So I did a crazy thing the other day. I went ahead and quit my job (because it sucked)- I decided to get on with my retirement. Until recently, I was an MRI technologist working for the Big-K (Kaiser Permanente) in Oakland, California. I actually really loved what I was doing, but was not crazy about my employer and management. A few years back, I used to train MRI techs and I would always teach them on the first day- make no mistake about it, healthcare is a business and all the decisions that are made are business decisions a.k.a. it's all about the money. They don't necessarily care about the welfare of the customers, it's all about the money.
And that is Kaiser in a nutshell- not giving staff enough time to properly do their jobs, not having the proper equipment on hand, forcing the techs and staff to do things against what they're supposed to do. At Kaiser, I would constantly say that they're just pushing their luck waiting to kill a patient, THEN maybe policies will change, at least for a little while. (I worked there for two and a half years and NEVER ONCE did we EVER do a CODE BLUE drill! I would spot check staff about the procedures and no one knew what to do!) And that's exactly would did happen. Again and again. The pandemic made things worse in that we were constantly short-staffed. And the more short-staffed we were, the more morale would decline and more staff would call out sick. When staff individuals quit, most of the time the staff member would not be replaced. Management style was reverting back to the late 90's. It was a thankless job. I actually wanted to quit a year and a half ago, until I realized that if I didn't achieve at least 5 years, I would not vest and all my miserable time spent working at Kaiser would add up to nothing with the pension.
So I tried applying to other jobs outside of my normal job scope. I applied for 10 months for just about any office position until I finally got a call! I took a job as a cashier in the Eye Center. When I arrived for my first day, they asked me if I would mind cross-training into scheduling. I didn't know better, so I said okay. They didn't tell me that there was very little training involved and I would be talking to 100 angry old people who couldn't hear you on the phone! It was literally 45% of my MRI pay. After 3 days, I figured that if I was going to work a job that sucked, I might as well get paid for it, so I returned to my former sucky position.
But that also spurred me on to start working on a retirement forecasting spreadsheet that recorded all my assets and liabilities. The forecasting projected through my 90 's (as well as my wife's). I came up with a plan and calculated that as soon as I crossed my 5-year line with Kaiser, I could "retire" at the early age of 59. I knew that I would not have Medicare for another 6 years, but I built that into my plan. Most people don't really know where they stand with their retirements- they just know that they don't want to run out of money, so they keep working. I was able to see that even quitting at 59-years-old (my wife already stopped working 3 years ago), we would never run out of money. By my calculations, by the time we're in our 90's, we should still have tons of money in the bank, and all along we should have enough money to live like we already do- toys, vacations and all.
My point is: if I can do it, you can do it! With the way things are today, working isn't what it used to be. Figuring out your retirement isn't rocket science- it's strictly math. You have all the tools to forecast and plan it. If you have a good plan and the discipline to follow it, you're golden!
