New job - update

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1

Got a new job this week and it feels good.

4 days / month - senior advisory level (permanent mandate, not an interim thing).

Comp is reasonable for the time commitment and enough to pay the day to day bills, living more of my investment returns to grow the base rather than fund lifestyle.

It’s also shifted my focus towards pursuing (fingers crossed) a portfolio career with 2-3 of such mandates and then leading a balanced lifestyle.

Aside from those considerations, it’s also intellectually stimulating and - I freely admit - gives more of a sense of purpose combined with a good feeling of not being “restructured - couldn’t find a new job - thus retired”. As broad and diverse as my personal interests are and as much as I love doing all kinds of personal projects and running errands and soon taking care of a little one, realistically (too) much of our self-sense is derived from professional status. It’s good to ween off of that, but cold-turkey was a bit over the top for me.

Hopefully the positive momentum continues.

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Sounds like a good fit for you, also with a baby coming it’s good to be home. Wish you all the best.

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When is the baby due? If I could give some advice, it is to take time with your child when they are young.

They are literally changing every day and you’ll never get that time back again.

Most fathers who are working full time will never know this. I’m forever grateful that Covid arrived and forced me to be home with the kids and see what I was missing out on (I didn’t realise even after I’d taken a couple of months off work to stay with the kids).

Of course now they are a bit older, I’m glad to get any time away from them too! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Butch will be 26 days/ month at home taking care of the baby and helping Madame. That’s the way the new generation does it.

:wink:

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I mis-read it as 4 days a week :smiley:

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I needed to read it twice too.

Working 4d/m at a salary of 4d/w.

That’s negotiating.

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My wife’s fine with that. What pisses her off (just momentarily, until I mention I’ll pay for our upcoming vacation) is when I tell her “I made xyz playing on the stock market today” and it is more than her monthly salary.

Seriously though, I’m doing things a bit in reverse - a child at later age, getting career and lots of travel / mountaineering / other adventures out of the way earlier in life. I think for me this works and I really look forward to - as @PhilMongoose indicated - being able to spend substantial quality time with the little one (estimated time of arrival: 8 weeks from now) unhindered by business travel, work hours and work related stress. It allows for time to reflect on what kind of parent I want to be (and not want to be). It does also come with some question marks

  • At my age, the criticality of staying health so I can enjoy the little one and be an active father, also once he’s in his teens?
  • How to make clear to our kid that the life he’s born into is ab-normal (I don’t mean that we’re flying around on a private jet or anything like that, but he’ll likely experience one parent not working full-time and the other working from home 95% of her time; seemingly we don’t work hard yet have a very comfortable life)
  • Full-time career really over at early 50’s? As much as having a child gives a sense of purpose, there’s still a lingering question of “now what with my life?” - this is not necessarily a negative as it’s a question one will have to answer anyway at some point and it may be good to have this front and center now, given I am still young enough to do non-retirement things (e.g. want to pick up some serious mountain climbing again - within limits).

I suspect I am still suffering from some (I’m exaggerating a bit) PTSD from the last 10 years of my working life during which I worked extremely hard (with a LOT of business travel) and for the last coupled of years (with all corporate politics, investor scrutiny, etc.) waking up each day with the feeling there was a loaded gun pointed at my head which could be fired any day.

I’ve always thought that top pro athletes have a great opportunity because they typically retire early to mid-30’s with enough $$$ and can truly create a new / different chapter in their life (e.g. start a business). I’m still dealing with those kind of questions while realizing how busy I can be each day just running errands, doing sport, etc. - not a bad life, it’s just that it’s moving along with less direction.

Regarding the confusion, yes, it’s 4 days a month. I do some additional advisory on the side but that is a day here, a day there and sometimes it becomes 2 weeks of work (with potential for something more structural - e.g. board role). Would like to have a few mandates though and just work 50%.

Anyway, not all in life is easy, but not all in life is bad/hard either. Key is continuing to have dreams and just getting up every morning and pushing at least a little bit forward each day.

One of the things which for instance gives me great pleasure is seeing how perfect our lawn is.. until a few days later a weed pops up :slight_smile:

Last point, as I’m in a stream of thoughts mode here, again in response to @PhilMongoose - COVID was also a blessing for me

  • No business travel = greatly reduced stress
  • No business travel = corporate HQ left me the f#$k alone so I could drive performance which was superb for a number of years
  • Work from home = my wife and I (we met a month or two into COVID) being able to spend more time together during the first two years of our relationship than many other couples during first 5 years (hence: we got married!)

Enough for today - back to eating pistachos while enjoying the lake / mountain view and being proud of the golf-course like lawn I mowed this morning! I should add: mini-golf! :slight_smile:

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Just do all the stuff you want to do now, because if you’re like me, you’re not going to have energy to do it when the kids come along :stuck_out_tongue:

I also cut all business travel when kids arrived. Kind of worked out with cost-saving and focus on meetings via videocalls.

