[manaboutown]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

I had a Federal Government job for 35 years. Every time I looked for another job, I would have needed to take a huge pay cut, have less job security, work longer hours, and get fewer benefits. Plus, I would have had to actually work for a living.

After graduating college and active duty military service I got a job as a patent examiner at the US Patent and Trademark Office and attended law school in the evenings and Saturday mornings. My first SPE (Supervisory Primary Examiner = boss) soon told me to slow down and not work so hard. His reasoning was in order to continue to get promoted I needed to gradually increase my workload so I needed to start slow and easy. After three and a half rather boring years I realized I did not want to lead my whole adult life as a pachyderm in a tedious job which I thought to be a depressing future. I graduated law school and moved on to a fairly adventuresome professional life as an IP attorney and real estate investor-developer.