Tuesday morning, sitting at my desk at work.
It is weird, coming in to "work," amongst soon-to-be former co-workers; all of them not sure exactly how to handle having me amongst them, and me involved with almost none of the day-to-day operations of the company. My termination letter actually states that - although I need to remain available to hep with transition of duties - my primary focus is expected to be getting a job. B.B. is offering multiple classes, daily, with names that - remember - would have made me cringe throughout my adult life but now I must go in with a new attitude. Classes like "LinkedIn for Beginners" and "Branding-U." I also went through a couple of sessions yesterday to try and make sense of how my benefits will work over the next year. You know, roll the 401k into a "Traditional" or "Roth" IRA; divest my company stock? (here's my stock tip - if you have BB stock right now - keep it), will the COBRA package that they're picking up the bill on be considered taxable income next tax time? All those annoying, painful financial "life" things that I hate to consider.
But, in the end, everything is optional. So, I can get up without an alarm clock, and just make sure I'm in here in time for my first session of the day, and pretty much head out at the end of the last session, which may be early in the afternoon or not. And do various job search-related activities in between. Or I can choose to not come in at all. Everyone's so gun-shy about trying to ask me for anything, there's really nothing work-related for me to do. And I just pass along every email request I get. At some point, there's going to be a couple of meetings where I truly do the "knowledge transfer" with respect to a lot of the processes I, alone, managed. But I've got a heckuva lot of freedom over this coming month.
Yesterday, after my last session at 1 pm, I headed home to work (on homework from my career counselor) from my computer there. In other times - this is the lifestyle for me. As it is, living life to the fullest is a bit crimped. Psychologically, there's a bit of a wet blanket over anything. But also - there's little things like "no coffeeshops." Our unofficial budget (we haven't had the chance to sit down and line it all out in Quicken yet) allows only for coffee, sans-pastry, in one family visit on Saturday mornings. So I've been French Pressing it every morning & bringing in the travel mug. So, in short, no hanging out at the coffee shop on my free afternoons.
Working from home, I was trying to assemble the myriad handouts I've gotten from Cindy (the cc), and try to start assembling names for my "network," and do a couple of other things - and also kind of prepare for a job fair they've got happening here at work tomorrow (outside employers), when I had a minor freak-out. I think it got better, but mainly cause I just shut down after that and switched gears to greeting my family after Sharon got home with the girls. I did not return to job stuff after that.
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6 comments:
Great update.
I've never really tapped into the much-heralded power of Linkedin. It does crank out a paper resume pretty quickly based on the information you feed it. I dunno. Anyway, we've connected. (It does have an uncanny internal system to find People You May Know. It let me know you joined up, for example.)
I'm not certain of this, but I'm pretty sure that you can leave your 401k alone. Companies like to see employees off their 401k's but there's no requirement to convert it to something else.
If it is a requirement, the tax implications are significant. Both a 401k and a traditional IRA are tax deferred, meaning you pay taxes when you take the money out (ideally at retirement). Roth's pay the taxes up front, and are tax free when you access the money.
You haven't paid the taxes on the money in your BBY 401k, so converting it to a ROth may entail a major tax hit right now, but none later.
You may know all of this.
Some info here:
http://www.thefrugallife.com/401k.html
Keep on truckin'.
You are my first linkedIn contact, in fact, Stephen.
Pat: Right, mostly. Problem with leaving it in my company's current 401k is I can't touch it and/or contribute any more to it. If I roll over to a traditional IRA, I can continue contributing to it and, if my new employer offers a 401k, I have more flexibility with respect to rolling the money in.
Don't roll any sooner than necessary...
soldier on
I imagine it is weird having to go back in . . . adding to the sogginess of the wet blanket effect
I hope that time (having to go back in) passes quickly for you.
Continued good luck - always
I would say don't be too quick to move it. If you do move it, I would say to look at funds that are similar to the ones you were invested in. As the market starts to turn around that will be the best place for your funds.
Once you start a new job, you can always move it then.
Oh, and I initially read MT's comment as "solder on." Thought your cc might have suggested a career in electronics repair...
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