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I second this. I never had any longer business travels. but each month maybe one or two nights abroad. Also my company likes to make happenings for management levels spread all over switzerland, sometimes twice a month. With the kids I started to miss one or two of them or to leave soon when official part is over.

At some time I am afraid it might hurt my career. At the other point I did prove that I stick with my principles no matter what and I think some of the other are appreciating me for setting an example

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I’m with you: at a certain point life comes first and not work.

With my old team i was always clear: if you’re exhausted or have other stuff to do (work or private) skip team dinner, no explanation needed

I’d often travel to corporate hq and spend 1-2 weeks there every 2 months or so (which was still not considered enough) and there’d be efforts made to be a good host by planning dinner every evening - had to make clear: NO, 1 dinner only, rest is time for personal stuff, sport, relaxing or doing work with my team in a different timezone. It gets exhausting real fast otherwise.

Anyway, i’ll be losing sleep once the little one is here but i’ll appreciate it​:innocent:

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Mind sharing?

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What workplace makes you want to organize/join team dinners every day?!

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It’s not uncommon. Esp. if you are travelling in Asia, the hosting employees are expected to host you and entertain you. So taking you out for dinner each night etc.

More exhausting for them than you…

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Another reason to limit it.

My example was US though - americans just love that shit!

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80k chf / year

So a nice ‘foundation’ for the day to day bills

My wife works full time so if i can get 2-3 of such mandates it becomes

  • low stress / part time
  • can spend every penny
  • while return on investment assets are used to expand those assets rather than fund day to day life
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An update here, part of ‘my story’ but unrelated to above.

Something happened which made me smile and tell myself yet again: what a great place to live Switzerland is.

I received a letter from my Gemeinde yesterday inviting my wife and me for a ‘selected group’ get together in a local (Michelin star) resto. Head of the Wirschaftscommission, Gemeindeprasident, and the Cantonal Tax Boss would like to engage with a small group of people in the town I live in on what we rate high vs. what requires improvement. The letter explicitly said they wanted to hear our “concerns and wishes for the authorities”.

I’ve lived in a lot of countries, even more cities/towns, and have never experienced something like this: active outreach to connect with targeted (based on tax returns my wife immediately said…) individuals. I suspect this is wealthy individuals, business owners, investors, etc. based here.

Really pleasantly surprised and it’s actually motivating to think ahead about key points I’d like to raise. It’s actually not “further lowering of taxes” as taxes here are already low (while the Gemeinde has excess income). So probably more about ensuring consistent tax strategy going forward just like in the past (no sudden changes) coupled with more investments in infrastructure to enhance quality of living + attract more businesses (becoming a more popular alternative to e.g. Zug).

I was just telling a Swiss professional acquaintance yesterday that one of the things which is so great about Switzerland is the feeling that your tax dollars are generally VERY well spent and the (local) authorities are really helpful (I have so many stories where I experienced excellent customer service from my Gemeinde).

:heart: :switzerland:

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That can unfortunately change a lot from Gemeinde to Gemeinde. In my case it is close to a catastrophe (but with a lower tax rate compared to others. Jurists took over and overcomplicate everything. The Gemeinde next door seems different.

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Fair point.

The Gemeinde where I life has positioned itself as an attractive place to live (for tax and non-tax reasons) for a long time already.

I recall attending an annual meeting where the Gemeinde gave an update to the broader population in a sportshall locally and within the first 2-3 minutes the Gemeindeprasident made explicitly clear: our strategy has consistently been to ensure very low taxes while providing a good place to live and our intention is to continue with that strategy for the long term.

Response from the audience: applause.

I love it! No ‘pet projects’ which require ridiculous funding, no ‘black hole’ with ever more tax income needs. Very efficient, focused on ‘customer’ satisfaction. And no bureaucracy - whenever I need something from the Gemeinde (which is rare) I get a rapid response (if I even need to ask, often they just take care of things pro-actively).

Couldn’t be happier… and no surprise the place is very, very high on the top places to live in Switzerland published a year or two ago.

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I worked with similar groups in another canton. The whole aim of the group was to basically poach companies (esp. US companies) to setting up shop here to avoid US taxes and instead give a cut to Switzerland.

It’s the open secret which has contributed to Switzerland’s financial success: effectively encouraging tax avoidance to divert tax revenues to Switzerland and poach overseas jobs.

With changes to tax rules, it will be interesting to see how many of these setups will reverse, esp. with higher Swiss costs due to strong CHF.

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I think that makes a lot of sense and shows the motivation of the people there - not a 9-5 mentality.

Do you have any idea how the tax income in your Gemeinde is split between the population? Is the "selected group " paying most of the taxes or is it more divided?