My Work Life
After receiving my B.S. in Mathematics and not immediately finding a suitable professional job, I became frustrated and the old bugaboo of lack of confidence appeared again. As usually was the case, my fretting was unnecessary. I soon found a great job and began a wonderful 32-year career. The Work Life sub-section describes my work life from the part time jobs that I had as a young child through my retirement in January of 2004. This sub-section has eight chapters.
In the excerpt below, I describe my work life after I returned from Vietnam in 1971. I worked at three State of Illinois departments and retired after more than 30 years, I describe how I was driven by Dad’s constant mantra about getting a good education. I was able to attain the education that my dad was obsessed about. Watch Video 5 My Worklife below.
Part Time (Pre-Military)
Since I named this chapter My Work Life, I will include all jobs that I have ever held during my life. So, let’s get started. When I was nine or ten years old, I earned money for the first time in a job. That job probably was the hardest work that I have ever done. I certainly did not get rich as I earned three cents a pound for picking cotton. This weakling was only able to pick about 100 pounds per day; therefore, if my calculation is correct, I was making three dollars each day. Although that is not much, it was nice for a ten-year-old during that time in the 50’s.
My second job was pitching watermelons. I was a young teenager during that time. I think I may have received $.75 an hour. Pitching watermelons was not an easy job, but it had one good fringe benefit. One could “accidentally” drop a melon. (All the other workers would fight over the heart of that melon.) Believe me, that happened quite frequently. In the 50’s and 60’s, Bertrand farmers grew and sold tons of watermelons. The farmer that I worked for sold them by the truckloads at 10 cents a melon.
My third job involved driving a tractor. In the summer of 1964, I was part of the work crew that mowed roadside ditches in Mississippi County Missouri. I think that I was paid $1.25 per hour at this job. It was somewhat dangerous as the ditches and terrain near them were very uneven and rough. Also, one had to consider the traffic on the road. We always tried to push the envelope and cut the grass and weeds higher and higher upon the steep slopes. I think that every one of us in the crew that summer turned our tractor over. As we were pulling a bush hog, it could have been catastrophic. I had to walk around on crutches for two or three weeks after my mishap.
In the summer after my senior year of high school, I lived with my brother and family in Festus, Missouri. I went to Festus to play baseball on my brother’s team. I had always looked up to him and had always wanted to play on the same team with him. As part of the deal, the sponsor of his team gave me a job working about 30 hours per week. I was really out of my element in that job as I was working at a hardware store. As you know, Glen and anything mechanical can hardly coexist. I made it through that summer, frequently sharing laughs about my mechanical ineptness. Also, I had a very good season at shortstop for our team. I was the youngest guy on the team, but I did very well!
During the next summer (1966) my friend, Charlie Naile and I spent the summer in Festus playing softball on a team that my brother was pitching for. I played shortstop and Charlie played left field. That was my first taste of competitive fast-pitch softball. Charlie had much better luck than I did hitting the bigger ball. I did, however, have a pretty good defensive year. I was not going to mention the two jobs that Charlie and I landed that summer while we were living in Festus, but I will in the spirit of full disclosure for the record. One was a total disaster and the other was a terribly strenuous and very hot job. First, we landed jobs in St. Louis selling Collier Encyclopedias. (A woman in a St. Louis suburb ran me off with a broom when I knocked on her door. I immediately knew that cold sales was not in the cards for me.) I think that job lasted two or three weeks for us. My second job that summer was with a local contractor that built basements. Boy! That was hard work and it got the best of me. I had a serious heat stroke on the third day and never returned. Obviously, that summer was not very profitable for me.
Military Service
In 1969, I was hired by the United States Army. It was not a job that I desired or interviewed for. I was not much into marching, getting yelled at, or firing rifles. The ultimate insult was when the military did not send me to Hawaii. Instead they sent me to a place called Vietnam. Picking cotton and pitching watermelons were not easy jobs, however, I never got shot at in either one of those farm jobs.
I think that I started at $80 a month plus free uniforms, free food, and a free rifle in basic training. I made considerably more as I moved up to sergeant. I did get an allowance for being overseas. I cannot remember what that amount was, but it certainly was not enough. I suppose having no place to spend our earnings was a good thing. The bad thing was the miniscule wages that we received as a reward for getting shot at. I survived Vietnam and the military. For obvious reasons, I did not consider those two years of pain and agony a job. Instead, I considered it my duty to serve this great country. You can learn more about that job by reading the Military section.
