I retired in my early 70's, which for me and in my line of work - as a huckster for literature and philosophy, a barker for brainy fun - was just about right. My reviews from higher-ups and students were pretty stellar to the end, but I know I had begun cutting a few corners, dropping a few extras, declining a few challenges, feeling angered by change, being unnecessarily peremptory; and I know that if I had gone on much longer, I would have sort of dishonored whatever very modest legacy I might leave. I wish Bill had done the same, for his sake.
I retired from high tech in my late 50s which is not bad for that field, but of course some do better than me. I saw many people leave either voluntarily or involuntarily much younger than myself. IMO it does become a challenge for most of us to keep up with the younger, faster brains as we age. You do that by leveraging experience mostly.
Yet since experienced people are the high end of the salary range, you are always a juicy target at layoff time. In hindsight, I'm kinda surprised I survived as many layoffs as I did. When I did get axed from a place where I worked for 15 years, I looked around the room and every other victim was in their 50s.
It's kind of the nature of things, just like the NFL. Management looks around and sees a younger role player and starts wondering if they can/will step up to a bigger role. At the same time they see the salary of the aging vet. It isn't a physical job but as above some drop-off with age IMO is normal. The manager starts to worry that they have too many aging vets and not enough up-and-coming talent on the roster. They know they are compared to other managers.
As above, I feel good that I survived as many layoff cycles as I did. The company was famous for having an annual layoff cycle each year in the late summer (which is when the fiscal year wound down) so everyone stressed about their future each and every late summer. Fun times, eh?
Amen, I am one year form retirement and don't want to "jump the shark" and want to walk away without being pushed. Bill could have walked away and gone right to the Sunday shows without missing a beat..
One thing about high tech is I don't think I saw a genuine retirement party in my 35 years in it. Pretty much all end-of-career departures were either due to layoff or due to frustration with the work situation. Not one was hey, I've reached my financial goals and am sailing off into the sunset, thanks for the gold watch.
After the 15-year gig mentioned above, I worked for almost 3 years at a smaller company. I departed due to the frustration of being transferred from a very good manager to a very bad manager. Maybe the younger me would have put up with it, maybe not. I sat down with my financial advisor and said am I ok to retire? He said if you don't acquire any bad spending habits you'll be ok. That was enough for me. So, no vintage airplane for me, LOL!
Overall I'd say the management change is what pushed me, but also, in the end it was my decision to walk. I got lots of advice to just cope with the bad manager but I decided to walk instead. Turns out if I waited a couple weeks I could have gotten a layoff since they whacked the entire new product development part of the company but that was fine, I was already transitioned to retirement.
The first few months of retirement were scary due to the huge change in the financial arrangements. I kept wondering if I should find another job. But I also felt a lot better about life. My inner stress level dropped a lot. Then COVID-19 hit so it was pretty normal to not be working. I think it took me a good year till I felt comfortable with the way things were. I just tracked my investments vs my spending and decided it'd all work out just like my financial advisor said it would.
Since then I have been given job offers and said no thanks. Most of it was because I have adjusted to a low-stress life and don't want to go back to a high-stress life again. Part of it is I do wonder if I could sit at a desk and put in 8+ hours of work that requires high levels of mental focus. My hobbies involve some of the tech I learned at that last gig and can say it's a lot of fun to do what you want to do on your own schedule instead of doing what the boss wants you to do on their schedule.
So, getting back to your situation, I know the inner dialog runs smoother if you can say to yourself you weren't pushed, but in reality, it just doesn't matter much. IMO, whatever inner turbulence gets created by being pushed fades away pretty quickly. Once retired you have lots more time to fill. It's best to spend the time looking forward, and to avoid the trap of spending too much time looking backward.
