ERS Money Talks Podcast
A financial podcast from the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS). Enjoy a new way of getting your ERS financial news and timely resources to help you get the most out of your benefits.
ERS Money Talks Podcast
Sleighing the retirement game: A TxDOT Santa’s advice
Celebrate the holidays with a very special guest. Hosts Suzanne, Crystal and Dani speak to Santa Claus who reveals his secret identity: Texas Department of Transportation employee Gordon Jones. Find out how Santa is sleighing the retirement game and making sure he’s not St. Nickel-less.
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Intro: When you're out being Santa, what are some of the most common things that people say they want for Christmas?
Cars, cars and money. And really, truly, cars won't fit down a chimney. And I don't I don't deal with cash.
Happy holidays from all of us at ERS. We've got Santa in the house. Gordon Jones is a TxDOT employee by day and a Santa Claus by night. He's here to tell us all about what it takes to be Santa, and how he's riding his sleigh all the way to a merry retirement. He also gives us the pleasure of interviewing his own version of Santa in this month's Money Talks.
ERS Suzanne Krause: Welcome everyone to a special holiday edition of the ERS Money Talks podcast. I'm Suzanne,
ERS Crystal Olvera: I'm Crystal
ERS Dani Levrie: and I'm Dani
SK: And we're your hosts and also editors and writers for the ERS Benefits Communications team. And we're here to give State of Texas employees tips and information about how to best use your benefits. Today, we have a very special guest all the way from the North Pole.
CO: Gordon Jones is a general engineering tech at the Texas Department of Transportation. But by night, he is busy adding to the nice and naughty list. And he's also planning his journey to retirement. So welcome, Gordon. Thanks for joining us.
GJ: Oh, yeah. I'm so happy to be here.
SK: Okay. Gordon, you have to tell us how you got started as a Santa. Sounds like you've got a long history here and, uh, some good skills, so I really I think everybody wants to know, how do you get into this line of work?
GJ: Uh, you fall into it. Really for me, what It started as, I was associate pastor at a small church and we were having Christmas pajama party where everybody comes. And so, I bought me some pajama pants and and Walmart had the Christmas T-shirts and my beard was, eh, it was pretty short, but it had already turned full gray pretty much. And so, I bought a Santa T-shirt, looked like a Santa suit. And there's a picture of my wife and I, and I just said, I had a had a Santa hat on, and it was just like, I like this. Maybe I'll check into it. And I had a old, old friend that's been doing Santa for 30 years. And I called him and asked him. He just basically said, “Get the best suit you can get.” So I went on Amazon and bought a suit and just started spreading the word, “Hey, I, I'm, I'm gonna do Santa.” My kids kindergarten teacher—I had the same kindergarten teacher for all three kids—lives around the corner. And so, I just told her, “Hey, I'll come visit your grandkids.” And that was pretty much my first season.
CO: Oh, wow. How long ago was that, though?
GJ: Five, five years ago.
CO: Oh, okay.
GJ: My first appearance with the with with that school teacher was terrible.
SK: How can it be terrible? What does that even mean?
GJ: Well, I walked in and I had not developed my "Ho ho ho." It's you develop that. And and I sounded like the the Santa uh, "Christmas Story" with Ralphie.
SK: A menacing "Ho ho ho."
CO: Yeah!
GJ: Yeah it was like, "Ho ho ho!"
CO: Yeah.
GJ: My daughter about had a fit. And so My “Ho ho ho” was more of a, It's more of a laugh. Because it is a laugh. It's it's you know it is Santa laughing. Yeah. And so I developed it. But your “Ho ho ho” is, that's a personalized thing, too.
SK: It's your calling card, it sounds like.
GJ: Yeah, it is, it is. And like I say, mine is unique because mine's more of a laugh. Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!
DL: That's so good.
CO: Oh, I love that.
SK: That's amazing.