Part Time (Post-Military)
When I returned from Vietnam in 1971, I attended classes at Southeast Missouri State University. At the end of that summer, I decided that I wanted to get a part-time job to earn additional spending money. I applied at a few local department stores. Eventually, I was hired in late August at Britt’s Department Store in Sikeston as a sales clerk. I worked in the sporting goods department and later in menswear. I think I was paid $1.50 an hour. Initially, I was working about 20-25 hours each week. After the first couple of months, I began noticing that they were gradually reducing my hours. Eventually, I was only getting 10 or 15 per week. It was hardly worth going to work with such few hours. I got very upset about this and decided to look for another job.
I found my next part-time job at Walmart in Sikeston. I think I was paid a $1.65 per hour and started out with about 20 hours per week. At Walmart, I worked in the Automotive and Sporting Goods Departments. I stayed in this job until I left for Illinois after graduating from college in May of 1972. As an aside, I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Sam Walton, the owner of Walmart during my tenure at Walmart. He was a very nice, down to earth fellow.
The Job Hunt
After my graduation from Southeast Missouri State University, my brother came through for me again. He convinced me that I had a much better chance of finding a professional job in Central Illinois (Springfield and Decatur) than I would in Southeast Missouri. He was living in Taylorville, Illinois at that time. I left Walmart and Missouri in early June of 1972. I applied for professional positions at many of the prominent local companies in Springfield and Decatur and had no luck. In the meantime, I took a part-time job at a gas station in Taylorville. Yes, I was pumping gas. Now, where is the gas cap? Can you remember how some car makes and models hid their gas cap under the license plate?
After a couple months of having no success in my job search, I considered returning to Missouri. Finally, a friend of my brother suggested that I apply with the State of Illinois. He even offered to drive me to Springfield where I could talk to a job counselor with the Central Management Services (Personnel Department). I accepted his offer. The counselor was very helpful in suggesting all the titles that I likely could qualify and test for. In 1972, almost all state jobs required a formal test. One job title that he suggested piqued my interest. That title was Government Career Trainee (GCT). It was a title specifically for recent college graduates. Coincidentally, I could take the test for that title the next day. I just had to hurriedly fill out a long application form to bring with me to the testing site. I took the three or four hour exam. It had a heavy emphasis on mathematics, vocabulary, and grammar. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of questions that involved math word problems and graphs. I felt confident that I had done well. When I turned in my test, the proctor informed me that I would receive a grade in three or four weeks by mail.
I continued during the next three weeks applying for other jobs. I had now applied at ADM, Staley’s, Allis Chalmers, Horace Mann Educators, and several others. I was still working at the gas station at this time. I received my grade in mid-August. Yes! Yes! Yes! I had received an “A” on the test. Now that I had a grade and it was good, I anxiously awaited to hear from an employer from the State of Illinois. The job counselor had explained to me that the State of Illinois departments hired from a list of people who had passed the test and that there was an “A” list and a “B” list. Generally, one needed to be on the “A” list to get any interviews.
I was anxious and I was praying. A few days later, I started receiving letters from different Departments of the State inviting me to set up times for interviews. During that first week, I think that I received about five interview requests.
My first interview was with the Illinois Department of Public Aid. The position there was a Government Career Trainee (GCT) title that would lead to a research analyst-statistician title after one year. In this position, I would be working with Public Aid statistics. The position would be located in Springfield. I hit it off with the interviewer as he, like me, was a mathematics major. I thought that I had done very well in the interview and I was very interested! He told me that he started with a list of 20 people to interview and that he had five more to go. He further stated that a final decision would be made within a week. Yes, I had positive vibes about my chances.
The second interview was for a position in Decatur. It was with the Illinois Department of Mental Health at the Adolf Meyer Zone Center. I would be doing experimental research relating to children with mental issues. I would be a part of a three-person team that included a psychiatrist, a social worker, and statistician. I was intrigued by the description of the position. Again, the interview went well and my interest was piqued. I was told that ten other applicants were being interviewed for this position and that a final decision would be made within a week to 10 days.
