Between choice and circumstance: Six stories from the economic trenches
By Manav Tanneeru and Katie Hawkins-Gaar, CNN
July 8, 2010 11:02 a.m. EDT
Editor’s note: Six CNN iReporters are following someone they know in their community for the entire year to get a measure of how things are going in this economy. At the six-month mark, they relate stories of perseverance, re-invention, doubt and success. You can follow their stories on CNN’s Economy Tracker.
A forced transition
After being forced into early retirement, Bruce Pollard now works one day a week and spends most of his time at home.
Last year, Bruce Pollard retired from his information technology job of more than 25 years after his company filed for bankruptcy. He took on a consulting job, but it only made up for 20 percent of the salary he once earned.
He set about looking for more work, but it wasn’t necessarily what he ideally wanted to do.
"What I’d really like to do is teach [high school students] and contribute," he told iReport in February. "But I can’t afford to do that with my family and two kids going to college and another one coming up."
His wife, a psychologist who used to work one day a week, began working more, and between the two, they’re "filling up the work week," he says.
Pollard, 58, says the first half of the year has been a transitory period, coping with the emotions and adjustments of no longer working a steady job.
"I’m trying how learning to take in the duties that my wife handed over to me," he said recently. "You think that when you go away for five days a week and come back that things just happen around the house. But they don’t."
Between choice and circumstance: Six stories from the economic trenches – CNN.com