Going back to work

Kinda sorta

Man, I really can’t help these clickbaitey post titles.

TL;DR-I’m going back to my very part time job of executive protection for a professional sports team. The team has already made their schedule for the next few months, so I probably won’t start until summer. What the hell is going on here? Did I fail at FIRE? Did I run out of money? Am I a driftless mess without a job to define me? No, no, and maybe a little more than I’d like. Let’s jump in!

For a few years before I retired from policing, I did some occasional executive protection for local professional athletes, employed by the team they play for. This includes protecting them at games, and at the hundreds of public appearances they do around our city. I didn’t mind the job, and was about to start traveling with the team after previously only doing local events.

Just before jumping into travel games, I took a position at my cop job which put me back on late shift. It became clear that constantly switching schedules to work a part time job was going to mess up my sleep schedule even more than my noctural work shift. Soon after going to late shift, I told my Executive Protection (EP) boss I was out for said reasons, as at that time I figured I’d likely ride out my full time cop job for another 5 years or so to grab that million dollar pension. Ten months later, I realized that I had no desire to keep plugging away at a full time job I was coming to despise, and the pension just wasn’t worth it. I’d been FI for awhile by then, and had flirted with the idea of leaving sooner, but after much self reflection retiring early became the clear path forward. Had I known that’s where I would have ended up, I would have probably kept the EP gig, and went straight to that after leaving the cop job.

There were two other factors that led me to previously leaving the EP job.

1. You may remember I had a shitty experience doing similar work in Afghanistan. This left a bad taste in my mouth, and has always negatively effected my view of such work.
2. The hours. Games and local events are in the evenings, which interferes with prime family time. Traveling with the team means I’d be gone for days or even a week at a time.

So given these negatives, why would I go back? Well, as always, shit has changed.

• I did lotttttssssss of therapy. And meditation. Mindfulness. Shit, I’m even centering my chi during Kung Fu these days, lol (that’s a whole other story). But finally I realized I had to get over one bad experience protecting people, and not judge the profession because of that experience alone. The guy I protected in Afghanistan then was a dickhole, and made our lives hell. Since then I went on to to do a fair amount of protection work while on the SWAT team, in support of the Secret Service when dignitaries came to our city. I played a small part in protecting some big names, and you know what? Persons on both sides of the aisle were way cooler than that dickhead I protected way back when. Maybe it’s because they’re politicians and skilled at making you feel good, but in my limited interactions they made it clear they appreciated us. And the feels I got in my EP moonlight gig were even better. The organization I worked for took care of me more than any I worked for before. They respected us, and all of the players we protected were courteous and appreciative.
• The hours remain the same. And they suck if you’re working a full time job, doubly if you’re doing shift work. Plus you’ve got to burn vacation to travel with the team. But now that I’m not doing any of that, it’s not bad. I’m home all of the time now, which is awesome. But I’m starting to realize that if I miss a dinner every other week, it’s not a big deal. And it won’t be the end of the world if I’m out of town for a few days every other month. I sure would like a change of scenery, and I think my family could use a break from me.

There’s one other major negative to protection work: It’s borring. In comparison to kicking in doors and getting in car chases, protecting people is downright tedious. There’s quite a bit of planning, training, and coordination that goes into doing the job right. But much of the time you end up just standing in one spot for hours. You need to be on your shit, constantly scanning for threats and all of that, so it’s not like you can just space out or tune into a podcast. I once spent ten hours guarding a door, and keeping my focus on a hallway intersection adjacent to my spot. Not exactly thrilling. Many of my positions on the police department involved much of the same tedium. For every minute of exciting craziness, I spent hours doing monotonous observation. In retirement, things have chilled out. The most exciting thing I do now is mountain biking, which is just fine. Doing some tedious EP work occasionally shouldn’t be too bad, and I’m hoping it’ll help me appreciate the large swaths of time I’m not working.

