Why I should never retire: because I'll starve on the street. Unfortunately I'm getting old enough that no one is going to want to employ me. So I guess I'll starve on the street and serve as an incentive to others to work harder for the man.
You're ahead of your time. The trend of most of our futures right here.
Cruises and golf? What a shallow, sad view of retirement. My uncle goes to Florida in the winter and fishes off of various docks and camps, and spends time with his grandkids, and ducks around with gadgets the rest of the year.
They're cliches that only apply to affluent boomers.
When I worked at a bank I went to a work-sponsored golf outing and it was both way more fun and required way more physical effort than I was anticipating. I'm not going to go out of my way to go golfing again but I certainly won't turn down an invite if I'm ever invited golfing again
I think its good to keep working, but only doing the things that you actually enjoy or have value outside of a paycheck. When I "retired" I found it kind of hollow and it was not all it was supposed to be.
I think that's called having a hobby
My father lasted a year in retirement, after which he got so bored he went back to his last job as a "consultant" to his successor, effectively continuing what he had been doing in the previous ten or so years, except only visiting the office when he felt like it.
I don't recall him ever enjoying this job at all, but it seems sitting around with a sole purpose of waiting to die is even less fun
I am going to the office once in a while when I feel like it. Am I retired?
Just don't confuse wanting to work for having to work.
My grandmother, who had been retired for 30 years, turned her music-writing hobby into a second career after my grandfather passed by taking on artists, getting involved with concerts, etc.
I've met plenty of very old dudes in my hobbies of archery and shooting guns who are absolute masters and charge too little too profit or nothing at all for tuning, gunsmithing, and coaching.
These have nothing to do with keep a roof over your head, and everything to do with staying sane when the expectation seems to be waiting around until you die
Doing nothing for years is a good way to die younger. If you can turn a hobby into a 20hr a week "job" where you pick your hours, that can very easily keep you alive.
To be fair, all of those activities sound like shit.
If I'm retiring I'm playing games, reading, hiking etc.
I know a guy who left retirement because he felt purposeless. The reason we likely hate work is because we have to do it.
If I knew I didn't have to worry about money, I would consider focusing on my tech career as it's something to do rather than worrying about how to keep a job. Maybe focus on charity maybe.
Definitely keep saving for retirement, last thing you need is to HAVE TO WORK for the rest of your life.
I'm with you. Aimless wandering through night and day, and consuming stuff to distract from the lack of direction in life is pleasing only to a certain point.
What portion of the population do you think finds their job more fulfilling than the specific activities listed - let alone being able to spend your days as you please.
...ohhhh - "We'll make sure you can't afford to do as you please, let alone survive, so you'll have to work, but making sure the workers are responsible for it means we can keep our bullshit and economic vandalism up."
Within the confines of the neoliberal-capitalist societies most of us on Lemmy reside in, only the most privileged get to have a fulfilling and well paying occupation. Totally agree with you. My take on the peice is that it's parodying the notion that you have to turn a hobby or unique skill into capital even well past retirement.
I've always believed that people desire an 'occupation', just something to do with your time. Anything a person finds fulfilling to do. I also believe that we've confused occupation with payed work and now the two are perceived as the same. Or maybe I'm nuts.
My stepfather was a managing partner at an accounting firm. He got bought out by one of the big guys.
4 months after retiring he started consulting. He doesn't need the money, he needs something to do other than golf and he has no hobbies.
The kids want him to travel etc but he's happier working..... which is fucked in my view.
Pleasure cruises, golf and tracing the family tree are not that fulfilling
I agree with this opinion.
... you should never retire.
I'd retire tomorrow if I had the financial security to do so.
"Pleasure cruises, golf, and tracing the family tree."
What the authors' retired parents did while waiting for grandkids.
A wild guess, but I'll make it.
Why The Economist Can Get Fucked
I've been ten years disabled to the point that I don't have a job. My life has been more fulfilling in that decade than it ever was in my able bodied, over worked previous life.
I take care of my household, I volunteer where I'm able to, I seek out new topics to learn just out of curiosity, and I have a heap of different hobbies I bounce between. Sure, I get bored sometimes, but it's a much cleaner boredom than the kind I got at work.
No way I'm the only one who can very much enjoy an unemployed life. That article is a bunch of bullshit.
Wait, it's a column called Bartleby about working more than you want to?
What's the significance of the name?
Story by Melville about a guy who doesn't want to work.
They aren't even hiding it anymore.
Even the person in their little splash graphic looks like they're hiding their pain
This has got to be satire right?
My parents have spent the decades of their retirements volunteering and helping their neighbors.
The Economist has not changed a single bit since the day Lenin dropped that qoute
The Journal That Speaks for the British Millionaires
I’m going to retire even harder now
There are a lot of bits of my job enjoy, when I retire I shall just putter about and spend some time doing those bits and get paid less money for doing it
So I don't get it.
One side of corporate mouth: Old people are too expensive and they don't obey. We need to fire them so we can hire cheap, malleable, young people.
Other side of corporate mouth: Old people must work until they physically collapse and die at their station. There is therefore no room to hire additional workforce from the younger generation.
The goal is to have an seeming excess of workers to drive salaries down and hire young people who don't know better and have fit boddies
One of the reasons I decided to leave the US. Yes, the Economist is British but the US has the same problem. I realized chances are I will never save enough for retirement, my 401k planner even says so. So I am moving back to the country that allowed my father to retire in his 50s. 10 years ago when I started working in the US I didn’t expect this outcome, and the longer I stay here the longer it will take me to improve my conditions.
Not working, however, is quite fulfilling.
I have a job where it takes up about 25% of my day to accomplish my work, and the other 75% of the time is spent doing whatever I like and watching my son.
It’s pretty goddamn fulfilling.
We're trying to reduce the numbers of hours a person has to work.
We talk about the end of paid work being mandatory for survival.
Partnerships:
/join #antiwork)