My third interview was for a position with the Illinois Department of Transportation. This position was a little different than the other two in that I would be writing procedures for the Department. The job title was Methods and Procedures Advisor 1. My interview went well, but I was less enthusiastic about this position. (I probably, however, would have taken the position if it was offered and had I not found anything else.) The final decision for this hire will also be made within 10 days.
Illinois Department of Public Aid
The dam had broken and I was continually getting opportunities to set up more interviews. I received the magic call about 9:00 AM one morning in early September. The Illinois Department of Public Aid offered the position to me. They gave me 24 hours to think about it. I was flattered, but did not want to appear too eager. It was not even four hours later that I received calls from both Adolf Meyer and the Illinois Department of Transportation. I could not believe how I was now in demand after struggling to even get an interview earlier. Man! My luck had really changed! No, my prayers had been answered. After careful consideration of the three offers, I contacted Public Aid and accepted their offer. I think that I was told to report on September 16, 1972, the beginning of the second pay period in September. (It possibly could have been October 1, 1972.)
Wow! I now had landed a professional position with the State of Illinois. I was not very good at pumping gas anyway! I arrived on my first day of work at the Bureau of Research and Statistics at the Department of Public Aid. I spent most of that day meeting my fellow employees and filling out forms relating to insurance, taxes, and beneficiaries. Then, my supervisor gave me a general orientation of how things worked at that Bureau. As I had never worked in an office setting before, there were a few little things that were somewhat different than what I had expected. I did not get a private office of my own. I did not get my own parking space. I did not get a personal secretary. (I was not being greedy, I was just naive!)
I was shown how to operate the copy machine, how memoranda were to be composed, and how to complete the public assistance statistical summary tables on the large yellow ledger paper. Of course, it was 1972 and all tables were typewritten after being completed by hand. About all I had to work with was a Monroe adding machine. I was immediately introduced to the cross-foot concept which was the way that we ensured that the bottom line totals in the left-most column and bottom row was the same sum when added up and down and when added across the columns. If the sum was the same, the table had been created properly. If not, one had to find his error. I created a lot of summary data tables on large yellow ledger sheets that first year.
I worked in two different divisions of Public Aid during my 12 years there. My first eight years were spent in the fiscal division. My first job at the Bureau of Research and Statistics was in the fiscal division. At the Bureau of Research and Statistics, I started out as a Government Career Trainee. I later was promoted to the positions of Research Analyst 1, Research Analyst 2, and Research Analyst 3. I basically manipulated financial and operations data and made reports to the federal government. I worked in the AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) and the Food Stamp Program. I also kept statistics for the quality control program. These statistics related to eligibility, overpayments, and underpayments of grants paid to Illinois welfare recipients. The state was penalized when eligibility errors for the state were over 3% or when overpayments and underpayments were over 5%. I was responsible for selecting a random sample of clients to be reviewed, compiling the data, and writing the reports that were submitted to the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and to the United States Department of Agriculture.
In the mid-70’s, I began working on a Masters in Applied Statistics at Sangamon State University (It is now called the University of Illinois – Springfield.) After working in the research and statistics positions for a while, I was now able to apply some of the statistical analysis techniques that I was learning in graduate school. Yes, I really liked my new job.
As a change of pace, in 1980, I moved to the Medical Division of the Department of Public Aid. The Medical Division administered the Medicaid program in Illinois. Medicaid was for those clients that needed financial assistance with their medical bills. I went to the Division as an Executive 2 and later I was promoted to a Medicaid Management Systems Analyst. My duty was to troubleshoot problems that would come up relating to the computer systems that those managing the Medicaid program in Illinois relied on. Also, as the State of Illinois was struggling paying their medical bills on time at this time, I was the employee who was determining which bills and how much would be paid each day. Later that year, I was involved in calculating the amounts that Medicaid in Illinois would pay for a specific procedure and provider type based on a percentile of usual and customary fees that the practitioners within that provider type, as a whole, were charging. (I was calculating and setting reimbursement rates for medical vendors) I also was involved in identifying fraudulent charges and over utilization by the different vendors and provider types. We uncovered many fraudulent Medicaid schemes and recouped a significant amount of money during my time at the Department of Public Aid.
After serving as the in-house statistician for the Department during my first five or six years, I was asked to teach a statistics class in the late seventies. All of my students were State of Illinois employees and the class was offered at 4:00 PM during working hours. I actually taught that class at that time for two years. Topics included regression analysis, analysis of variance, and sampling theory.
