Thread Drift

[ny biker]

Good luck!!!

[Pax]

Muirenn, that sounds really interesting, hope you enjoy it.

[Pax]

We made it, we officially live at the beach in Florida!!

It was a looooong three day drive with my newly bionic knee, icing was a challenge so it was just swollen and sore most of the time. But we're here, I'm prolly iced and comfy, and we already made a pilgrimage to our favorite beach dump for a burger and a beer!

[OakLeaf]

Yayyyy! Made it ahead of the Memorial Day traffic, too.

Enjoy!

[ny biker]

We made it, we officially live at the beach in Florida!!

It was a looooong three day drive with my newly bionic knee, icing was a challenge so it was just swollen and sore most of the time. But we're here, I'm prolly iced and comfy, and we already made a pilgrimage to our favorite beach dump for a burger and a beer!

Congrats!!

[Crankin]

Congrats, Pax.
Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me, because I am worried that when I finally stop working (again), the same thing is going to happen as when I tried to stop working a few years ago. Right now I love the combination of working part time and having days off during the week. But, I get really bored on some of my days off. Not all of the time, but enough that it worries me. I already know that I can't do really long rides every day, so I imagine I will be doing a bit more hiking when I finally stop working. And I really don't like the idea of volunteering. It always has felt like slave labor to me, and most of the time it also felt like they were taking advantage of a hostage population of educated women who weren't working. I know that's not politically correct, but the only volunteering I've been able to sustain (for 10 years, actually) is leading rides for AMC. I just don't know a lot of people who aren't working, except for some of the crazy cyclist guys I ride with, and they are always going off doing long rides and/or tours without their spouses. DH is probably going to work 7 more years and since I am 3 years older than him, I am not sure I want to keep working all of that time. Just a thought...

[Crankin]

Well, that was my thought when I changed careers, because I can do this as long as I can talk and write. Several people just retired from my clinic and they are in their late 70s. However, in order for me to keep working, I have to take 30 CEUs every 2 years, so that is a cost and time to maintain my license. I guess it's not a huge deal and it would be easy to go down to one or two days where I work.
My dad worked until he was 85 or so and my mom's dad worked until the day he died, from the after effects of a car accident, when he was 91. He made most of his $ after the age of 65, and his colleagues were continually bugging him to give up his customers to them (he was a scrap metal dealer). But, in my head, there's a lot of stuff I want to do, yet when I have the time to do things, I seem to get stuck in my patterns of doing whatever I do now! I think part of it, is that I have spent a lot of time making my career such a huge part of my life and insisting I could never be a stay at home mom (which is true), that I get truly antsy unless i am busy and have plans all of the time.

[ny biker]

I don't think I will ever be able to retire. I've been putting money into retirement accounts for years but the magic of compound interest that I read about when I was younger appears to be no more real than unicorns.

But I have many friends who are retired and are very busy. Some ride bikes almost every day but others have also taken up activities like kayaking. Some travel a lot.

I don't think of volunteering as slave labor. I guess it depends on where you volunteer and what you're doing.

[rebeccaC]

I've always tried to have some volunteer work in my life. I certainly don’t look at it as slave labor. I feel privileged to be able to work with others who have the same interest in having a positive effect in our community. Lots of good caring work wouldn’t get done without it. At the moment i volunteer with an organization that helps women who are victimized by sex trafficking and street prostitution exit the lifestyle. It has given me much satisfaction, heartache and given me many positive moments of caring and compassion.

I'm also lucky to work for a company that encourages volunteering and helps with our ability to do it. It’s seen as providing creativity, motivation and vision that can carry over into our professional life. We have a monthly meeting with those doing it to share our experiences, think through problems we are encountering and help each other network into new areas.

I think my volunteering work has given me valuable insight into many things that i wouldn't normally have knowledge of....

