I’m not yet retired, but I can see it on the horizon. As such, I’ve started watching YT videos about how and when to transition from working full time to being a cunt of leisure full time. Some videos encourage you to retire as soon as possible, while others tell you to never, ever retire. What to do?
Many of the videos touch upon what having a full time job provides. Income obviously, but also work related benefits, a purpose, a life structure and to a degree, some (work related) social interaction. By definition, not having a full time job means not having those things:
- No earned income, so you’d better have enough saved. How much is enough?
- No benefits, so you at least better get your health insurance someplace else. Is the Yank system of Medicare and Medicaid any good or are they as shit as the NHS? What are they? What do they provide? How do they work? Fuck knows!
- No purpose in life. Your career skills, knowledge and experience no longer have direction and meaning. Oh dear.
- No life structure around being employed. It’s the end of the TGIF feeling, cramming everything into a Saturday so you have at least one day to relax. But Sundays always feel different (worse) because you’re back to work the next day. When you’re retired, that sense of urgency and some days having a certain feel is over. Every day must feel exactly the same. Do they?
- I work remotely so have never met any of the people I currently work with. One or two are OK, but the rest can all fuck off. No great loss if I’m honest.
To combat this sense of being cast adrift, some videos make some suggestions for transitioning into retirement.
Part-time work:
Corporate America is a vicious, back stabbing, hypocritical, hostile, stressful and toxic place. I’m really looking forward to not having to deal with that anymore. So I don’t think this is an option for me.
Hobbies:
My main hobby is collecting music. I don’t need more time to do that. I like playing video games too. Not sure that’s a hobby. The enjoyment of doing anything though is in part determined by its finite duration. If you could do whatever you wanted for as long as you wanted, would it be as enjoyable and fulfilling? I could start a new hobby of course, but I’m not that handy. I really only have two hand skills. After working in IT for 30+ years, one of those skills is obviously typing. Not sure the other ‘skill’ counts as a hobby and it certainly isn’t new. 😂
Volunteering:
Just fuck right off. I’m not helping anyone for free. That’s just not going to happen. Admittedly, I do have a head full of skills, knowledge and experience, but I absolutely refuse on principle to use any of it to help anyone who’s not paying me.
Cultivating friendships:
Some videos suggest cultivating friendships now which will last into retirement and provide social outlets once retired. Trouble is, I don’t like most people and actively avoid being in the company of others. Being around other humans invariably leads to small talk which I perceive as an interrogation without purpose. I don’t want to be questioned about what I do (did), where I live, where I go on holiday or what my kids do (I don’t have any – thank fuck). Equally, I’m not interested in other people’s interests or life story. I just don’t care. Leave me the fuck alone!
Travel:
Travel seems to be popular with retirees. The catch here is, Mrs. Yank is several years my junior so she’ll be working full time and earning a wedge for quite a while before she retires. Good. She also works from home so will be under my fucking feet 24×7 when I have fuck all else to do. Bad. So me getting out of the house might extend her life expectancy. Seems a little selfish though to raid the retirement fund for my own first class flights, 5 star hotels, crack cocaine and high class hookers, but we all have to make sacrifices somewhere. 😂
So there you have it. Keep working and piss more of your healthy years up the wall for an employer who doesn’t give a shit or quit the rat race and have nothing to do, nowhere to go and no one to enjoy it with?
Retirement is (potentially) a cunt. What say you?
Nominated by : Imitation Yank
No-one went to their grave thinking I wish I had spent more time in the office or at work. The thing about retirement is that you don’t know what is around the corner and thank God we don’t. I had been winding down since some health problems 10 years ago and then after Covid I had been sandbagging a bit. I finally packed it in last year with a last sales tour in October. The intention was a year of travel, the motor caravan around Europe and a wine tasting trip to Australia amongst other haunts. Instead I spent 6 weeks in hospital and a long operation. I have been signed off now and well on the mend. I thanked the main surgeon (I had three) and he replied I am just pleased you survived. The thing is I am 70 now and I j well pissed off if I had snuffed it with no retirement.
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Another great point, Wanksock. It’s one of life’s truisms that no one wished they’d spent more time at work. I do enjoy what I do and enjoy getting well paid for it too, but it’s a constant battle to get others to see the right way to do something. Seems to me, everyone’s a fucking expert…….until there’s a problem….then suddenly they want you to fix it. So tired of the constant clown show at work.
One thing I am looking forward to in retirement is calling people out on LinkedIn. For years I’m been dying to expose cunts who have crossed my path. Doing it now might be professional suicide, but once I’m done working and don’t need recruiters or employers anymore, I think it’ll be fun to expose the truth and tell it how it is.
I don’t know if you can get banned from LinkedIn so it’ll be fun to find out. LOL.
