I loved my flying career in the US Air Force. So too did I love my post-USAF career as a civilian contractor, training pilots and mission crews for the USAF. Then, in October 2003, a new company bid on, and won, our contract. Almost immediately, everything went to hell. The new outfit won the contract by low-balling its bid, leaving me with an impossible task: producing twice as much courseware with half as many people. There was a train wreck coming and I couldn’t manage my way out of it. Finally, in April 2005, I had to admit defeat. The paycheck just wasn’t worth the unhappiness. Donna calculated our USAF retirement income against expenses and told me we could make it, so, with her support, I resigned.
My criteria for a new job? First, happiness. Never again did I want to work at a job I hated, a stressful job that would follow me home evenings and weekends, a job that would keep me from sleeping or enjoying a vacation. Second, a little money. Although my USAF pension covers the mortgage and car payment, we, perhaps unrealistically, would also like to enjoy food with our meals. We could afford a pay cut, which is the almost inevitable result of swapping stress for happiness, but we did need something. Third, the job needed to be local. We decided that unless someone offered me a job paying almost twice what I was making as a contractor, we just didn’t want to leave Tucson – we love our house, our friends, and our hash. We want to grow old here.
When I started looking for a new job I was 58. I’m 59 now. I looked for work similar to what I had been doing, of course (and still am looking), but so far haven’t scored a single interview. Age is surely a factor; so is our decision to stay in Tucson, where jobs in my line of work are few. Since the FAA won’t let pilots fly commercially after 60, shelling out for additional flight training and a 737 type rating just wasn’t sensible – even if I found a flying job, I wouldn’t be able to work long enough to recoup expenses. I considered going back to school for radiology technician training, but that takes two years, and there’s a two-year waiting list to get into the program.
To make money in the short term I decided to register as a substitute teacher and get a CDL. There are plenty of substitute teaching and driving jobs, and I’d have something to do (not to mention a paycheck, however small) while I continued looking for professional work. The local school district was hiring school bus drivers, so, while I went through Arizona’s substitute teaching paperwork drill (which took two months to complete, by the way), I trained as a bus driver and got a CDL, finishing just in time for the summer lay-off.
I made some money delivering motorhomes for an RV dealership, but trips were few and far between, so I was happy when summer was over and I was able to start driving school buses again. The bus-driving job, although part time, was a Monday through Friday gig, preventing me from subbing – in any case, the pay was about the same. Then, in October, someone from the VA hospital called about a job I’d applied for in June, driving disabled vets to and from their medical appointments. The federal wheel turns slowly, and I didn’t start working for the VA until late December, just after Christmas.
So: I now work in the patient transportation division at the regional VA hospital in Tucson. Besides driving patients, I transfer lab samples, X-rays, files, and prosthetics between the Tucson and Phoenix VA hospitals, and between Tucson and satellite clinics in Casa Grande, Green Valley, Sierra Vista, and Safford. It’s full time, Monday through Friday, and pays a little more than half what I was making as a defense contractor – better than I expected, and way better than substitute teaching or bus driving. It’s civil service work, stable, with great benefits. As a former officer with what’s considered an excellent retirement income, never mind my advanced age, I’m damn lucky they hired me in the first place. Now that they have I’m in the system and eligible to apply for other positions that are only open to current federal employees.
But I rather like this job. I like it quite a bit. It’s a happy job. There’s no stress, and it doesn’t follow me home at nights. I like the vets – they love to talk, and they tell the most amazing stories (one of my regular passengers, then a 17-year-old Marine medic, saw the entire Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor from a field hospital on the side of the mountain in Aiea). The money’s good, especially for Tucson, and I don’t have to worry about contract cancellations or recompetitions. I’m working right here in town, just like we wanted. I wear jeans to work. And if Donna and I decide to do it, we can both start swilling from the Social Security trough in three years, although I’m certain we’ll both keep working in any case. You know what? Life is good.
Not everyone is in a position to swap income for happiness, and I’ll never second-guess anyone who decides to stay in an unhappy job in order to feed a family. If our circumstances had been even slightly different – if we didn’t have a retirement income from my first career, if we’d settled in an area with a higher cost of living, if Donna didn’t have her own business and income – who knows what I’d have done? Well, I think I know what I’d have done. I’d have hung onto that awful job by tooth and nail, and I’d be utterly miserable. So I’m lucky, and don’t think I don’t know it.