Career Downsizing

I realized I should talk a little about career changes, because John and I have been looking at houses in various parts of of the southwest and we’re confusing everyone. Actually we’re confused too, but at least we have a general idea of what we might be trying to accomplish.

Are we retiring? No. Are we going to work our same jobs for the rest of our career? No, not that either. Are we moving elsewhere to find new opportunities for bigger, better promotions? Nope.

We are transitioning into a middle stage, something between “peak earning years” and complete retirement. I think this is a growing phenomenon as our society changes. I suppose there have been words coined for this intermediate stage, but I’m not sure what those words are. I’m going to call it “deliberate career downsizing.”

I think the previous generation or two tended to work at their regular job until quite near the end of their lives. Then life expectancies started rising, and a few lucky people ended up on pension-funded retirements, sometimes for decades. That wasn’t a sustainable business model and pensions are much more rare now, and the benefits are starting later in life.

Still a lot of people are on that same old model – work your regular job until suddenly you don’t work at all anymore. But some of my generation are starting to look at ways to work differently as we get older.

As we get older, our values and needs are changing. It’s no longer about how much money we can make. Partly it’s about making a difference with our careers – but it’s also about hiking to the top of that mountain while we are still healthy enough to do so.

John is “retirement-eligible” next month, but the benefit amount is far short of his current salary and doesn’t include health care. We’re still relatively young and are not ready to retire. But we are working too hard; harder than we need to work, harder than we want to work.

We’re looking for less work hours and more flexibility. We’re not quite sure how to find it. Part-time jobs would be great, but they are rare in our specialities. I’d be ecstatic if John would simply limit himself to 40 hours a week with no business travel. He’s still working like he’s new in his career and out to save the world. It’s taking its toll on his health an our relationship.

I was enjoying my job for awhile, but because I’m new to this particular agency, I was given an entry-level amount of time off, even though I’m late in my career and qualify for advanced level jobs.

This significant lack of time to do other things in our life is not how we want to live the next several years, or however long it is before we retire completely.

But because this transition stage isn’t well entrenched in our society, there aren’t a lot of clear and obvious ways to decrease our workload gradually. A lot of people have managed to successfully do it, but their routes to get there vary greatly. Some change careers into something more socially conscious. Some move to a tropical paradise and start a cafe. We’re not sure how we want to go about it.

One potential option is for John to go into consulting. He has a high level of expertise in his field and would be very valuable to clients. We can imagine him being able to work from home most of the time, with occasional flights to client locations for important meetings. Our concern is that John has never been good at limiting how much work he takes on, and he could end up working every bit as hard as he does now. The clients aren’t going to limit what they ask of him – he would have to figure out how to do that himself somehow.

I am more of a generalist so it would be a little harder for me to figure out what to offer. It’s possible I could find a part-time job that was advanced enough to hold my interest. Another option is I could freelance for a small consultancy – having someone willing to work sometimes but not all the time, could help them avoid having to staff up and back down as their workload varied.

Regardless of what we end up doing, the key here is that it will evolve and change over time in ways that we will not be able to predict. We will have to make decisions and take actions without being able to see all the way to the end of the game.

We can make guesses – for example, I can probably more easily pursue career-type activities in Austin than Tucson. John probably just needs a convenient airport.

At some point, we’re probably going to buy a house somewhere south of here. I know, you’re thinking, “But you love New Mexico!” And we do. We always miss it when we’re away. New Mexico is magical and enchanting. It’s also a fairly difficult place to live for a lot of practical reasons. Don’t we all have those impractical things we love in life? Those amazing, special, beloved people, places and situations that get lodged in our hearts but are possibly more trouble than they’re worth?

We’d like to live somewhere less intense as our home base. Somewhere comfortable. New Mexico is not comfortable. It’s dramatic, it’s unique, it’s special and amazing, but not comfortable.

I’m looking for more welcoming weather, where I can sit outside in my backyard most of the year. I’d like somewhere quiet, with gentle rain and seasonal flowers. I want to lean over the fence and talk to my neighbors. I want to walk to the local grocery store. John wants to feel safe and relaxed. We want walking paths and parks. We’d like somewhere with a little better economy and services than poverty-stricken New Mexico, but not as much wealth sloshing around as in the big coastal cities.

From there, from some modest, practical place, we can visit the intense and amazing places; the mountains of the northwest, the deserts of the southwest, and the warm, shallow waters of Florida. We can visit our family who live in vibrant and expensive places like Boston, San Diego, and Silicon Valley.

There is no perfect location, and location isn’t the point. What’s far more important to us is that we figure out how to shift our lifestyle (downsize our careers) so that we have more time.

Now that you better understand our underlying goals, let me go ahead and catch you up on the actual developments.

I have resigned from my job, and my last day will be April 30. We are going to list the Placitas house on the market on May 1.

Beyond that, we shall see! We’re not quite sure what we’re going to do. I have no idea where we will be living this winter. Initially we might temporarily move into one of our rentals in Albuquerque and/or occupy the Santa Fe townhome.

We’re going to continue looking at houses in places like Tucson and Austin, and at some point hopefully buy one. It’s likely that we won’t always be living in exactly the same house at exactly the same time during this transition time, because our careers won’t always line up right. I am leaving my current job now, but John may not leave his anytime soon. (I’m hoping for sooner rather than later).

But regardless of exactly how the details play out, as we start to de-emphasize our careers, our lifestyle should improve and we should have more time to spend enjoying life together.

At any rate, that’s the plan!