GJ: And so just word of mouth started going. I say it's not meaning to brag, but I'm a very good Santa. I get that all the time, as far as “you're the best, Santa.” And it's because I have a real passion for it. This year I got hired on at Peppermint Parkway, which is a light Christmas festival.
CO: Yes.
GJ: At the racetrack.
CO: I've been to it. Yeah. It's beautiful. and so every year they have a Santa, right?
GJ: Yeah.
DL: Do you try to keep up the Santa lore? Like, are you Santa or are you a representative of Santa whenever you're out there?
GJ: That's kind of a tricky situation. I present myself as Santa, but if a kid asks, "Hey, are you the real Santa?" The typical answer this is for all Santas or most Santas. It would be, "Do I look real? Don't I look real? Is my beard real?" I have a Santa ring. And I'll say, "What does my ring say?" And they'll look at it. Mom and dad will look at it and say, "It says Santa on it." You're spinning it around to where you're asking the question so you don't give a definitive answer.
CO: Yeah. And they make up their own mind, right?
GJ: Yeah.
CO: Okay.
GJ: Yeah. I mean, there are some questions that I have definitive answers, like: How many elves are up at the North Pole? What's my favorite reindeer?
CO: I love that.
GJ: Everything has a back story to it. That is one of the first things you need to do is to develop your backstory to answer those questions. So if a child asks me how many elves I've got at the North Pole? I tell them “8,275.”
SK: Awesome.
CO: I love that.
GJ: And then. And then next year, when I go back, that same child is going to say, “How many reindeer you got this year?” And if I was to say 20,000 or something or 500, they would know. They would catch the difference.
SK: So tell us a little bit about your career trajectory working for as a state employee, working for State of Texas.
GJ: Well, state employment goes back actually to '84. I got hired on at DPS in the fleet operations as an auto mechanic, stayed there 13 and a half years, and my nephew was working for an asphalt company here in Austin, and I went to work with them, as a truck driver. Got my CDL worked for them, 21 years, worked my way up to a estimator project manager over the striping division. I got let go after 21 years. And there was a sign tech opening here at TxDOT and I was like, “Ah, I can't do it. I'm too old to be digging, digging holes.” But anyway, so I came to the interview for the sign tech, and because of my background estimating and project managing, my boss put me watching over the contract that we have for damaged guardrails and new guardrails. And then, office manager came open and I did that. Didn't work out too good. And so my boss offered me to come back out to the field as an inspector. I jumped on it. I've been doing this for about two years now.
Uh, what I do is I'm a utility permit inspector. I go where all these guys are working on the shoulder and in the right of way. I go back and look to make sure that they've put everything back the way it is, make sure the grass is there, there's no big holes. I'm the one that closes the permit. But also involved with all that, I look at the traffic control setup not only for utilities, but anybody, if you put a traffic control, a lane closure on a TxDOT road, which is all the roads with RM, FM, I, you know, I-35, anything that's got a letter in front of it, it's TxDOT road. If you put a close close the lane you have to have a permit.
CO: Now, you said you've been with TxDOT for about six years now?
GJ: Six years.
CO: Okay.
GJ: Yes. Six years since December 1.
CO: I know you said you're planning on retiring in September of 2029. Why that date is...
GJ: That's that's when I'm eligible. Because of my circumstances at the time when I left DPS, I was actually in the middle of a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. And so I removed my, my money from ERS to pay off the bankruptcy. And so my 10th year will be 2029 and the 401(k) part of of our retirement that we can do, I hadn't done anything with it. And so I called down there and and talked to another really... y'all got some good operators. But I was talking to her and she said, "Well do you have any money in the 401(k)?" And I said, "I have no idea." And she said, "You know, you can buy time with that?"
SK: I know that's a feature you can do. It's one of the benefits of Texa$aver is that you can use the money in there to buy time. So if anybody's interested in that, they just need to contact Texa$aver. And I know those retirement plan advisors know how that works.