I do have a favorite topic in statistics, and it is sampling theory. I suppose that was due to its relevance to my actual job. In my career, I have either selected or consulted on hundreds of random samples and have written several articles relating to some of pitfalls that one needs to avoid in selecting a sample. I never thought that I would enjoy being a teacher due to my shyness and discomfort in speaking in front of groups. Somehow, this was different and I did enjoy it.
In more recent times sampling theory has been presented in the news in a negative way. Pollsters were really off in the 2016 election and they were severely punished by the media. Polling can be tricky. Obviously, it is not an exact science. (See Dewey vs Truman) Pay attention to the sampling frame and watch out for sampling bias!
I did enjoy my years at Public Aid. I learned a lot and had some very good mentors.
Illinois State Police
After 12 years, I felt that I needed a totally different challenge. I landed a position with the Illinois State Police (ISP) strictly doing research. My job title was Management Operations Analyst 3. I really did enjoy this position, as we conducted research and published formal reports. The research that I was conducting was quite interesting. While there, I completed studies relating to semi-marked police cars, work schedules, the police fleet, building profiles of different criminal types such as pedophiles, use of force, Operation Cash Crop, building profiles for hiring new troopers, creating an intranet email system, the DARE program, the I-SEARCH program, and others. I also maintained and compiled uniform crime statistics for the ISP. I learned that there was little uniformity in that crime data at that time and that it was not very reliable. I really did enjoy the challenges that were offered with the various studies. Although my boss had some strange quirks relating to formal writing, I really did learn the proper way to write research papers. (Two examples that I can remember were that we were not allowed to use the word “impact” as a verb nor could we use the word “utilize”. In my opinion, both of these words are perfectly legitimate as long as they are not ‘utilized’ too frequently (pun intended). There were other words that were also off limits, but he was the boss!)
At the Illinois State Police, there was office politics that one had to overcome. There was a sworn (police officers) versus regular employee competition or an us versus them mentality. I found most officers to be great people and befriended many. Of course, a few players from both sides made our coexistence tough. It was a strange situation. I was a non-sworn employee that had to supervise some troopers. I was fortunate that I had good sworn personnel working with me and experienced no difficulty.
At the Illinois State Police, I was the liaison between the Department and the University of Illinois for the graduate intern program for a couple of years. In conjunction with the University, we hired several interns to work with us for one or two semesters. These were graduate students that were working on their Masters of Public Administration or in a masters program relating to law enforcement or criminal justice. My duties included conducting the interviews, recommending the potential hires, and evaluating the success of the joint program. The intern program at ISP was very successful and several former interns ended up with full time positions in the Department.
I should mention that I worked on the DARE program and the I-SEARCH programs basically evaluating the successes of the two programs in the State of Illinois. The DARE program was created in an effort to keep children away from drugs. The I-Search program related to finding and preventing missing and exploited children. It is sad to say, in my opinion, the results failed to match the hype of the I-SEARCH program. I do, however, think that the DARE program had a positive effect on kids and was successful.
Operation Cash Crop was an interesting study that I was part of. We flew over areas of suspected marijuana fields in small planes. I actually got pretty good at identifying marijuana fields from the air. We would map the fields for later raids. As an offshoot of Operation Cash Crop, I once conducted an experiment where the State Police would spray the marijuana crops with chemicals. We divided a field into five tracts and sprayed different types of chemicals and different concentration levels of those chemicals directly on the marijuana plants. Our goal was to determine what chemical and at what concentration level of that chemical would be best to use in eradicating the marijuana crops. Of course, we had scientific evidence on record that the chemical at these levels would not be harmful to a pot smoker. Yes, we got sued and the court cases were immediately dropped as frivolous lawsuits.
There was never a dull minute and I really enjoyed my three-plus years that I spent at the Department. I saw a job posting at the Illinois Department of Insurance that really piqued my interest. It also had a nice raise attached to it. I interviewed for that position and, fortunately, was selected. (Strangely, I did very well in interviews.)
