From retired to hired

So much for sitting around and getting old. Some senior citizens aren't about to do that and they are part of a generation that is redefining what it means to be retired.

Lorina Martinez worked for 27 years in the Medical Center Hospital Cardiac Catheterization Lab as a technologist. She retired in August 2005 and swore she was done. But 27 years wasn't enough for her.

"I said, ‘I'm not ever going back to work'," Martinez said she told herself.

About six months later she was back as a volunteer and busier than ever. She was spending a lot of time at the hospital and still working with the people she had been working with for years.

Martinez originally had plans of travel, cleaning, organization and taking care of all the business she never could working long hours at the hospital. But after a few months, she realized she wasn't getting any of that done.

But Martinez realized she was actually enjoying herself. The volunteer work was so much less stressful than being a technologist. So when an unexpected opening happened in the same department she had spent almost her entire working career, she was surprised at her reaction.

"I was just as surprised as my supervisor at my willingness to take the job," Martinez said. "I jumped at the chance to go back to work."

Vickie Gomez worked at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin for 34 years, working her way up to become the assistant vice president for enrollment management. She was even one of the founding staff members of the university.

Gomez retired from UTPB in August 2006. Six months later she was back.

Gomez is now serving as a retention officer and says now she's "not even on the radar."

"I love it. I relish the opportunity I have here. I am so blessed that they hired me at my age," the 67-year-old Gomez laughed.

Gomez did not feel the same way about retirement.

"It was the most horrible experience of my life," Gomez said. "I was so bored."

When Gomez retired, she said she begin to realize how spoiled she was. She no longer had an administrative assistant to keep her organized and began to understand that now she had to keep up with her own appointments.

That was the beginning of the end of her retirement.

According to a 2005 study by the Putnam Investments, retirement only lasted about one and a half years for seven million American seniors citizens who have now gone back to work. The study described two groups of senior workers, those who went back because they wanted to and those who went back out of economic necessity with the majority returning by choice.

Neither woman returned to work because of the need for money. However, both agree that having the supplemental income makes everything easier. Gomez said a niece and nephew in Colorado both lost their jobs during the downturn in the economy and now she can help them out financially without having to worry about her own finances.

Gomez works three days a week and spends a lot of her off time working with the Welcome Home committee that greets soldiers when they return from combat. Martinez visits her grandchildren in Austin and Houston. Both women said they are enjoying their new, more flexible work.

The working retired represent 10 percent of the U.S. workforce age 40 or older. Of the respondents to the Putnam survey, 54 percent work part time, 36 percent work full time, and the remaining 10 percent are looking for work. Two-thirds said they planned to return to work following their first retirement.

Martinez said working keeps her feeling young.

"Life is an attitude and I have a great attitude," Martinez laughed.

The 58-year-old Martinez said she plans to work until she's 62 or 63.

Gomez, on the other hand, said, "I'm going to stay here as long as they want me."