My End Game at the IRS

I could not have scripted the retirement any better.  I'd told my management I'd be leaving at the end of calendar year 2011; they'd asked for that to justify promoting a replacement for me.  I meant it, too, more or less, figuring I'd quit before the Spring of 2012.  I stalled on putting in my paperwork; I was busy enough without that, and we had a trip planned to visit our daughter in Australia.  But IRS offered a buyout two days before my flight, so I scrambled to put together an application and submitted it on my last day before leaving.  It was approved the day I got back four weeks later, in early December.  That gave me not quite four weeks to wrap everything up, and I just made it.

Fortunately, I'd done all the groundwork in the previous months.  The team I led was trained, I had written detailed handbooks and desk procedures (I mean down to the mouse clicks), and had designed and created the simple database (MS SharePoint) that would house the change requests my team was responsible for.  I'd also finally won the argument (after four years and several tries) to set up a technical review board to assist the execs in their decisions on the change requests.  I facilitated the last executive board meeting, for old times' sake (I did it for years after I created it) and said goodbye to everyone--in a phone conference call, as these were always conducted.  When my boss asked me where my retirement party should be (half the section was in West Virginia, the other in DC), I told him they could have it wherever they liked, because I wasn't going to be there.  I always hated those things, and I was not about to be responsible for one myself.  I think he was secretly glad he didn't have to drive to DC himself.

I called in to the first meeting of the new tech review board (after I retired--boy did some people not like that) to make sure it really did work, and it went great.  The last time I asked, maybe 18 months after I left, everything was going well, and the stuff I wrote was still being used.  From a professional standpoint, I could not have been more satisfied with events.  Had I stayed, there were a few improvements I could have directed or made myself, but I outlined them to the team before leaving and if they want to make them, they can do it in a straightforward manner.

Socially, retirement changed nothing.  I have had work friends, good ones, but by the end I was not socializing with any coworkers.  I liked them and they acted as though they liked me, but we weren't really friends.  I had been working from home two days a week anyway, and even on the days I did go in, most days my interactions were almost all via email or telephone.  Most of my team (and my boss) worked in Martinsburg, WV, and the ones who worked in the same building (and my upper management chain) were three floors below and a long walk away.  My wife didn't retire for 2 years 9 months after I did, but honestly, I was never lonely.  I think I'm the sort of person who could function OK on a solo space mission lasting a very long time.

The best pre-retirement move I made was to quit drinking.  (That happened 19 months previously, after a bout of self-disgust finally gave me the impetus to confront my alcoholism in a meaningful way.)  Before then, I envisioned retirement as an endless succession of days sitting on my front porch sipping bourbon.  I'd have spent half my life plastered, and much of the rest hung over.  I kept some volunteer commitments pre-retirement figuring they'd help structure my post-retirement days, and they have.  I help administer a youth soccer league, and until last year I was a Democratic precinct captain.  I still volunteer for the Dems, and end up as the new captain's backup frequently.  I started reading with kids at the local elementary school last January and I'll keep that up.  Kids are a blast.

Financially, retirement didn't make much of a dent in our cash flow.  The guys I knew who retired before me told me that I'd be surprised by how little difference there'd be in my take home, and they were right.  The Civil Service Retirement System (discontinued for anyone entering the work force after 1985) was absurdly generous.  Six weeks shy of my 60th birthday, I exchanged my govt salary for a pension that was roughly 70% of what I was making.  But my salary had a 7% deduction for the retirement system, and I had another 10% taken out for a 401(k); those stopped.  Commuting costs were very low, but that went away too.  Plus, the cost of living increases for pensions always exceed those for salary; I had topped out at the highest experience level of a GS-14.  If I live another seven years or so, odds are that I'll be taking home more than what I'd be making had I stayed.  I can buy health insurance at the same rate as employees.  It's pretty decent, too, though I've been phenomenally lucky with my health.

So that's that for the IRS.  I have written a high-level summary of all the things I worked on in my 37+ years there, and some of the changes the work environment went through.  (The paragraph on cubicles alone is worth the price.)  If anyone wants to read it, they can ask me and I'll send a link.  It has some things in it that may be actionable, so it's not going to be posted here.