1. Who communicates the information? They could've just got a notice from HR and so/so is leaving and assumed it wasn't retirement.
2. How much is the gift? Is it worth the hassle?
3. How long did you know about this? Did you have time to let them know its for real? Even for FIRE people, returning to work is likely. I could see why people don't view this as a real retirement do to both the lack of insight and just the realism that there's an above average chance your wife returns to work. What happens in six months and your wife decides she wants to come back part time? Would you return the gift to the association? That's a lot less likely with a 65-yr old moving to Florida
1) HR commucnicates as well as at the individual level, people like to talk. THe staff association is made up of coworkers, its not done at the managemnt level
2) Not worth the hassle, I'm not bringing it up at work and neither is she. There is no intention of making a real life fuss, the forum is where I go for therapy. This is purely academic and online.
3) We knew longer than they did, she gave two weeks. There was a slim chance that too much warning would have lost her the annual bonus and a lot of benefits that top up this month. Departing a job isn't a simple procedure, doing it right can net a few thousand extra.
If a 60 year old retires and gets a job, are they expected to return the gift? what about a 55 year old? Can you make an age cutoff that isn't personal opinion? I can't, the association defined it as 10 years of service and left it at that. It was universally equal that way, no one should have to prove themselves and face an interogation upon departure.
Anecdotally, my ex-boss retired at 65 and came back as a contract employee a week later, while retaining his gift, is that fair? He's not a regular employee so he's technically retired, but he still works here 3 years later, he still belongs to the staff association. He provides an interesting counterpoint, other than age he failed on all your criteria but met the unwritten age threshold. I'm guessing its fairly common to see, I bet many people can relate to retirees returning as contractors.
Once you start asking personal questions, you're basically being the police of our retirement choices, which is what happened (others, with partial information decided for her that she wasn't retired). The problem with assuming for others is that we often assume information based on our own experiences. For example, she fit every written definition of retired, why would anyone assume she wasn't? She only missed the unwritten definitions, if any of the questions were pertinent, shouldn't they be written instead of posed verbally and applied randomly? Peoples personal experience is that workers can't retire young, so they applied a second set of standards unique to her.
@Cali the staff association system is to prevent being randomly asked for money. Staff contibute a set amount monthly (voluntarily, people often opt out) and the association allocates it for retirements, babies and fun events. It's a pretty terrific system, I hate when people stop by and judge me on my donations. There was a brief rash of that from some new hires, it was annoying since a lot of us don't carry cash at all (I go months without using cash) and some people are overzealous.