Am I retired?
When people who don’t know me ask me about what I do for a living, I say I work in the IT sector. If they pursue, I give details about the back-end software development and systems administration. If they pursue, I eventually say I’m retired rather than getting into details.
Some people are actually interested, rather than just following social scripts that seem to focus on “employment” as a measure of who you are as a person.
I’m not pursuing employment, but that has a different meaning for me than it might be for other people. For nearly my entire career, I became employed or did contracting work based on someone who knew me and knew how I worked approaching me to help them. I have never applied for jobs the regular way, sending resumes to unknown potential employers, or being on that side of the table for a job interview.
The closest I have experienced to that was when I was part of a merger (really an ‘acquisition’) of one employer by another. I was told I would be doing the same job in the new organization, but because the corporate cultures were extremely different, and the new management team never really knew why I was there, it didn’t work out.
If someone who knows me and knows what I can do for them approaches me, and will support me in attempting to get work done, I would come in to harness my skills. I’m available for that type of work.
Some tags on this website that may be of interest:
This was so interesting to read as I come from a sector of American time-space culture that told us all to stock our identity in "what we do for a living." it was very important that we didn't focus on "what we like to do" or even "what we do," but only on "what we do that earns income."
Thanks!