Some Summer Thoughts About Work and Retirement

Continuing where we left off last time, here are some summer thoughts about work and retirement.

Summer seems a good time for such thoughts, especially if work has eased up a bit, as it can, during the high summer days. While the pattern isn't a perfect one, the seasonality of work does tend to adhere for many of us. Summer a bit slower, with things gearing up again as fall arrives taking us straight through to year-end.

So here in our somewhat eased-up work days, we'll use some of our "extra" mental, physical,  and emotional bandwidth to think about retirement. 

It's good to do so when we're not so pressed in our daily labor. After all, as we saw last time, retirement can be daunting for many of us. So frequently we put off thinking about it until it's more or less on our doorstep - a decidedly bad idea.

Why bad? Well, from experience, too many of us hit the wall without any idea of what life will be like when we no longer have our usual fare of the work week taking up most of our waking hours. If we haven't at least considered what will fill those formerly packed, more structured hours, we'll be in for a shock. 

One gentleman acquaintance hit his wall with little such preparation. He used to tell me he just didn't have anything to do all day. He wasn't a golfer, hadn't exercised and so was out of shape for outdoor activity, didn't seem much of a reader, etc., had no hobbies, didn't volunteer for any worthwhile causes, etc., etc. So he sat a lot on his couch, watched a lot of TV and kind of wallowed in a bowl of self-pity with a small topping of misery. He didn't quite complain; but it was difficult to listen to his commiserations.

His is but one example. There are plenty of others.

On the other hand, some of us have active lives that we can enhance when our regular 8 hour+ shifts end. Still, mental preparation helps here. 

Oh, and there's no reason we have to substitute a rigorous schedule of work with another completely rigorous schedule. It's really a personal matter, and depends on our individual mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual makeup. Remember, we are all unique creatures. Ideally we fashion our post-regular-work years in a manner that suits us as individuals, suits our family circumstances - and for us married gents, talk to our spouses about all this and take their needs and desires into consideration.

But this brings up another aspect of retirement: Just what do we mean by retirement? 

Are we being over-analytical or nit-picky here? Decidedly not.

First of all, we know some who have retired from one career only to start another. An obvious example might be municipal employees like policemen or firemen who are fortunate enough to be given pensions after so many years (typically 20 years or more). Some of these might be in their early 40s when they earn their pensions, so they retire from their employment and frequently seek other opportunities to earn money. 

Some have even developed skills even as they work at their municipal jobs. Firemen have a distinct reputation for this, given their work schedules. They not infrequently have multiple days off in a row after being on duty for multiple days. So they might have a side business in handyman or construction work (fairly common), a business ready to go full time when they stop putting out fires.

So they retired in one sense and, well, un-retired in another.

The point is "retirement" isn't a fixed concept that applies in the same way to all.

Indeed, we might step back and recognize the fact that the idea of retirement is a relatively new thing that dates back only as far as the Great Depression. In those days, the government granted a benefit known as "social security." We use quotation marks because this was a relatively foreign idea. (It may have been "invented" in Europe.) With the U.S. economy in shambles, the idea was that workers would be given a modest stipend each month if they stopped working in their 60s. Given the high unemployment of the time, this would open up slots for younger workers. 

Before social security hit the streets, people didn't "retire" from their jobs. They worked until they couldn't anymore, or until their employer decided they couldn't keep up with their jobs anymore.

There's more to the story here. For example, unions, pensions, expected vacation time and holidays, etc. All of these slowly developed.   

We won't get into all the details of how the social security system and all the rest then developed over the decades, except to say that for many blue collar workers both social security and a pension became the bedrock of how they would manage to survive after their regular income ceases if they fully retire from regular steady work.

We'll continue next time...