GJ: Yeah, I did not know about it. Like I said, the operators y'all got are very good. I called in about one thing, and she helps me with another area. So I, I was very pleased and very satisfied. And I wound up buying, six months worth of time, so went from December to May. I'm looking forward to it. I'll be 67 or so and I want to take my Santa business, have it built up by that time to where I'll have income with that year round, whether it's commercials or Christmas in July. And then I also I'm an ordained chaplain.
CO: I also think that being a chaplain and a Santa kind of kind of go hand in hand. You're listening to people.
GJ: They really do. Always. One of my sayings is Santa and Sunday school teachers both hear everything. Mhm. Uh, good bad whatever. Yeah. And I've done both. Yeah.
SK: Gordon, I kind of wanted to ask a little more about your experience with the financial side of, of working for the state. So now that you're four years out from retirement, are you taking some steps to, to prepare for for retirement? And are you working, with any of the ERS resources, to make sure you're ready?
GJ: Unfortunately, I've just started because of other circumstances. We had a lot of medical debt. My wife was real sick, and up until 2019, I thought I had the world by the tail.
Then I said this other day, getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it forced me to reevaluate my budget. Where am I? What's going on with my budget? And getting back with the state, I know that I'll have that retirement. And by the time I retire, I'll be over 67. So I'll be at full Social Security.
I would recommend to and have recommended to all the younger guys and girls, do that 401(k) because I had it in my previous job. I had like $20,000 in my 401(k) and it was from doing 5% of every paycheck. So 5% you really don't see it, especially if it gets pulled out before your check. But that 5% builds up because of the compound interest. You don't even see it. But all of a sudden, you've got quite a bit of money. And if you start like I did when I first started DPS, I was 23 years old, and if I would have stayed there, I was going to retire at about 58 or so and I'd have had 30 years.
So if you're especially with the long term, you know, if you, if you come to the state and you want the stability—everybody talks about the stability. Well, great. Use that stability, especially if you're younger, to put some savings in. The retirement we have here is phenomenal. As one who, a little over six years ago, I was looking at retiring, just, Uh, just Social Security because I wasted all my time when I was young.
DL: I wouldn't consider it wasting. I think that throughout life, we learn valuable experiences. And you took those experiences and got to where you are now. You're able to help people.
GJ: Yeah. Yeah. It's a little strong. People always, talk about, "Well, if I could go back and change one thing." Well, if you do that, you're not the person you are now. Because even our hard times, that's what develops us to who we are now.
SK: Well, and I can't speak for what was being discussed in your earlier career with the state. But I think we we definitely here at ERS are really trying to communicate a lot more to make sure that people have better retirements. So I'm glad to hear that that you think things have improved because we're definitely trying to get the word out. We love our Texa$aver 401(k)/457 program. And, definitely that auto opt-in is really valuable as you just illustrated. So yeah, folks, put that 1% or hopefully more as you can regularly because, yeah, take advantage of time as much as possible.
GJ: Having the money pulled out ahead of time where you don't see it is the key. Agree.
DL: So, Gordon, I actually have a question, I recognize that being Santa right now is a part-time gig. There are a number of state employees that we've heard from that are interested in part time work, because, of course, not everybody has that financial situation that can support them full time. Well, their current financial situation can't support them, right? How easy did you find it to approach your leadership to get approval for a part time job?
GJ: It was actually pretty easy and that goes back not just here, but when I was at DPS, because most of the leadership understands that, hey, we are state employees and we don't get the big bucks. But it was pretty easy. You do have to sign or fill out a form for conflict of interest. In other words, I as a state employee, I really couldn't go work for, back at my old job. Being an estimator for for asphalt company. You know, there's just too much conflict of interest, right? But before, when I went to work at Home Depot at night or when I was delivering pizza at night, that wasn't a problem.
