(April 2024 update is a couple of paragraphs below)
One would have thought the word “employment” dropped out of my vocabulary following retirement in December 2021….
Quick background. Twenty-six months ago I retired from full time work and we moved down to Fairfield Glade in Eastern Tennessee (plateau living with lots of golf courses, lakes and retired people, an hour west of Knoxville). Eleven months ago I was asked if I wanted to get back into the Security Assistance/Foreign Military Sales business with the US Government. This is a field I really enjoyed working, and while I had hoped it was going to be part-time work, the requirement was full time. So in August 2023 I started a full time contractor position in support of the State Department’s Security Assistance office, working mostly from home. The intention was to work for as much as a year, then return to retirement.
Six months later the State Department let me go. The position was requiring more and more classified work, which I couldn’t do from home, and we weren’t going to move back to DC so that I could be in the office regularly. It was an amiable departure. My last day of work was February 29, and I immediately jumped in the car and headed for a few days down in Pensacola to see friends and play a little golf.
What’s next? Before that last day with State, the contractor asked if I’d be interested in another full-time position supporting a different government agency’s Security Assistance efforts. OK…do I go back to retirement status now (open schedule, golf, travel when I want to….) or start another full time position in a field that I really enjoy (and having the extra cash was nice)?
I said “yes” to the contractor, but they still have to win the contract. So now I’m sitting in the middle of a couple of weeks of unemployment/retirement while someone else makes the decision for me as to continue with full-time work, or slide back into full-time retirement. I will be quite content with either option. Should have the answer in a week or so.
April 2, 2024 Update. Learned this morning that our company did not win the contract for Security Assistance support, so for now, it’s back to retired status. More golf and travel, less money in the pocket.
Reflections on going back to work. The State Department gig was more difficult than I expected. While I knew quite a bit about this field, there was a whole bunch more that I did not know. And the applicable laws are constantly changing. Additionally, I struggled with the latest versions of Microsoft’s Excel, Outlook and its ever-more-complex document management tools. 20 years ago Excel/Outlook were a whole lot simpler than they are now, as are other Microsoft applications. Ever heard of “Shared Drives” or Microsoft’s OneDrive? Didn’t have those a few years ago. Finally, after a couple months of painful learning, I settled into a productive groove.
Six months is barely enough time to get a feel for a large government workforce culture (especially as a full-time teleworker), but it was enough to solidify my respect for State Department’s collective efforts- at least for the offices with who I engaged. For Security Assistance, State works very closely with the Defense Department, and it was very interesting to see the armed forces through a State Department lens. For Defense, things are more black/white. State has more gray.
DC Homeless (photo by NY Post, Rod Lamkey)
Know what else I saw again up close during my couple of trips to State’s HQ offices in DC? A rather large homeless population in the Foggy Bottom area. During my couple of years with FAA HQ I saw small pockets of homelessness, but between State Department HQ buildings these days there is a full block of homeless. I’m not going down that rabbit trail in this post…but it’s always interesting to draw comparisons to life in/out of the big city when it’s staring you in the face.
Finally, the last word. It’s been about nine months since this blog has seen a comment. Not a big deal. Somebody is actually visiting the site a couple of times each month, and after more than three years of existence it’s collected a healthy amount of retirement content. And there’s plenty left to cover.