What the Market Doesn’t Know

In June of 2020 I reconnected with a childhood friend. Chris and I met when I was just four. Our dad’s worked together at the Social Security Administration in Baltimore. When I was around 14 he moved to Colorado Springs but we continued to see each other when I spent several weeks with his family each summer. In our late teens we fell out of touch but reconnected once in 1994 when the association I worked for had its annual meeting in Denver. Then ensued several decades of silence.

In Fall of 2020 Barbara and I spent most of September and October subletting my daughter and son-in-law’s apartment in Lakewood, Colo. during the last few months of their lease, they having bought a townhouse. It was a super fun place to hang out during the pandemic. Barbara was still working at the time, but I had been unemployed since June 2020 when I had left my job as the Hillel director at the University of Rochester.

I found Chris though social media (before I left social media) and he picked me up early one morning in Lakewood and we went fishing. Well, he went fishing. I watched and jabbered on as he spent several hours failing to catch anything. It was a wide-ranging conversation.

He had also recently left his job as a teacher of history and economics, and we caught up on some 20 years of family and life history. It is a cliché to say that we connected as if no time had passed, but it was kind of like that, at least for me. Eventually we came around to talking about what it was like not to be working.

At that point, I wasn’t sure if I was retired or just unemployed. At a relatively young 59 years old, I said that I still had energy and still wanted or was perhaps even obligated to continue to contribute to society. When I left Hillel, I had thought I might look at another interim director job. But the pandemic made finding such work, highly unlikely. I actively not looking for work.

It was not that I wanted for something to do, but I did feel like I had more capacity than was being fully used. At one point Chris said (like an economist), “If you are able to afford to quit working the market has determined that your contribution has been sufficient.”

It was useful argument and one that I used with myself over the next few years when I was tempted to explore a job opportunity.

But last week after two and a half years of ‘retirement,’ I accepted a part-time position as the Finance Manager for the Jewish Grandparents Network, a nonprofit that was founded and is run by my good friend and Hillel colleague, David Raphael.

Here’s why:

• I continued to feel that I had something to contribute and wanted to use some of the skills that I had acquired over 35 years in the nonprofit work force.

• I missed the comradery and feeling of being part of a team that working can bring.

• I love accounting. It’ s the one aspect of the human world that is mostly black and white. Debits always equal credits. When an account balances to the penny, it is satisfying in a way few other things in life are.

• The opportunity seemed ideal. Working on a team where everyone was working remotely, setting my own hours, and working from wherever I happened to be. I would be going in knowing that I liked and respected the leader of the organization and enjoyed working with him and trusting that I would feel the same about whomever he hired.

• The validation and affirmation that comes with someone being willing to pay you for your work. The feeling that your knowledge and labor has value to others.

• Working even a few hours a day, gives your week a structure, an anchor, and forces you to be a bit more disciplined if you are going to get in your exercise and other errands along with your work. Tempted to stay up until 1 am watching The Bourne Ultimatum? Sorry, it’s a work night.

• I didn’t have to apply. He asked me to do it. It is nice to be wanted.

Finally, if I am honest, there is the paycheck itself. Because no matter how many times I tell myself that the retirement math is solid, there is a psychological benefit that comes along with earned income even if it is only a supplement to IRA draws.

If I want to buy some lox to enjoy with breakfast, what the heck, I’m working!

If I need a new iPhone this year (who doesn’t?), why not, I’m working!

If I want to fly first class to Europe? Okay, get a grip!

At the very least paying a bit more into Social Security will help support the system in the short run and may increase my benefit a little when it is time for me (or my wife) to collect it. (I should live so long!)

So, this week, I returned to work, and I guess I am a tiny fraction of those fabulous jobs numbers that the president was boasting about. So far, I am enjoying the work and the folks I am working with. And, yeah, I feel that I am making a contribution, even if the market says, ‘enough already!’

There are things that even the market doesn’t understand about sufficiency.