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
Wait, it’s a column called Bartleby about working more than you want to?
They aren’t even hiding it anymore.
What’s the significance of the name?
Story by Melville about a guy who doesn’t want to work.
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
I’d personally love to see retired people getting into DnD for the first time. I imagine if everyone is retired it’d be easier to schedule out.
I have my hip replacement this week and next week the grandkids are in town. Week after that I have a bad fall scheduled. After that I should be free, might be dead idk.
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 have so many things I’d like to do, except I’m so tired after work and the things I need to do to maintain my life that aren’t called work for some strange reason. Provided I have the money to retire and afford the things I want to do, I will have plenty to keep myself busy for another lifetime.
If you can’t find ways to keep busy in your retirement, that’s on you. If you would rather spend that time working, that’s fine, too, but society shouldn’t expect that of us. If you can’t afford to, that’s a separate problem, and partly due to society, too.
I am going to the office once in a while when I feel like it. Am I retired?
My parents have spent the decades of their retirements volunteering and helping their neighbors.
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I don’t even understand the cookie window.
It’s ok, just select “Accept all” - their 172 (!) partners are “trusted”
🙄🤌🏻
I’m convinced half these kinds of articles are rage bait.
It doesn’t help that you don’t see the contents.
Economist is for sure a mouthpiece of the political class, but the Bartleby column is satirical.
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
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.
My father has retired multiple times. Then he keeps going out and finding new jobs like in real estate and making more money. My parents were very stingy with sharing, they spent all their money on random shit and properties that they’d then take a loss on. It’s really sad.
That’s not what gaslighting means, OP.
It’s one of those terms people are so rabidly eager to use that any excuse will do. Look at what happened to ‘reboot’.
Gaslighting doesn’t exist, you’re just crazy.
What is it ma’am?
Gaslighting comes from the movie Gaslight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)). It refers to the practice of lying and manipulating someone into questioning their own recollection of events and general memory in order to cause them to doubt their own sanity, mental faculties, or perception of reality. This is not gaslighting because you are not being lied to about events that have happened. You’re being lied to to try and convince you to not do something that you should/would typically want to do for yourself. These are different things.
Thank you kindly
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.
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.
Where’d you go? Can my family come too?
Sorry. It isn’t a country that anyone can just move to. It has many serious flaws and is not pleasant for people from different backgrounds. But it did allow my father to retire in his 50s and my uncles to retire in their 60s. But if you are willing to play along, and keep your thoughts to yourself, you do get a lot for free from education to healthcare and it is affordable to live in, and foreigners do manage to save here. Oh no income tax either.
If you are curious https://youtu.be/r3bgQMVsCH0
Ah yes the polluting country of assholes where they have no respect for women? Love this country /s
It isn’t perfect. Far from it, but every woman is entitled to free healthcare including most foreigners except very high earners.
And we are not that bad compared to some US states if you can trust American Progress https://www.americanprogress.org/article/authoritarian-regimes-have-more-progressive-abortion-policies-than-some-u-s-states/
Weird that you accuse us of being polluters when our impact historically, currently and cumulatively is nowhere near the US or most countries. https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2
I did qualify my post that it isn’t for everyone. I am of the culture, I understand it, and I know how to function in it.
I’m going to retire even harder now
That’s not ‘gaslighting’?