Gradual Work Reduction???

[Candace]

I would love to go part time, but I'm afraid that by asking, I'd tip my hand and they'd look for someone younger to replace me (I'll be 50 next year). I'm a software developer, and normally the only people who go part time in our environment are within a year or two of retirement. In our work culture, if you're not full-time when you're not close to "normal" retirement age, people view you as not committed enough, and your job is at higher risk.

At 20 to 30 hours a week, I'd more than cover my expenses and still add to my stash. I would use the extra time for lots of things, one of which would be starting a financial advisory firm. I would love to be a part-time advisor within a couple of years and quit my current job. But with my current full-time situation, I'm unwilling to put in nights and weekends building that business and let my outside life suffer. So I'm sitting tight at full-time for another few years until, fingers crossed, the stash grows enough to cover basic expenses without drawing it down by more than 4%.

I wish I could think of a way to pull off the part-time thing without jeopardizing the cushy full-time situation I have right now. I don't have a big enough stash to feel comfortable pulling the plug on my software job. I could take the occasional contract, but I have a lot of experience contracting and I know that in my area, good contracts (short- or long-term) are few and far between. My other option would be to take remote ones and move for a few months or half a year at a time. Not really appealing, when I have a house I really like, a boyfriend at home and two cats. So, I'm making the tradeoff of staying full-time.

If anyone has ideas for how I could pull off the part-time thing in this situation, I would love to hear them. My ideal situation is to somehow get my soon-to-be new employer (our contract is turning over) to suggest I work part-time. If it's their idea, I feel like that's better for my prospects.

[pbkmaine]

Candace: I was able to do it because I really was heading to retirement, but I have friends who came up with various "stories" that worked with employers. One friend said she had an aging mother with health issues she needed to spend time with. It was true in a way, but it was one afternoon a week, and HR got the distinct impression it was more than that. Another friend said she had a great interest in volunteer work. It happened to be a charity the CEO was fond of, so she got the reduced time. She did do quite a bit of work for the charity, but a lot of time went to develop her own business. The key to making your pitch is figuring out what fits with your employer's values. I can think of one or two bosses I have had who would have been very supportive of my going part time to start up my own business - as long as it did not conflict with their business. In fact, I had a colleague who started a side hustle that filled a niche service our firm could not provide. The firm was incredibly supportive and when he left referred business to him. 

[Candace]

pbkmaine: Thank you very much for your ideas. There's some food for thought there. My parents are elderly, so that would be perfect if they didn't live 400 miles away :-(.

I do have some interest in doing charity work, so I can look into ones that the new company supports. However, while I would like to do some charity work, but probably not enough to make that cover work, unless I strongly exaggerated whatever I did for the charity. Getting busted would be a worry. I can certainly look into it. It might work, or lead to other ideas that would.