After "a lot of personal soul-searching" and with no firm plan for the future, Pacific Bell manager Evelyn Augustus decided to accept the phone company's offer to take early retirement in 1988.

"It was a good offer," said Augustus, 56, who during a 20-year career with Pacific Bell worked her way up from an operator to manager of municipal and emergency 911 installations in Orange County.

"I had kind of reached the peak of management level that I could go," she said. "With the downsizing of the company, the opportunities to move into the second tier of management were not good."

Augustus got the chance to do what many of us spend years daydreaming about: grabbing the good life after waving goodby to our employers. We think about playing golf every morning, crisscrossing the country by motor home or retiring to a quaint seaside village in Spain.

Indeed, many of us think we would like to retire early if we could. According to The Times Orange County Poll, 55% of employed county residents would like to retire when they reach age 55, if not sooner. And that sentiment is even stronger among those who are in their early careers or mid-careers, with about two-thirds hoping for an early retirement.

The Times Poll also showed, however, that those who are nearing retirement age are far less likely than their younger colleagues to want to retire early. One in three who are in the advanced states of their career want to retire at age 66 or older, and 20% want to keep working past age 70.

But while many of us may \o7 think \f7 we want to retire early, employment specialists said that many people soon discover that a life of leisure isn't all it's cracked up to be.

A recent study by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based international outplacement consulting firm, found that about half of early retirees want to return to work after three months in retirement.

"Some people go out and travel for a year, and others go play golf for a year," said John A. Challenger, vice president of Challenger, Gray. "They realize that what was once play loses its charm when it becomes their full-time activity."

But restlessness or boredom aren't the only reasons people decide to come out of retirement.

Some retirees find that they miss longtime friends at work and the office camaraderie. Others feel that retirement doesn't offer them the sense of purpose and self-accomplishment that their jobs did. This latter feeling, employment experts said, is particularly true among corporate executives accustomed to a fast-paced, decision-making environment.