Now let’s look at the positive aspects of EP.

1. Gives me some legitimate focus for my skill set. I still train with my guns weekly, and the habit of constantly looking for threats (thanks hypervigilance!) is still part of my life. In my current state, I know the likelihood I’ll need to use such skills is extremely low. But though violent assaults are a low probability event, they are of high consequence if they do occur. So I stay ready. On top of that, I’ve spent more than 20 years of my life building this skill set. While my capability is nowhere near what it was when I was a full time SWAT guy, letting my skills completely perish seems like a waste. I’d also like to improve my skills a bit, too keep my operational level a bit higher. I enjoy such training, but it’s hard to justify spending a few grand a year preparing for something so unlikely. While EP work is much lower risk than my police career, some risk is still there. Doing some EP work would help me justify and fund some additional training.
2. Purpose. A big part of my identity, even before becoming a cop or soldier, has been protecting people. I know this can’t continue forever, as eventually I’ll no longer be physically capable of it. Sure, I still carry a gun (thanks LEOSA) and make sure I’m ready on the off chance shit goes down and someone violently attacks others nearby. But I miss that being a part of my job. It’d be nice to get back to it.
3. The people. I miss the community I was a part of on the job. It was always reassuring to work with a bunch of highly capable guys who had proved themselves in some pretty hairy situations. And they’re just fun to be around. The majority of guys working EP for the local sports team are either current or former members of the two full time SWAT teams in our state. It’ll be nice to work with those dudes again. I still get beers with some of them occasionally, which is fun. But I’ve missed the professional satisfaction of operating in a team. It’d be nice to do a small amount of that.
4. The organization. In all of my government jobs, we were barely scraping by to get decent training and procur barely functional equipment. The sports team? Whole other world. Though the risk and mission itself is much less intense, the funding is way way wayyyyy better.
5. Travel. I totally understand how people whose job involves constant travel come to hate it. I traveled a decent amount in the Army, and that got old quick. But in my current FIRE state, I’ve been getting the itch to get out. Maybe getting a little stir crazy. I took a few trips for fun stuff this year, which was great. Taking more than a few such trips a year feels like I’m abandoning my family though. I know this is totally a psychological construct of my own, especially since we really don’t need the money, but I feel less guilty traveling if it’s for work. And being out of town once every month or so seems like a small burden. Which leads to…
6. Money! The sports team pays more per hour than I’ve made anywhere else. It’s crazy! The hourly rate rivals that of an attorney. You know what? After being paid less than $10 an hour to serve in a combat zone, then $40 an hour to get shot at here in the city, it’s nice to be compensated at a rate that feels commensurate with putting my safety at risk. And yes, the FIRE gods may smote me for wanting to earn an income though technically I don’t need it. But you know what? Though I try, I’m not some perfectly adjusted minimalist monk that’s 100% ok with my standard of living. I’d like to spend some money without making any withdrawls, like on that tactical training mentioned above, or baller AirBnBs for future family vacations. And with stocks being on sale as of late, I’d love to scoop some more up.

That’s about it. Have I failed at FIRE? I guess that’s up to you, dear reader. I don’t think so, but others might. Do I need the money? Not really, but extra cash would be nice. And do I need this to complete my identity and satisfy my fragile ego? Like the money, not really, but I’d be happy to add protecting people back into a component of who I am.

Like I said before, it’ll be some time before I start working. Right now I’m looking forward to getting back to it, even though it’ll be super part time. Maybe that will change when I actually start working again. Maybe I’ll hate it, and go running back to early retirement. Or maybe I’ll really like it, and then who knows where that’ll lead. Either way, it’s nice to have FI in my back pocket, and be able to choose to work when I want to instead of being driven to work as much as possible out of monetary fears. It’ll be fun to see how this new experiment with part time employment pans out.

What do you think? Am I deluding myself? Will the retirement police take my FIRE badge away? What’s the over under on me hating or loving this new gig?