Story About How I Navigated Workplace Systems To Retire Ahead Of Schedule

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The lengthy but detailed version –

After leaving school in the UK, I had a low-paying job as an apprentice mechanic and then, after a few years, as a full-time mechanic.I still didn’t earn very much money and certainly not enough to buy a house or start a family.

I did this for over nine years and then one of the mechanics I worked with, who was like me, in his twenties and in the same situation I was, decided to try out for the police.

He applied, was accepted, and then began his training. He told me he was now earning as a new starter over twice what he was a trained mechanic and the wages would only go up as he served more time.

Plus, pension and benefits were better and after thirty years (which would make him still just 55 years old) he could retire on a full pension which by far exceeded the normal state pension, which wouldn’t be paid for many years after that.

Police work sounded very attractive, compared to my mechanics job, so I also applied. I seemed to give all the right answers in interviews and passed the written and physical tests and was accepted. My start date was, to the day, ten years after I’d started as a mechanic.

All went well for the two years of the training/probation and I became a full-time policeman with job security

I rented a van to move stuff out of my parents’ house, had arranged for some furniture to be delivered and all the assorted stuff needed to move properly. My work authorized the day off, which was a Saturday.

There is a football match on for which we need all the officers we can get. A local derby which was often bad-tempered. I reminded him the fixtures were known for months in advance and I’d arranged everything for the move. He still refused to give me the time off and said I would work a day shift.

What choice I had, I had little idea at that moment as it never occurred to me what might happen. So the next morning, with the help of my father (my mother was disabled) I did what I could for the first few hours after an early start and had to leave him with it to do it all for me.
Luckily there wasn’t anything to move that required two people to carry it, it could all be done by one, but was hard work and repetitive.

I obviously was quite irritated but left it as it was.

When you worked overtime, you could either get paid for it or get time off in lieu. I always opted for the time off and with working quite a lot of overtime, I “banked” many days. The sergeant kept track of it and over the next few years, it usually seemed I was needed whenever I wanted time off. It was always claimed to be “exigencies of duty” so I ended up missing out on a few things like a couple of weddings, family plans, weekend breaks, etc.

There was a limit to how much time off in lieu you could have, and one day, my Sergeant called me in and told me there was too much and as I had the option of being paid instead, I should start doing that. I said no, I want the time off and the holidays, and also to have several weeks off in one go each year to go traveling.

Of course, having more than a couple of weeks off was frowned upon, but I also pointed out it was difficult to bring the total down when I kept being refused the time off.

Also, from what I remember, you couldn’t carry any unused normal holidays over to the next year so I always tried to make sure I used them all up, but even then, it was difficult to find a ‘slot’ and get them authorized.

I knew I wasn’t irreplaceable and the problems occurred due to a shortage of manpower and bad organisation.

With an end goal I’d come to shortly.

If you did complete a course and were trained in a specialty, there was no more money in it, you didn’t get a pay rise, you just got that for time served. So money wasn’t an incentive, it was the pure pleasure of saying I couldn’t do something because I was on a course.
I became, over the years, specialized in various things, which entailed five driving courses, whereby I moved on to the traffic department, but before that was riot training, baton training, and a starter computer course, then various ones involving mechanical matters with vehicles, firearms training, first aid, accident investigation and so on. So that each year I became more and more trained, had more and more time away they could say nothing about and I tacked on my holidays and time off to just before the course started or just as it ended so it was unlikely they’d call me in just for a day for some poorly organized event in terms of what manpower they needed.

At one point, regarding a certain category of vehicle accidents, I’d investigate and write a report, but that report had to be checked and signed off as accurate by a supervisor. There was no supervisor as high in the training as I was so they were just rubber-stamped.
I enjoyed the courses as being nine to five and not shifts, usually away from home, and had full board accommodation and traveled a lot around the world in my time off. I was still single but with girlfriends and no kids. There was a running joke at work that I was never there and always on a course.

I also kept a check on how long I’d served and what my pension would be (it was ‘index-linked’ which meant it went up all the time depending on the economy) when the time came to be able to claim it.

I also put wages into a special police scheme that would pay out well.
With traveling, I noted how much money I would need to live in a developing country upon reaching retirement age and how much also my state pension would be – and when the money needed and the money I would get from both pensions, savings, scheme and so on became equal, I had no incentive to continue a career. I also kept note of the value of my house should I sell it.

So at the age of forty-two, I sort of retired and only worked when I needed to in temporary driving jobs and various different things. I even started up my own company using the knowledge I’d obtained and regularly used from the police courses and qualifications – but even though it made good money, I preferred not to be tied down and continued traveling, sometimes working whilst doing so.

The time came one day at work for me to leave, so I asked for a sabbatical. I knew the police then didn’t do them.
I knew because I’d asked several times in the preceding years to have three or six months off to recharge but mainly to also travel even more.
I asked my sergeant, who said no, that’s not done. I asked my inspector, who said the same. He said if I wanted extended time off, I had to leave the job then try and re-join and maybe then go through a shortened training to go back out on the streets again. I already knew this was how it was, until then, done.

I had with me my resignation letter and due to procedure, gave it to my sergeant.
He read it, told me to wait, and went to see my inspector.
They expressed disbelief and questioned me as to if I knew what I was doing.
Oh boy, I knew exactly what I was doing. I said I was approaching burnout and needed an extended time off, otherwise I’d have to go long-term sick and possibly never come back. They understood as they knew that one important part of my job was attending fatal road accidents and though they weren’t every day, they were enough to amount to something.

Over the next week or so, I was called into the offices of various supervisors, going up the ladder one by one, to the HQ, until I nearly, but not quite by one step, reached the top. At each interview, I was pressured to stay as they’d “spent so much money on me” in training.
I refused each time, citing their sabbatical policy, but in reality, the real reasons were having no incentive to stay (and many, many police retire and are dead in a year or two. I didn’t want that to be me) plus karma in a way for many, many times refusing or changing my time off.
Petty, I know, but nevertheless, if they use the system, then so will I

When doing the job, I did it well, there were never any complaints there, they always got their money out of me plus some but at some point, it had to end. This was that point.
To end this very long story, it is now nearly twenty-five years later, I’ve been claiming the police pension for nearly the last ten years and the state pension for less than a year. I have enough money to live on, and always since leaving had so also, but I’m not extravagant. I have visited ninety-eight countries and lived (within the restrictions of the visas) in twelve. A few several times. I have more trips/extended stays planned.

Thank you for reading if you stuck it out to the end. That was my “work” story.