We made it, we officially live at the beach in Florida!!

that makes me

[Crankin]

Well, I still see it as unpaid labor because what you are doing for your volunteer work, Rebecca, is part of what I do for my paid work. Most of my work is with victims of trauma and I love it! So, why should I do it for free? Perhaps that sounds cold, but when you are a volunteer, you have a commitment to the work just like in a paid job. Anything that I would be interested in (like helping victims of violence, etc), would be what I am already getting paid for. I will keep doing the volunteer work for AMC, in leading rides, but they do have some other stuff I could do, as does the other bike club I belong to.
I guess you guys haven't had much experience volunteering for schools or religious organizations . I did tons of work for the Jewish Community Center when my kids went to preschool there, in AZ, and it was fun, because all of my friends were on the board, too. But, as soon as I moved here, anything I did for their schools and my synagogue just annoyed the heck out of me. I wanted to keep volunteering, but since I had a very involved career as a teacher and 2 young kids, I stopped. Once, after I had spent a whole summer setting up vendors, etc. for a holdiay boutique, and hardly anyone came to buy, the head of the committee told me, "Oh I knew no one would come." What the f***? I worked my butt off and I gave up a considerable amount of free time, doing something I knew nothing about. My last effort in volunteering was when I was on the school council during my DS #2 last 2 years of high school. The parents and the entitled students (since it was HS, there were kids on the council) made me feel like crap, because I didn't spend my whole life volunteering for the town or the school. I always wanted to hear what the teachers were saying... finally when a kid told me during a presentation that "Kids in AP classes don't need small classes or special (good) teaching strategies," I just about blew a gasket. Went home, and thankfully, my son told me that kid was a misogynist azzhole.
I will probably do other sports, too, with more free time, as well as travel. We've already upped our travel a lot, because, well, you just never know.

[rebeccaC]

yeah, it does sound a little cold to me….but then i’ve had nothing but positive feelings about the volunteer work i’ve done. Over the years i’ve volunteered with Planned Parenthood, on peace and justice issues, LGBT issues since i was a teen and now with what i'm doing....i see it as just part of my wanting to help empower others and serve my community in a positive way rather than in personal financial and slave labor terms. I and others who volunteer with me (a few psychiatrists included) in what i'm doing now prefer the money that would go for our work go to the programs we have in place for those in serious need of them.

[Crankin]

I guess what I am saying is that my career is heavily weighed toward peace/justice work, working with LBGT populations, trauma victims. So, I don't feel the need to volunteer in this area, as I would want to volunteer in doing something different. It's hard enough to to engage in good self care for my job, so I can be "there" for my clients; I've always been good at separating the different spheres of my life and I really don't want to add in volunteer work in this area. Perhaps you get treated better as a volunteer for a non profit social service agency than religious orgs or public schools. I seriously wish we could somehow just spend more money on these services so more professionals could work in these fields and they (especially public schools) would not have to depend so much on volunteers. I suspect people who work more in the corporate world would enjoy volunteering in this sector, because it's so different from their daily life.
This is my give back career. I chose to work in a community mental health clinic and not open a private practice, where I could easily make 5X what I make now. But, I have to admit, sometimes it pisses me off that my work is not valued. Most of my classmates who graduated with me in 2011 have opened their own practices, at least on a part time basis.
My experience has been that women volunteers are often taken advantage of. There's a huge pool of educated women around here, who don't work. They volunteer and a lot of it just ends up in judgmental in fighting. The paid workers directing them know they have a captive audience.
It comes down to the fact that I like being busy and my non-work life needs to be different from my work life. That's why I like leading rides. It's totally different from my work, but I can use skills I have. I don't feel put out by even the mundane parts of it and i can laugh about unprepared riders, etc. It doesn't feel like work. And any volunteer job I have needs to not feel like work. I haven't found anything else that meets that requirement.
I'm being honest. I am not perfect. I want to be happy when I work less, and so far, that has eluded me. I've spent my whole life in careers that focused on helping and I don't need to prove myself.

[rebeccaC]

muirenn...Good field to be educated in for working the next couple of decades!!!....even with the extended time, online courses open a world to many who wouldn't have it otherwise....and interesting continuing education for many too.

Are there any of the Penn's Sustainable Communities Collaborative projects in your area?

[emily_in_nc]

Pax: Congratulations! I know you've waited for this for a long time. I wish you much happiness in your new life in Florida.

[shootingstar]

Crankin, it is healthy to do volunteer work that one enjoys and is quite different from one's job.
I haven't done any for past 5 yrs. and don't feel up to until I get my normal sleeping patterns back.