Illinois Department of Insurance
In 1987, I accepted a position with the Illinois Department of Insurance as a Research Economist 2. The Department was staffing for a new unit called the Cost Containment Section. This new section was created by 1985 legislation passed by the Illinois General Assembly. The purpose of this new section was to collect data from all property and casualty insurance entities writing insurance in the state of Illinois. The unit also had the responsibility to recommend changes that would affect the viability and fairness of the insurance marketplace in the state. We were expected to develop cost containment measures and apply them universally across the Illinois insurance industry. I later became the Director of Research and Statistics of this Section.
I loved that position. I was able to conduct financial and statistical analysis studies relating to all aspects of the insurance industry in Illinois. Almost all of our studies were published. Most of these studies were published by Illinois Press. I actually had a couple of studies that were published by academic institutions in scientific journals. (The Journal of Police Science and Administration and the Journal of Insurance Regulation.)
While I was at the Department, I had a major involvement in a study relating to redlining. In its most simplistic form, redlining is the practice of an insurer drawing a red line around an geographical area and refusing to write insurance in that area. In reality, it is not that simplistic. Certainly, insurers frequently are accused of discriminatory practices.
The problem with that accusation is that insurance underwriting in itself is discriminatory. Why would an insurer write a policy that he knows will not be profitable? The laws state that insurers cannot discriminate based on strictly racial criteria, but it does not say that they cannot discriminate. In certain geographical areas, the blight and morale hazards are so great that the premium for an insurance product could never be offered at an affordable price.
In the 90’s, a neighborhood group in Chicago called ACORN filed a lawsuit against the Illinois Department of Insurance accusing us of allowing Illinois insurers to redline. As Director of Research and Statistics, it was under my charge to conduct a research study to validate or dismiss ACORN’s accusation. The ACORN group had among its strong supporters a young Illinois State Senator named Barack Obama. Senator Obama certainly enjoyed being in the limelight.
I conducted the study and could not find a general pattern of discrimination. ACORN published a report citing widespread discrimination. The problem with their report was that it used only anecdotal data instead of statistical research. In other words, they just based everything on people’s opinions and a few individuals’ personal experience, but failed to support their conclusions with any collected real data.
Of course, a study is not noteworthy if the results cannot be validated and repeated. Generally anecdotal experiences should only be used to supplement one’s findings and not as the basis for the final conclusions of a research endeavor. I will admit that it was very frustrating dealing with the non-technical, political people at ACORN and their cronies in the Chicago newspapers!
Let’s look at the accusation from a logical standpoint. Insurers are only in the game of insurance to make a profit. In my opinion, they only see one color and that color is green as in the almighty dollar. They could care less if that dollar comes from a black, white, red or yellow insured. The name of their only game is profit.
While at the Department of Insurance, I wrote the specifications for the major data collection process that our Department would use to collect data from all companies writing insurance in Illinois. It was a model that was used by several other state insurance departments.
Premium and loss data from all of the insurers writing insurance in Illinois were to be collected, summarized, analyzed, and reported to the Illinois General Assembly and other interested parties in an Annual Report. This Annual Report was the major work product of the Cost Containment Section each year. It not only summarized the data provided by the insurers, but it also reported the general condition of the industry in Illinois and recommended how the Department could do a better job of assisting the industry in curtailing increases in insurance costs.
This data component was an enormous and tedious undertaking. I spent more than a year writing the specifications for the data collection and report generation components of the system. I had numerous meetings with representatives of the industry and their related service organizations such as the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the Insurance Services Organization, the National Association of Independent Insurers, and others.
It took another three months to test and and get the system online and working properly. Did I say this was a massive undertaking? Yes, it was a major undertaking and I was very proud of our final product.
One thing that I can certainly say about the Illinois Department of Insurance is that, in the middle 80’s to 2004, it certainly kept up with technology. While at the Department, I was on the technology committee that made recommendations about computers and software. When I arrived at the Department, it was using basically IBM’s software and mainframe computers. The information technology manager was an old IBM mainframe guy who had been reluctant to switch over to pc’s. When I left in 2004, we had supplemented the mainframes with a personal computer on every employee’s desk and had become a Microsoft shop.
Changing to a Windows environment made all the difference in the world. Since our Section was the largest user of desktop computers and printers, we were in the forefront when new computers and printers were purchased. I think I received a new desktop computer about every year that I worked at the Illinois Department of Insurance. Our Section always had the newest and most powerful pc’s in the entire Department. The personal computers kept getting more powerful with each new purchase.