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How much I agree with you and wanksock, IY. You can’t get banned from bloody LinkedIn, sadly because though I wrote “RETIRED” on my profile years ago (I had a very esoteric engineering skill – and I don’t mean making pornographic snuff films) , I still get idiots pestering me, usually recruitment companies. I have been openly “rude” to some of the wankers, but the real or imagined offers still come in – only once every three weeks now instead of every week, but it pisses me off. It is almost impossible to leave the site as well, because if you try unsubscribing they keep on sending “are you sure?” messages. I daresay the more members they pretend to have the more impressive they think they look. I have also been offered work that bears no resemblance to what I did. I am just surprised I never got an offer from Kweer to join Team Twat, but then, I wasn’t a relative of Anthony Blair or Auntie Mandy.
I think it is important to enjoy retirement – you really don’t know what awaits you round rhe corner. A couple of years ago my oldest friend – who I met on my first day at senior school, and we joined the RN together – died in December 2022. In June 2022 he had been fine, in the October he was told he had inoperable cancer.
Quite often a hobby you come to in later life can provide real enrichment and a purpose – if you live in a flat for example and have neighbours you hate, take up the drums or the French horn and see how long it is before they fuck off and move. Midnight practice will hasten the process.
Seriously, just be glad to still be around (the alternative is worse) and hope your health stays good.
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You can get banned from LinkedIn, for doing just precisely what you’ve mentioned.
I know.
Fuck ’em.
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I must just be unlucky then. I can’t shake them off.
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Morning IY, morning all.
That’s so true about Linked In.
The profiles of chancers, lazy and stupid bastards and all round cunts I have have worked with are beyond belief.
All that crap is over for me now.
4
Huw Edwards is on LinkedIn, touting his services as a “Media Consultant”.
Nuff fucking said.
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Morning Cuntalugs –
Can you believe that once upon a time, you actually had to be invited to join LinkedIn by someone who had already been screened and deemed acceptable to join their community.
It was going down hill before Microsoft bought it, but they have ruined it completely. It has become FecesBook Version 2. Anytime I see anyone point that out, they are immediate attacked and ridiculed. Just like all the other social media platforms populated by keyboard warrior cunts.
It’s a shame. I’m sure there’s a market for a proper grown up business networking website that LinkedIn used to be. If I gave a crap, I’d start one myself, make a mint then shit on Mark Zuckerberg’s door step each morning and twice on Sundays.
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I’m on LinkedIn, how I’ll never know as I’ve never joined it.
I fancy it’s some stupid idiot, thinking it might be a way to scam, whose joined using my FB profile.
Which is that of a 149 year old Portuguese woman.
Thick, or what.
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Cultivating friendships? Are you kidding? I’ve had a number of jobs and I’ve worked with hundreds if not thousands of people, and out of all of those I’ve kept in touch with one. He was my manager forty something years ago and we still send each other christmas cards, or rather his wife does. And that’s it.
All the rest, either they didn’t want to keep in touch with me, or I didn’t want to keep in touch with them, or the feeling was mutual.
If you know a place where you can find nice friendly laid-back genuine people, let me know. One thing’s for sure, it won’t be at work.
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You’re spot on, Allan. The work environment is a forced and artificial place. When the usual wannabes start crowing about a company do, a Christmas get together or whatever, they don’t seem to get the obvious truth. Which is the only thing we have in common (when we worked in offices) was we walked on the same bit of carpet, drank the same coffee and sat in the same area. That doesn’t make you friends with any of those people who you didn’t actually choose to work with.
No need to be rude, hostile or aloof but at the same time, let’s not pretend we’re friends either. I’ve stayed in touch with perhaps 2 people over the course of my 35 ish year career. And that’s OK.
We all have our own lives with our own ups and downs to deal with. It is refreshing to realise that many on here understand the difference between a friend and an acquaintance. Seems to me the younger generation doesn’t. A 1000 likes on FecesBook doesn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of things, but da yoof seem to need that constant validation. Sad really.
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A mate of mine inherited something like 200k, he carked it within a couple of years, drank himself into oblivion. But what do you want, to eke it all out and end up some grubby, mean loser holding back for fear of running out, or just accept that life is short and you’ll never get that opportunity again ?
Arsebook is for puffters and little girls, not much difference betwixt the two these days.
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When I did my leaving work because I was retiring, I included the phrase
” I like to think of you all as…
people I’ve known”
and we all did the last three words in chorus, amid gales of laughter, because I loved my job, and with very few exceptions, I liked the people I worked with.
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Allan, I’ve noticed that your experience in life is so similar to mine it’s uncanny, even to the extent that the only former colleague I am in touch with was my manager alittle over forty years ago. He’s a Yorkshire lad, solid down-to-earth character, five years older than me. I’ll be sad if he pre-deceases me. When my first boss topped himself in 2017 I confess I was so delighted I cracked open a bottle I was keeping for special occasions. The fact he bodged it and took half an hour to expire with the paramedics working desperately to save him was just the icing on the cake. My sympathies are with the paramedics; it must be devastating to have a failure in such circumstances.
