[Framers] Retired

[Fred Ridder]

I'm in a situation rather similar to Keith.

At the job I had until 2007 I was using FrameMaker intensively every day. But the Fortune 500 company that had bought our smallish company in 2000 decided to sell off the acquisition, and then a year later decided to close down their remaining operations in New Jersey.

At my next employer, another Fortune 500 company where I spent the next decade, I was initially using FrameMaker about 1/3 of the time, but that tapered off to essentially nothing over the years (have I mentioned how much I detest MS Word?). Then in May they decided that the development program that most of us had been working on for the last 7 years was no longer strategically important, and that it should be transitioned to maintenance mode -- using resources in Bangalore rather than New Jersey. And since they had already pledged to stockholders that they would cut operating expenses by $1 billion (with a 'b') in 2018, this meant that nearly 100 engineers and technical support people whose program went away were now redundant to the company.

For the last 5 months I've been trying to figure out whether I'm unemployed or whether I've been pushed into retirement two years sooner than I had planned. Not going to the office every day has had its attractions, but I can already feel my brain getting flabby around the edges from lack of sufficient exercise. Until (unless?) I scare up some freelance technical writing or editing gigs, my involvement in the tech comm industry is limited to staying active on various discussion lists and pretending to still be a practitioner.

So thanks to Keith for all his words of wisdom over they years, and I hope you find retirement rewarding.

-FR


________________________________
From: Framers <framers-bounces+docudoc=hotmail.com at lists.frameusers.com> on behalf of Keith Soltys <keith at soltys.ca>
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2018 11:23 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: [Framers] Retired

As of last Wednesday, I am now retired, courtesy of a sudden but not
entirely unexpected lay off from the TMX Group (basically the Toronto
Stock Exchange) where I've been for the last seventeen years. This will
likely end any further use of FrameMaker on my part, as I won't be
looking for full-time work again.

I'd like to thank everyone on this list and in the Frame community for
their help over the years. This list has been a great resource and I
hope I've been able to pay some of it back.

Regards

Keith


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