I'm close to retirement too. Yes, I worked as a cartographer using the ancient method of negative scribing for the Automobile Club of Southern California in the early 80's. I re-invented myslef as a computer savy technician shortly before the advent of the internet and found my way into civil engineering. I was on the ground floor of automation and computerization then but today their ar so many smart young kids waiting to take my job. I may or may not work after retirement and it will be a few more years till I'm getting any social security, (medicare is what I'm waiting for as I have to ay my own health insurance and it will be very costly).

There is no lack of work where I'm at and even though the city overall is hurting from the current economic crisis, as a department/division we are flush with cash and have more work than we can handle with the staff we have. We keep getting more work piled on, so much so that I will actually look forward to not having to juggle 5 or 6 projects at once.

Wish you the best, I almost went to work for Rand McNally in New York in the early 80's but after looking at what they were paying abd the cost of living didn't.