Well that wasn't so bad
Apr. 4th, 2025 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjAn update on the path to retirement. For those who might need "what has gone before," in 26 days I will be retired.
My Social Security and Medicare Part B applications are still in process. Converting my 401K from the accumulation phase to the payout phase is still in the planning stages and can't be finalized until after my last paycheck, so not until mid-May. But in the mean time, I got a Very Nice Bonus (possibly the largest bonus ever in my time at the Big B), and I'll be getting 50 days worth of unused vacation paid out, so there are no worries about tiding over while things get sorted. I just get anxious when things aren't finalized yet, as a basic principle.
I've spent an inordinate amount of time in the last week interacting with Fidelity (who not only manage my employer's 401K and pension funds, but also handle pretty much all of the outsourceable HR tasks). After fighting through phone trees, chat bots, and HR tickets, I finally have answers or resolutions to all the issues I was pursuing. Some involved actions. Some involved clarifications.
I had two to-do items with regard to the Social Security Administration. I needed to deliver the "yes I've had employer health insurance for the last two years" form (one of the things I was fighting with Fidelity about) so they could complete my Medicare Part B application. (Needed to I can seamlessly transfer from Kaiser-from-employer to Kaiser-as-Medicare-Advantage.)
The other item was "I know the 30-day response time advertised on the website is a polite fiction, but it's been 100 days since I put in my application for retirement payments and I need to know if something's gone wrong and they just haven't told me."
Now, there are supposedly two ways you can make an appointment at your local SSA office: phone the local number, or phone the national number. Every time I phoned the local number, after listening through the whole 10 minute recorded message (it may have only been 5 minutes, to be fair) the chatbot would announce that since the wait time was too long they were just going to hang up on me and I should call another time. The national number, after listening through the whole etc. ect. etc. the chatbot would announce that since wait times were over two hours I should leave my number and they'd call me back. Yeah. Right.
Well, the third option is just to show up at the office and punt. Today was another of my "I need to use up my non-refundable days off" Fridays, so I showed up at the SSA office an hour before opening. This gave me time to peruse the posters on the door, one one which provided a qmr code that would allow you to check in online for the waiting list. Both the posters and the nice SSA person who came out to align our expectations said that there was no way nohow anyone without an appointment was going to get their business done today, but that we'd all get an intake interview to make a future appointment and get our needs classified.
Evidently my needs were exceptionally simple, because despite that caution, my intake interview covered everything I'd hoped to do. Turn in the Medicare form, and inquire about the status of my Social Security application. I was able to confirm that there were no problems/hold-ups noted on my application (my biggest worry), and the clerk put a "nudge" in my file for the person processing the application, noting how long it had been and that I was two months past my requested start date. (I'll get back-payments, once everything is approved.)
Since that was the only task I'd assigned myself for the day and it was completed by 9:30, I also dropped by the nursery and picked up tomato sets (which adds one more necessary task for the day).
Then I finally hunted down the physical location of my credit union (which merged with another CU a couple years ago and closed the location I'd gone to previously) to split off a new savings account (money market rates) to hold my "emergency funds" so I can use my regular savings account for "stashing money away for special projects and highly variable expenses." For quite some time now, I've had the privilege of not having to worry much about what I'm spending. Now I need to pay a lot more attention, so I'm setting up systems to make spending thresholds more visible and to save more aggressively for things I used to be able to do by feel. I have spreadsheets...
My Social Security and Medicare Part B applications are still in process. Converting my 401K from the accumulation phase to the payout phase is still in the planning stages and can't be finalized until after my last paycheck, so not until mid-May. But in the mean time, I got a Very Nice Bonus (possibly the largest bonus ever in my time at the Big B), and I'll be getting 50 days worth of unused vacation paid out, so there are no worries about tiding over while things get sorted. I just get anxious when things aren't finalized yet, as a basic principle.
I've spent an inordinate amount of time in the last week interacting with Fidelity (who not only manage my employer's 401K and pension funds, but also handle pretty much all of the outsourceable HR tasks). After fighting through phone trees, chat bots, and HR tickets, I finally have answers or resolutions to all the issues I was pursuing. Some involved actions. Some involved clarifications.
I had two to-do items with regard to the Social Security Administration. I needed to deliver the "yes I've had employer health insurance for the last two years" form (one of the things I was fighting with Fidelity about) so they could complete my Medicare Part B application. (Needed to I can seamlessly transfer from Kaiser-from-employer to Kaiser-as-Medicare-Advantage.)
The other item was "I know the 30-day response time advertised on the website is a polite fiction, but it's been 100 days since I put in my application for retirement payments and I need to know if something's gone wrong and they just haven't told me."
Now, there are supposedly two ways you can make an appointment at your local SSA office: phone the local number, or phone the national number. Every time I phoned the local number, after listening through the whole 10 minute recorded message (it may have only been 5 minutes, to be fair) the chatbot would announce that since the wait time was too long they were just going to hang up on me and I should call another time. The national number, after listening through the whole etc. ect. etc. the chatbot would announce that since wait times were over two hours I should leave my number and they'd call me back. Yeah. Right.
Well, the third option is just to show up at the office and punt. Today was another of my "I need to use up my non-refundable days off" Fridays, so I showed up at the SSA office an hour before opening. This gave me time to peruse the posters on the door, one one which provided a qmr code that would allow you to check in online for the waiting list. Both the posters and the nice SSA person who came out to align our expectations said that there was no way nohow anyone without an appointment was going to get their business done today, but that we'd all get an intake interview to make a future appointment and get our needs classified.
Evidently my needs were exceptionally simple, because despite that caution, my intake interview covered everything I'd hoped to do. Turn in the Medicare form, and inquire about the status of my Social Security application. I was able to confirm that there were no problems/hold-ups noted on my application (my biggest worry), and the clerk put a "nudge" in my file for the person processing the application, noting how long it had been and that I was two months past my requested start date. (I'll get back-payments, once everything is approved.)
Since that was the only task I'd assigned myself for the day and it was completed by 9:30, I also dropped by the nursery and picked up tomato sets (which adds one more necessary task for the day).
Then I finally hunted down the physical location of my credit union (which merged with another CU a couple years ago and closed the location I'd gone to previously) to split off a new savings account (money market rates) to hold my "emergency funds" so I can use my regular savings account for "stashing money away for special projects and highly variable expenses." For quite some time now, I've had the privilege of not having to worry much about what I'm spending. Now I need to pay a lot more attention, so I'm setting up systems to make spending thresholds more visible and to save more aggressively for things I used to be able to do by feel. I have spreadsheets...
