Does FIRE Take The Fight Out of You?

Posted On July 30, 2021

I get into work early. At 6 am each morning I’m the first one in our main office and will usually be the only one diligently typing away till around 7:45 or so when others begin to trickle in. This isn’t an abnormal time to start work in construction, but it’s extremely abnormal in the main office setting, where I notice people roll in around 8 or 9. I relish this alone quiet time in the office when I’m the only one in. There are no hushed conversations or loud phone calls going on to distract me from my work. My mind is at its best at this ripe part of the day.

The other morning, while walking to my desk to get started, I took the long way around. Just to walk a route I don’t normally take when the office is bustling. This took me around the HR side, where they also happen to keep a large organizational chart on the wall where everyone can see. I’ve casually looked over this chart from time to time during my stay in the office. Curious to one day see if my name will be lined up for another job. But for the last seven months, there’s been no sign of my name. Not even down among the pool of candidates needing jobs. In the past, I likely would have been filled with anxiety at not seeing my name under an upcoming job or down in the pool. Wondering about my future. My career path. Any big bonuses from big project budgets. Wondering if I’ve been forgotten.

But my gig in preconstruction so far has been very pleasant, maybe even too pleasant, to the point of throbbing dullness. So I’ve accepted my fate, really knowing that as soon as I get to a real job and into my first argument about contracts and who owes what or why someone is behind schedule or why someone has left a giant mess behind as if we have magical maids on the job site…I’ll miss the tranquility of my present position.

So I haven’t been worrying. I just do what I’m told. Entering data in schedules and clocking out in time to beat traffic on my days in the office and enjoying the non-commute on my days working from home.

Yesterday, I noticed my name on the organizational chart under an upcoming big job. It took me by surprise. So much so, that I had to do a double-take and set my coffee down. There was another superintendent above me, a senior superintendent who I knew and liked. So they weren’t given me my own job. That’s alright, I thought. I realized that just a few months ago this would have set me off. I would have been swearing in my head about the false promises I’d been told at my last job. Thinking about colleagues at my old company, my age, with their own jobs.

What had dulled my edge?

Age? The calm of making schedules and two emails a week? The time out of the commuter traffic? I wondered about that, and then I noticed the title under my name. They had me down as a position below what I’d been hired as. Certainly a mistake by whoever made this chart. But then I felt the familiar sharp anger rise up from my stomach and into my chest. The anger that has helped drive me to my current position over the years. A chip..my chip, had been placed back onto my soft shoulder and it fucking bothered me. I was so mad I almost ripped the magnetic title down but caught myself. Who did they think they were? These people? These organizational chart makers?

I angrily marched to my desk and plopped down ready to sulk. Ready to start futilely looking up a recruiter, knowing full well I wouldn’t quit. Why was I so upset about this? Why did I care about a misplaced magnetic strip with a few words written on it? My company doesn’t even use titles in our emails–which can make things confusing sometimes. I must have sat there unable to work because of my irritation for fifteen minutes. It had been some time since I felt that level of anger at work. It was as if a dam had burst. A dam that had been in place since last summer. My anger began to spill over onto the fact that I would be under another superintendent again. Soon I had a nice raging fist clenching fire burning inside my head.

It bothered me that I was upset over something so trivial; someone had simply put the wrong title under my name. It wasn’t as if I’d truly been demoted. I felt shallow that a title, a mistake, had worked its way under my skin. Did I really care what the people in the office thought my title was? Apparently, yes, I did.

Then one of the best thoughts a human mind can conjure up crossed my mind: I thought to myself, who cares? They can call me, label me, whatever they want, I only have a few more years of trying to make it at work. Do I really need to keep clawing and scratching my way upwards? No. I just need to maintain the course. Keep doing a good job, keep my company profitable, and let the paycheck keep coming in. Titles, raises, and more responsibility be damned. If the market continues its stellar behavior, this may very well be my last project.

My last project? Yes, one more job and my building days could be over. Is that right?

That thought was like stepping into an air-conditioned space on a boiling summer afternoon. The change was instant and shocking. My last job. Could it be? It’d be close, not likely, but close. Three, four, more years of 10% plus returns would take me to my FI number very quickly. I felt a calm settle over me as the last embers of this silent tantrum were swept away by the thought of early retirement.

I was embarrassed at myself for nearly touching that chart and riping that title down. But this internal hissy fit taught me that maybe I do value my position at work, the title, more than I’d like to admit. Work gives me worth. What will I do when work is no longer there? That was something to take serious, now that I’d seen what my anger had revealed to me. Maybe I’d been lying to myself about the value and confidence that work brings to the table for me.

But I’d been able to quell this flame of anger with the slightest thought of early retirement. I think that this prospect has also given me the peace to deal with not seeing my name on a job for months. It helped me not get upset about having a boss again on a job. And after a few moments, it helped me deal with my vain irritation at being wrongly labeled in a lower position at work.

I looked around the silent empty office. Still, no one had entered to start their day. I sat alone at my desk. Monitor off. Having just gone through a range of emotions with a happy outcome. Outside I could hear the sounds of the busy city awakening. Sirens. Crackheads arguing in the alley outside. The heavy idle of a truck. A car horn echoing off the tall buildings. It contrasted the refuge of the deserted office quite strikingly. The calm of the office, while the city was going crazy, was sort of how I felt at the moment. I’d found shelter amid the storm. And it felt good. Let the rat race rage outside.

I turned on my computer and started to work; basking in the knowledge that I was quite possibly the happiest person in the entire office at the moment.

What about you? Does just the thought of early retirement ever help you out? Is there a danger in losing motivation about work while still working?