Am at retirement age but still healthy, engaged with my job, etc. But lately have gotten some remarks (maybe I’m overly sensitive) about “when I retire” in the context of who might replace me. I know there are others interested (and qualified!) To do so, but I’m not ready yet. Selfish? I know it is not entirely my decision, my large healthcare system has let people go due to their higher salaries, and it has not happened to me YET. Still. They probably would prefer I do it myself.
I thought this thread was going to be about an actual work building being a fossil with the trend to WFH! Yikes instead it’s about people near my age being fossils at work! 
It’s interesting. I think younger people see retirement as the prize and are in the work world often envious - also maybe they see everyone as more dispensable.
Just tell them “the line forms here but the movie (job) hasn’t been released yet”!
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The large company I worked for started to offshore jobs about 6 years ago for a particular area. People with 30-40 years of systems knowledge were let go. We all just shook our heads. Seen this movie before.
My area was eventually folded into this group so I left. Wasn’t going to deal with the headaches. Fast forward 2+ years. Half the team I worked with were rehired including me. Still a lot of headaches but working conditions had improved.
Keep your skills current. Think young and try to mentor younger employees. There’s still a need for experienced people with common sense. I’m finding there’s a current shortage of leadership too.
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To me, once we get close to retirement age (or past it), I feel a responsibility to make sure that the next generation is ready to take over. I have been consulting for several years (part time after retiring) to the company that I used to work for. I am very pleased to see how strong the next generation of engineers (and related experts) are, and how ready they are to take over.
Does that make me a fossil? Maybe. It is the way that it is supposed to be.
In terms of when to retire, I think that this can be quite a difficult decision. Finances is one contributing issue. Health is another. What you want to do is another. These considerations might or might not agree with each other.
I would support a company wanting to be careful that they are covered whenever a valued employee decides to retire.
Wow.
Where I have been working they are offshoring, but largely because that is where a lot of younger engineers are. Otherwise they are doing the opposite – they are being quite careful about keeping the “old guys” who built the technology around long enough to make sure that their expertise is distributed as widely as possible to younger (not necessarily young) strong engineers.
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That’s pretty much the opposite of what the large company H retired from did to its engineers. They seem to have decided that engineering is easily done with no mentorship needed. It sure made H’s decision to take their buyout offer a no-brainer.
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Husband is working for a startup. Yes, he is a well preserved dinosaur in his field! Lean startup funding means they have trouble recruiting mid-career experienced folks because those folks are afraid to move from their comfortable, stable at the moment jobs to startup uncertainty. It is either completely green graduates or fossils, if you will. 
My husband gave up on hiring those professionals and is spending extra time training the youngsters. He would be happy if the right “fossil” showed up. 
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It used to annoy my sister when her boss kept asking her when to retire, she’s ready, took her SS last year while still working, but she’s not ready to go. But the minute they say everybody has to be back at work, she will quit for sure. She has outlasted everybody. Now her new boss said not to retire. Her boss said having nothing to do when she retires could lead to a depression.
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The large company I was with for almost 30 years moved accounting from San Diego to lower cost areas of the country and let the staff her go in 2015. I found a new position right away as a senior accountant at a small engineering firm and have been with them for 7 1/2 years. The small company values my experience and I am well compensated. I have a part time person working for me who is 65 and also used to work with me at the large company.
H is an engineer for a large company headquartered in Finland. At the beginning of the pandemic he was miserable as engineering began reporting through marketing who knew nothing about product development and made his work life horrible. Fast forward to now and H is very happy with his new boss in Denmark (heading up a team of 100 plus engineers) who is a great engineer and also a really good manager. H is the head of product development here in the US and in Germany and is enjoying his job once again.
We both would like to work a couple of more years in order to do some of the expensive trips we want to do as well as finish remodeling our home and to be able to pay for D1’s wedding from our paychecks versus from savings.
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We’re in the same place. W is retired and I’ll probably work 5 more years although I probably could retire now if I really wanted to. Since covid shut down all our travel plans for the last few years, I told W we should definitely do something big and lavish next year.
She couldn’t decide where to go, so I said why not one big trip every year going forward? Our retirement is secure, so why keep banking savings past the point where age reduces the ability to enjoy travel?
Basically I’m considering my income going forward to be vacation and mad money while we can still enjoy it. It’s a really nice mental change from “work so you can retire” to “work to fund fun stuff”.
Back on topic, about 4 years ago I was part of IBM’s infamous “dino baby” purge that they’d been secretly doing for about a decade. They were purposely targeting everyone over 50 for layoff; there’s lots of great in-depth reporting and plenty of lawsuits that come up on a google search. I landed at a fantastic new company that reinvigorated my mental health and career and am actually quite grateful that I got that kick in the behind from IBM. This past year I’ve been doing a lot of training and mentoring of new hires to pay it forward.
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That is the attitude in many large tech companies. They prefer younger engineers who often don’t have families and are seen as more willing to work nights and come in on the weekend when a project starts running late. In fact they aren’t even referred to as people; you’ll hear “we’re going to need three more resources on this” as if they are interchangeable cogs.
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Like this attitude towards retirement!
DH survived IBM consulting into his 60’s but only because he was a road warrior—17 years on the road 100% of the time, including a nine-month stint in Istanbul where he was able to come home only every eight weeks. Our son jokes that he understood “deployments” long before he considered a career in the Army.
About six months after DH retired, his largest client came after him to continue advising them but, in order to do so, he has to contract through IBM (non-U.S. and at a substantial increase from his former AP salary). Like you, he now works to “fund fun stuff.” I call his income his Hookers and Beer money, but it bought our cabin in Maine and all its improvements. He wants to build a garage/shop next year, and then he says he’ll hang up the phone for good. We’ll see. He likes the work and his control over it.
He certainly concurs with the fact that IBM has been systematically targeting older employees for years. Had his engagements not been consistently profitable, he would have been on the chopping block long ago.
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