As I talked about before, I gave my boss written notice informing him and the department of my intention to separate this April. When I talked to him, I told him I was retiring, and it was a completely positive experience. I was even more surprised to get positive feedback from my coworkers when I told them of my retirement plans that night when I went into work. The positivity fizzled pretty quickly when I ran into the Retirement Police IRL the next shift though.
If you’re into this whole FIRE thing, you’ve probably heard of the Internet Retirement Police (IRP). The IRP are pretty much trolls who leave comments on FIRE bloggers pages and social accounts telling the bloggers that they’re not really retired. This is for various reasons, but the biggest one is that the FIRE bloggers are still making an income somehow, so by the IRP definition of retirement, said bloggers are not really retired. Now I can kind of see the IRP’s point there, especially if a blogger is living off a giant income generated by their constant engagement online, and this blogger doesn’t actually have passive income to cover their expenses. In that rare case, I can see how such a blogger could seem disingenuous about actually being retired. Like if they stopped doing their online influencer bit, they’d have to go get a job. Yeah, that’s not retired.
However most bloggers and online FIRE personas don’t actually make that much off their internet musings, and for the greater majority, it’s actually a fun way to lose a little bit of money just to keep the blog running(including yours truly). To say that someone is not retired just because they spend some of their time writing about it seems ridiculous; according to the IRP you are not allowed to make money in any way whatsoever or do anything besides pure recreational activities if you’re going to call yourself retired. Again, I can sort of see the point, but it gets fuzzy when someone considers themselves retired, yet occasionally receives money for doing stuff they enjoy which they would pursue regardless of compensation. The IRP seems to only be happy with defining retiring as strictly limited to sitting on a beach or playing golf. Also, you can’t make money playing golf.
The IRP can be quite annoying, relentlessly flaming people for using the word retirement in a broader sense than they would prefer. Such is the stupidity of the internet. Many would assume that such trolls would probably never behave in such a way in real life. Luckily, I got to disprove that. Fun for me!
Once again, if you’re not a cop, we’ve got some explaining to do. As with most professions, TV and movies are horrible representations of the realities of police work. Gun fights rarely happen, but fist fights occur frequently. Things are also a lot darker, in that you see the results of bad stuff happening to people, but it’s rarely concluded in a cohesive, satisfying manner where a totally bad guy goes to prison and the victim is at peace. Usually it’s more shades of gray, trying to parse out the victim who may not be entirely innocent from a suspect who isn’t completely bad.
The one thing that many cop dramas get right is the sheer aggressive nature of the workplace itself. You know that common scene where one cop runs into another that he doesn’t like, and their coworkers have to separate them to prevent an all out physical fight? Yeah, that’s pretty spot on. It may sound abrasive and unhealthy, and it probably is, but cops can be pretty quick to call each other out on their varying opinions, and such conversations occasionally devolve into expletive filled screaming matches. I imagine this has a lot to do with the emotional nature of police work(constantly seeing fucked up shit and being helpless to fix it), as well as the stresses of overwork and crazy hours. The heated arguments are a marginally functional relief valve.
You may think this would not be a great way to spend your working hours, and I can understand that. However, I think the unrelenting candor from my coworkers is one of the few things I’m going to miss about being a cop. Look, I’ve worked around super PC environments, where no one tells someone their idea is stupid, but instead says weird buzz words and acts passive aggressively. Or is super nice but then stabs others in the back. When peoples lives are on the line, I prefer an environment where someone will say if a plan sounds fucking stupid before shit goes wrong. And it’s nice knowing what people think, instead of just dancing around issues and hoping you don’t offend anyone. So I wasn’t surprised when one of my coworkers called out my retirement as bullshit. It just wasn’t in the way I anticipated.
No shit, there we were, working the shift the night after I’d told most of my coworkers of my plan to retire soon. Some of the guys were off the night before, so as we were all sitting around talking, the conversation drifted to what the guys who had been off had missed. One guy informed them of my plan to retire. Dan was one of the guys who had been off, and immediately he asked me how long I had on the department. I informed him I had 14 years on. Dan said “Wait a second, you don’t have your 20? You’re not retiring, you’re fucking quitting!” Sensing blood in the water, a few of the guys who had been positive the night before chimed in “Yeah, what the fuck JSD? you’re fucking quitting! Retiring? Fucking bullshit!”.
Now then, I learned long ago that engaging in such arguments that don’t actually matter is futile, because 1. I’m not that witty and 2. I’m the supervisor, and I need to reserve my boss trump card for arguments that actually matter, like tactical or ethical decisions in the heat of the moment. So I just laughed, and said “I guess you’re right, I’m quitting, retiring, whatever-either way I’m out this bitch in a few months”. At which point Ken, who’s been on the job for over 30 years and is retiring a few months after me chimed in with “Ha! You fuckers are just jealous-call it what you want, we’ll both soon be out doing what we want while you’re all still stuck here!”. All parties laughed, and the conversation went in other directions not involving retirement.
As I sat back in my chair it occurred to me that the definition my coworkers have of retirement is almost diametrically opposed to the Internet Retirement Police. The IRP considers you retired only if you sit around and do nothing that generates income. My coworkers only consider you retired if you do 20 years on the job, and therefore earn the pension. They don’t give a shit about what you do after you bounce.
This is even more interesting, as I considered the different retirements that Ken and I have planned. The day after Ken retires from our department, he’s already arranged to be hired by another smaller department as a full time police officer. He will also continue to run his small business, which takes up at least 20-30 hours a week. On top of that, he will continue to work part time security. Ken is a hell of a good cop, and a good dude. But he’s always tired as his three jobs are quite taxing when combined; the income needed to support a very expensive hobby. He has no plans to let retirement from our department slow him down. Me? I plan on taking care of my kids, mountain biking, and occasionally writing here. Maybe consider some sort of part time pursuit in a few years, as long as it’s flexible, challenging, and fun.
The irony that my coworkers consider Ken to be more retired than I will be is humorous to say the least. The meta irony that my IRL Retirement Police are actual cops is also amusing, and probably not the correct use of meta, but whatever; this is my blog so we’re going with it. Thus went me informing all my coworkers that I’d soon be leaving them. The initial positivity was nice, but in the end I’m glad I got some lighthearted shit thrown my way in the standard cop manner. Just wouldn’t have felt right otherwise.
