Early Retirement Extreme Forums

How bad is/was your job for pre-retirement? Feel free to change or amend it.

Each positive response is worth 1 point. Lower scores are better.

Do you make less than the median income?

Is your job highly specialized with few opportunities to do things outside your expertise?

Is the core thing you do useless at home?

Are you sedentary at work?

You couldn't do this as a small business or freelance if you decide to do a little on the side?

Is your field changing fast enough that your skills would be outdated in a few years, preventing you from returning to work if necessary/desirable?

Can you be forced back to work though law or contract? (This one is a bit rare but an example would be military can be forced to return to active duty)

Edited to add:

Does your employer match less than your full 401k contribution?

Edit 2

Due to comments in latter posts that are kind of right the last question is changed to
Does your employer match less than 1/2 of your 401k contribution or equivalent schemes if applicable in your country?

I have no desire to edit the op again for continuity reasons. So even though I want to watch this evolve it can happen in later posts.

I got 6.5. But the pay is much greater than median, the work and work environment are not unpleasant, and the retirement benefits are considerable.

Edit to add, I'm up to 7.5 with the additional question.

I got a 4 when including the 401k questions. Pretty sure there aren't many companies that match your full 401k contribution up to 18.5k. Also pretty US centric on that one.

- Do you make less than the median income? No
- Is your job highly specialized with few opportunities to do things outside your expertise? No
- Is the core thing you do useless at home? Yes
- Are you sedentary at work? Yes
- You couldn't do this as a small business or freelance if you decide to do a little on the side? Yes
- Is your field changing fast enough that your skills would be outdated in a few years, preventing you from returning to work if necessary/desirable? No
- Can you be forced back to work though law or contract? (This one is a bit rare but an example would be military can be forced to return to active duty) No
- Does your employer match less than your full 401k contribution? Yes

Probably 1, for specialisation.

Dream of Freedom wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 18, 2019 11:26 am

Can you be forced back to work though law or contract? (This one is a bit rare but an example would be military can be forced to return to active duty)

Another example is J-1/H-1B workers. You can't be forced back to work, but if you don't work for the particular employer who sponsored you, you will be forced out of the country. That gives the employer quite a bit of leverage and some (ab)use it.

prognastat wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 18, 2019 12:36 pm

I got a 4 when including the 401k questions.

I counted 3 yeses. I know I am too detail oriented for my own good.

Dream of Freedom wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 18, 2019 5:54 pm

I counted 3 yeses. I know I am too detail oriented for my own good.

You are correct, it is 4, but I accidentally put No for the 401k question. Just updated it.

Suggest you reword the “You couldn’t do this on the side....” question.
“Yes I couldn’t?”
“ No I couldn’t?” Confusing. Same answer.

I scored 4, including this question. Yes, I could not.

My physics career scored right about maximum except that the income over the total span (including grad school and two postdocs) paid about 10% above the median wage. 401k? Ha! Grad school came with ZERO benefits. But at the time, I still had no idea of the significance of that. (What dis "benefits" thing you speak of?)

However, most of the time I (and everybody else) saw it as a mission rather than a job. I think this goes for most [academic] researchers. The fact that you're allowed to a rather large degree of freedom in terms of hours and what topics to work on counts for a lot. It's the main reason why the salary doesn't need to be very high to attract people. Everybody is internally motivated. (Those who aren't don't make it through grad school.)

Might want to add:

Would you stop going to work if you were FI/didn't need the money?

Is your job generally meaningless in the grand scheme of things?
(Making forgettable widgets for WhoCares or flipping digits on trading computer screen)

Does you job lack war stories/good memories that you will one day look back on?

Would you stop hanging out with your colleagues if you no longer worked there?

Are the tools of your trade easily accessible to anyone? (No particle accelerators, jet planes, or $$$$-data feeds)

@EdithKeeler

Is it virtually unheard of for people to do this job as a small business or freelance if you decide to do a little on the side?

I scored a 2. 1 for being mostly useless at home, and 1 for being mostly sedentary. No more points added for Jacob's additions.

jacob wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 18, 2019 6:30 pm

Might want to add:

Would you stop going to work if you were FI/didn't need the money?

Is your job generally meaningless in the grand scheme of things?
(Making forgettable widgets for WhoCares or flipping digits on trading computer screen)

Does you job lack war stories/good memories that you will one day look back on?

Would you stop hanging out with your colleagues if you no longer worked there?

Are the tools of your trade easily accessible to anyone? (No particle accelerators, jet planes, or $$$$-data feeds)

These all have the commonality of current job satisfaction. (You could argue the war stories one isn't quite current) There are 5 questions. The OP has 2 money, 1 health, 2 skill/renascence, 1 potential for additional income, and 2 questions if this whole thing is reversible. What weight should current satisfaction have?

Huh? They don't seem subjective nor about a measure of satisfaction to me.

E.g. are the tools of the trade easily accessible? If you're a programmer or a carpenter, the answer is yes. If you're a helicopter pilot or an FBI agent, the answer is likely no. If no, you have to pursue this as a job/career because it does not exist at the recreational level.

Is the job meaningless? Admittedly, this is a value judgement, but there does seem to be a difference between cancer research and designing splash screens for this week's 20% off coupons. Some war stories are better than others here. The story about filing an error-free TPS report or when you won the "highest sales growth of the week" award << the time you went to Antarctica to measure neutrino radiation.

And so on ...

But it's your quiz, so feel free to dismiss.

jacob wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:37 pm

But it's your quiz, so feel free to dismiss.

It isn't my quiz. As I said in the OP you all can change or amend it as you please. I am simply trying to play the host and provide questions and commentary.

jacob wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:37 pm

E.g. are the tools of the trade easily accessible? If you're a programmer or a carpenter, the answer is yes. If you're a helicopter pilot or an FBI agent, the answer is likely no. If no, you have to pursue this as a job/career because it does not exist at the recreational level.

We may have divergent goals/methodologies. To me the only reasons I would pursue such things are because I want to experience them (current satisfaction) or for my ego.

I got 2.

Sedentary and no 401k match.

1, job is useless at home

Do you make less than the median income? NO

Is your job highly specialized with few opportunities to do things outside your expertise? NO

Is the core thing you do useless at home? YES

Are you sedentary at work? MY ASS MOVES AROUND A LOT, BUT THE MOVEMENT IS USUALLY JET POWERED SO YES

You couldn't do this as a small business or freelance if you decide to do a little on the side? I PROBABLY COULD BUT LETS GET A YES FOR SAFETY

Is your field changing fast enough that your skills would be outdated in a few years, preventing you from returning to work if necessary/desirable? NO

Can you be forced back to work though law or contract? (This one is a bit rare but an example would be military can be forced to return to active duty) NO

Edited to add:

Does your employer match less than your full 401k contribution? NOT APPLICABLE BUT I GET FOOD BEBEFITS SO YES

Edit 2

Due to comments in latter posts that are kind of right the last question is changed to
Does your employer match less than 1/2 of your 401k contribution or equivalent schemes if applicable in your country?

I have no desire to edit the op again for continuity reasons. So even though I want to watch this evolve it can happen in later posts.
[/quote]

4

Career? What is this thing of which you speak?

I just did my taxes and realized that I still only worked less than 20 hrs/week* on average last year even though it seemed like more than that, because I guess I truly had been slacking off for quite a few years prior.

Anyways, I am going to give my current cluster of semi-employment a 2.5 on this quiz, because dipping below median wage on average, and I wouldn't even work quite this much if I had more productive assets, and the only employer with whom I had a 401k went bankrupt leaving that little fund stranded until 2020.

*Even though I had 4 W2s and self-employment income to file.