lots of hours and have many an intense conversations. I was often described as “a dog with a bone”. I spent at least an hour a day reading financial services publications and listening to Bloomberg in the car. Now I read Philly.com, listen to sports radio and never know what the market is doing. If I only knew then what I know
Almost 16 months ago I decided to leave a job I loved to try “new things”. My Vanguard career started on 12/12/1982, and lasted over 32 years. The decision to leave was a difficult one, I so much loved the people, the culture and the purpose of the organization.
I am pretty sure my decision to leave started to percolate around my 30th anniversary. I began wonder if I had become too comfortable in my situation. After 30 years you tend to develop a “doctorate” in how an organization works. To use the often overused Vanguard sailing metaphor—was I sailing close to shore because I was afraid the world might be flat? So on 04/13/2014, my 54th birthday, Vanguard …show more content…
People move on and it is a natural thing. I am an ESTJ and love / need to interact with people. My guess is that I knew the names and background of 2000 + crew members when I left. Whenever we did the “Gallup 12 question” survey, I would boast that I had “hundreds of best friends at work”. After a year it is clear to me how silly I was with that boast. Working together 60 hours a week, for over 1500 weeks you meet a lot of nice people, and develop friendly acquaintances—friendship is different. Just knowing someone’s name does not make a friend. I have gone from having lunch with Vanguard folks from most days, to now just a couple times per month. It is not what I thought would happen, but it made me much more appreciative of those relationships where I did manage a friendship versus acquaintance.
3. Work that seemed so important “at that time” seems less important to me today. Goals and efforts around service adoption, project completion and many other things were very important to me. I would work lots of hours and have many an intense conversations. I was often described as “a dog with a bone”. I spent at least an hour a day reading financial services publications and listening to Bloomberg in the car. Now I read Philly.com, listen to sports radio and never know what the market is doing. If I only knew then what I know