Like I say, all in all, I don't think I've ever heard really of any supervisor giving a hard time to somebody that's going out and trying to look for a job, because if they encourage them to do that and it makes their their financial situation more stable, they're more likely to stay.
We all know turnover rate is high and turnover is so expensive. It costs the state so much money to to have an employee leave and have to replace that employee because you have all the administration costs you have to put through, you know, from the from the posting the job, the interview, drug screen, investigation background. That takes a lot of money. So so anything we can do to stabilize, uh, you know, have more long term employees. It's better for both employee and the State of Texas.
DL: Uh, I tend to fully agree. I think that you have to do what you need to do. Of course, you've demonstrated that working for the state helps you in the long term in terms of your retirement, and I am assuming that you utilize the health insurance, right? And you plan to continue to utilize it in your retirement. That's part of the reason why you're making sure you have that tenure too.
GJ: Yes. Well, I when my wife was so sick, she had difficulty and it was rather she had difficulty breathing and it was right in the middle of Covid. So that was an adventure. But she was still on my state plan. So we wouldn't have made it without the insurance. It really is a good plan and I've just started investigating the Medicare side of it. But like I said earlier, my brother, sister and brother-in-law are retired state employees. I'm the baby of the family, so so they're all older than me, but they they talk about how good the insurance is with the Medicare. I think the advantage plan but they talk about, hey, do what you gotta do so that when you retire, you still have that medical benefit.
DL: And what they're talking about is vesting, continuing your employment, continuing to contribute, continuing to be part of the group benefits plan. And of course, you're really starting to to research, but I don't mean to plug. We have resources. ERS has plenty of resources to help you prepare for Medicare. So we have documentation. We also have live webinars and recorded webinars, not just for you, but everybody. If you want to plug them to your friends because obviously you're having conversations about your 401(k) with your coworkers, right? And that we absolutely have to applaud you and appreciate and just give you the light you deserve for trying to educate your coworkers. So thank you so much, Gordon. But yes, don't forget to check out those resources.
GJ: That gets also back to what I said earlier about the customer service people y'all got. I've yet to have a a bad phone call.
CO: So, Gordon, we were wondering if we could ask Santa some questions today. It's not every day we get the chance to chat with Old Saint Nick.
DL: Hi, Santa. This is Dani. I actually have couple questions. So we know that you're checking your list and you're being as thorough as possible. You're thorough enough to check it twice, right? Well, when is the last time you checked that list before you head out?
SANTA: There's some cases I'll check the morning of the 24th but man, it's hard to say. You know, it's hard to put a kid on the naughty list. You know, honesty goes a long way with Santa. The key is, when you mess up, and I was a little boy once too, so I understand that stuff happens. Santa was a boy himself long, long time ago. And when you go to your mom and dad and you apologize and you really tried to do better, that goes a long way. It goes a long way with mom and dad, and it goes a long way with Santa. So on those days you mess up, you stop what you're doing, talk to mom and dad, apologize, tell them that you're going to do better. So it's like I say, it's it's hard to stay on the permanent naughty list because most kids, most kids do more good than they do bad. And so I kind of grade on a curve, if you will.
SK: Uh, good to know.
CO: Also, another one that we were curious about Santa is when you're out being Santa, what are some of the most common things that people say they want for Christmas?
SANTA: Cars, cars and money.
DL: Nice.
SK: And the kids want cars.
SANTA: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially, when I'm visiting the racetrack. They want a race car. but, yeah, Santa explains to him that I'm a toymaker. Because I'm a toymaker. And really, truly, cars won't fit down a chimney. And I don't I don't deal with cash. So, yeah, I don't want to carry much cash, and I can't carry a car and it goes hand in hand. Also with the puppies, I had a little girl ask me, had a little girl ask me for a horse the other day, and I had to explain to her that they're real hard to do, just like puppies and kittens, because if you put them in the bag, they start tearing up all the other presents. They'll start chewing on it, licking on it. Santa tries to stay away from giving live animals because it's just too hard on me when I'm in the sled. I've had parents get a little bit mad at me if I, if I just, you know, bring a puppy
SK: Oooh, Santa’s on the naughty list.
