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During those 45-50 year of employment, I was laid off, downsized, and/or terminated ten times... that averages out to once every five years. Being laid off and downsized is one thing but being terminated is solely because I REFUSED TO KISS MY BOSS'S ASS and no boss wants to work with people that they cannot control or manipulate.
Because I changed jobs so often, I never stayed in one place long enough to qualify for a retirement program nor to contribute to a 401K except for the last three years of my employment.
In 2015, I convinced my wife to retire with me even though it would be early retirement for her and she had yet to reach the age to qualify for Medicare. I used the money from the 401K that I had for 3 years to pay the premiums on healthcare until my wife turned 65.
Except for 7/8 years where I managed an ARTS COUNCIL, my career was focused on after high school education, either at a community college, a technical institute, a small four-year college, a university, or as a educational consultant designing and teaching training programs for industry.
I did a lot of traveling during my career and during the 8/9 years that I worked at three community college, I earned enough money in monthly mileage reimbursements to make my car payments. So, while the travel was tedious, time consuming, and stressful, I did manage to make it work for me.
When I retired in 2015, I had over 300,000 frequent flyer points of three different airlines, Delta, American, and United. I donated the miles on American and United to sick children and kept the mileage on Delta since it was the least. My wife and I used that mileage to fly to Vegas and to Cancun, Mexico.
I had no idea where my career was headed when I first graduated from college, nor did I have any clues when I earned my MBA, although I knew it would open more doors for me. My focus was always on what I wanted to do not on what other wanted me to do. I had to enjoy my work, otherwise I did not want to work there, and didn't if that happened which it did a time or too.
Careers are not just to earn money and buy things, careers must be rewarding. Most of my career was spent teaching others; I got back just as much as I gave, making it very satisfying.