I was instrumental in getting the Department to switch to the Microsoft Office Suite. We initially were using the old Lotus Suite that the vendors from IBM pitched. This software was okay, but the marketplace at that time was quickly heading toward a Windows environment and other software with a graphical user interface. (I actually cut my professional teeth on dos-based Lotus 1-2-3 and I loved it. I found Excel to be its equal, if not better. Word was the product that really made the difference for me. Microsoft Word is a super word processor). The only exception to our becoming a full Microsoft Suite shop was Microsoft’s database program, Access. Instead, I had become acquainted with and loved working with the database management system software made by Ansa called Paradox as it was so powerful. Paradox did work very well for our Section as a relational database. (My opinion regarding Access was certainly based more on unfamiliarity than anything else. I was not really anti-Access. I was simply pro-Paradox.)
One of the more interesting studies that I conducted at the Department related to predicting which insurance companies possibly could fail two years from that date based on financial and other factors. (The Department would possibly have enough time to initiate a corrective action program if she could predict hard times for an insurer two years in advance.) I was using a statistical technique called discriminant analysis. I was having some success but it was not as successful as I had hoped. I finally became convinced that there were too few failed insurers to gain enough experience from (too little data for prediction).
Discriminant analysis is a statistical technique where one compares insurers on numerous factors. In the end, the companies are placed in either a “failed” group or a “passed” group based on an algorithm relating to those factors. I think the best I ever did in predicting correctly that an insurer would fail two years thereafter was 20%. In other words, I correctly predicted that two companies would fail two years prior to their financial demise while I misfired (had a false positive) on the other eight. Certainly, that was not good enough to use as a formal end-all tool; however, it was good enough to use as a simple indicator or predictor of potential failure.
Predicting financial failure in advance would be such a powerful tool if it worked consistently well. I did think that the model would get better as more data were collected for factors that were predictive of insurance company failures. Unfortunately, I retired in the infancy stage of that model and do not know if anyone attempted to use the tool after I left. I thought the technique showed promise!
I loved working at the Illinois Department of Insurance. Those last 15 plus years were exciting and very fulfilling for me!
Final Thoughts
I worked at the Illinois Department of Insurance from October 1987 until January 31, 2004. It was a great experience and I loved it. I retired with 32 years of service with the State of Illinois. (If you are confused when I write that I spent 31, 32, or 33 years with the State of Illinois, let me explain. I actually worked 31 years and 4.5 months. I purchased an additional 20 months of service based on my tenure in the military. I apologize for my inconsistency in using this number.)
I never dreamed that I would be a career bureaucrat. I was never political and steered clear of any political shenanigans. Politics and affirmative action programs were very prevalent in Illinois government and was getting worse when I retired. Identity politics and political affiliation was the order of the day in the 1980’s.
I was always in management and never in the union. In the early days, the Illinois legislature took very good care of state employees. When AFSCME came in around 1980, management personnel, like me, basically received the same benefits that the union employees received. The difference was in pay raises. In my last few years, management was getting $0 while union workers were still getting their step increases. The union, in my opinion, is a mixed bag. I do know one thing for sure, it is almost impossible to terminate a non-union state employee. It is impossible to get rid of a state employee who belongs to the union. It happens rarely.
My career with the state was a positive one. As a bureaucrat and state employee, one will never get rich. Illinois did pay better than many states and it provided great benefits to those of us who started in the 70’s. I realize that things has changed since the State of Illinois legislated itself into its current financial quandry.
As an employee who retired with full benefits, I receive free health insurance and I can purchase insurance for Marlene at a very reasonable rate. When I began state employment, I had no choice. I had to pay in to a pension program and into Social Security. In earlier years, some state employees received a choice and could opt out of Social Security. One of the best things about our pension plan, is that we receive a 3% cost-of-living increase every year. That has cost the State of Illinois a boatload of money. They have gone to the Illinois Supreme Court a couple of times to try to change this increase. Both times the Supreme Court has sided with the employee, ruling that benefits are a contract that cannot be changed.
Possibly, I could have received a greater salary during my 31+ years, but I doubt that I would have ever received similar benefits in the private sector. I do not regret being a bureaucrat. I do not regret working for the State of Illinois. I do like my pension and free health insurance. I will never complain about that. May God bless the State of Illinois and all of its employees and retirees. Life is good!