SANTA: Yeah, exactly. I'll be on the naughty list because I'll, I'll give them this puppy and they're like, “We don't want a puppy.” It's a fine line and mostly I get a lot of car requests. And I also answer that by asking them, “Do you have your license? Do you have driver's license? Um, Do you have insurance? You gotta have that if you get a car.” So they're like, “I don't have my license.” I said, “Well, when you get your license? You come talk to Santa.”
DL: You're really helping out. TxDOT promoting “Be safe. Drive smart,” Santa. Thank you for that.
SK: Good point, Dani.
SANTA: Ho ho ho ho ho ho
SK: Santa, how do you make it to all the houses in just one night?
SANTA: Oh, that's a good one. I actually have magic dust that the elves make me to make it around the world in one night. It's a green dust and I sprinkle it and it actually slows down time. And by slowing down time, where y'all are in a slow mode, I'm like the flash, you know, I'm boogieing. I'm going. It's a just a magic fairy, uh, elf dust, not fairy. My elves, they'll get mad at me.
I actually, have four different, colors. And and they each do different things. I also got the red dust. The red dust is what I use to get back to the sleigh. If you're familiar with “T’was the Night Before Christmas,” that's actually the actual title of it is “A Visit from Saint Nicholas.” And this year, that story is 228 years old. But at the end, it says, “He laid his finger aside his nose, and up the chimney he rose.” That's what I'm doing. I'm putting that red dust on there. Then I have silver dust for houses that don't have chimneys. I sprinkle that and it'll open up any lock in the world. Any door, any lock, I got it. And then lastly, I have some gold dust. And that's really my favorite because I love working with that one. When I go to your house, I empty out my bag with all the toys, fill the stockings. Well, my bag’s empty. Yeah. So I get some of that little gold dust, sprinkle it in the bag, and magically, the elves refill my bag for for the next house so I don't have to have a huge bag. That's that's how I get presents to everybody. Is is because of that dust. It refills the bag for me.
SK: I'm going to ask for that for my Christmas list. That sounds pretty amazing.
SANTA: It is. Also, I have some blue dust that I keep in the shop for actually the stable. And that's what makes the reindeer fly. Because if you look at the blue, you think of the sky, and that's why up in the sky, the reindeer could fly.
DL: Perfect. Thank you so much, Santa. One last question for you, Santa. Do you have anything you want to say to all of the state employees and their loved ones out there before you head off back to the North Pole?
SANTA: I think if I had really something to say, it would be along the lines of and I would say this to anybody, not just to state employees. But during this holiday season, look and think, is there anybody I can help? You know, we've got a lot of people not just in the world, but we have a lot of state employees that could probably use some help. Drive careful, of course. Don't drink. And, you be careful. But for me personally, it is focusing on the fact that the whole Christmas celebration is celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Now, if you're not a Christian, that's okay, because there's enough secular things about Christmas that you could celebrate too. Charitable giving goes way up in December. Throw an extra buck in the kettle. Food banks get their majority of their food during this season. And as you're listening to the music, you put a smile on your face. And as you're walking down the down the street, smiling at people will get them to smile and it'll just give you that warm, fuzzy feeling. Uh, just to be nice. People hopefully are a little nicer during this season. It's so it's a lot of good things other than the religious aspect of it.
SK: So spreading the good cheer. I like it. I like it.
SANTA: Yes, ma'am.
DL: Santa, I think you can head back to the North Pole.
SANTA: Ladies, if I can ever do anything for you, please let me know. It's been It's been a pleasure talking with y'all. Okay. One last thing, and I have to do it. And that is. Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho Merry Christmas and to all a good night.
ERS: Thanks, Santa. Merry Christmas. Nailed it. Bye bye. Bye, Santa.