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Saw too many of my work colleagues succumb to diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, alcoholism in their early 60s, so got out in my late 50s.
Thank god I did as no more diversity courses, woke bollocks, and a generally joyless office atmosphere. No more hellish commute, shitty coffee-shop sandwiches, and long days.
The relief in being free was wonderful.
I wouldn’t overthink what you plan to do in advance, it will fall into place organically.
Oh, in the interests of social anthropology, may I suggest one cruise (just the one) as it will show you what NOT to become in retirement,
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Hi Gareth –
Just the one cruise, then? Oops. We’ve been on 5 or 6 and always to the same place. Alaska! Love it.
We cruise in style though, on Celebrity ships in Suite Class. Oh yes. It ain’t cheap, but it does insulate you from the proles.
I do get what you mean about what not to become. Some of the behaviour onboard – by the oldies – was surprising. Slamming doors, pushing into queues, being demanding and borderline rude to the crew. Wow! Did not expect that.
Tell the ’70s Purdey I said hi. 🙂
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Sorry about that IY, hope you enjoyed them all, and hopefully my retirement points (just) still stand.
My (discounted) cruise was to Noo Yoik, and it was the conformity of so many of the regular cruisers that struck me… dress, cuisine, politics…anyway, ignore all that.
But my headline remains, choose retirement when it feels right, with or without an overly-pre-baked plan.
Cheers and good luck.
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I love cruises, the veniality, selfish behaviour, entitlement, faux outrage, it’s all there.
The absolute lowest of the low, under the umbrella of respectability,
“I’m on a cruise, therefore I’m posh”, as they help theirselves to the whole chocolate gateau, even before they have got their mains.
Oh no, you are definitely not. You’re swine, you think please and thank you are confined to the crew, and not you.
However they manage not to throw you overboard, I’ll never know.
Best one ever, Nile Cruise. Highly recommended
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An excellent nomination.
I’ve been wondering the same thing myself recently. As for reducing hours as a transition phase, the company then reduces how many days holiday you can take, which defeats the objective!
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I’m bookmarking this nom as many cunters have provided some excellent insights into something they’ve already figured out or have already done.
My thanks again to everyone who joined in.
Cheers – IY.
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Most Bank Holidays are on Mondays,
Also reduce your hours, not the number of days you work, they cannot reduce your time off percentage wise, it must equal that of a full time employee, ergo, if you work 3 days per week, as apposed to 5, and a full time worker get 5 weeks paid annual leave, you must get the equivalent.
See your labour rep, or consult the Cab.
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IY, from what you have said you seem very passionate about your field of work. I don’t know how easy it is to start your own business in the U.S, but was it something you had thought about in the early days?
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Yes LL – I commented on that in an earlier post. I just did that so you wouldn’t have seen it until now.
Aside from the issues I mentioned elsewhere, there’s another problem I’ve encountered which some cunters might be surprised about. Americans do not like you being better than them in their own back yard.
This doesn’t apply to all Yanks of course, but I have been exposed to forms of discrimination and hostility simply because I knew more, was faster, more efficient and delivered the right solution the first time compared to an American working on the same/similar project.
They don’t like it up ’em.
There is also a huge cultural difference between the two countries. Again, this doesn’t apply to ALL Americans, but….the Yanks tend to be rather superficial, insincere and very much into appearances rather than substance. If you know that’s how many Yanks operate, you’re more likely not to fall foul of it or be offended by it. But it takes time to learn the subtle dynamics of dealing with Americans. And there’s the rub…..you have to deal with them in order to learn and become more proficient in navigating their weird social etiquette. It’s work, let me tell you and being a confirmed misanthrope, I’d prefer to just not deal with them. Can you imagine what a joy it’s been working from home these last 4 years? Haha!!
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“Two countries separated by the same language” George Bernard Shaw
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I hope you’ve had many helpful insights into the pitfalls ( none) and joys ( total) of retiring.
Lay the burden down, if you can.
The weight of your shoulders!
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The response has been top notch, Jeezum. Some really good advice, some sound wisdom and several things to think about.
The combined knowledge and life experience on ISAC is considerable. Shame we waste most of it on sweary ranting. But hey, that’s what ISAC is there for. 🙂
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You can always rely on us to rally round when the subject is serious, but presented as you did, in a humorous way.
All the best to you.
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I have no pension. I’m truly fucked.
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Sounds like I could have written this. Been there done it and bought the T Shirt.
I’ll mail you privately via the chief Admin as I have his address but not yours. Might have a few insights to share.
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