The Opportunities Plan

Afternoon Mugs,

I'm at that precarious age whereby retirement is dangling in the not too distant future. However society is building a momentum towards sneering at the retired. More and more of the media rhetoric is about them being a drain, about the joys of working until you die or become incapacitated. No thanks...pas pour moi, mercy as the French say. More and more we hear younger people making noises about pensioners having 'stolen' money by virtue of exploiting the property ladder as was available in the past.....as if people shouldn't have exploited the house value explosion or bought their own houses via more amenable schemes than are available now.

However, assuming I am allowed to retire at some point the bigger worry in the same forward view as retirement is 'what if I lose my job?'.

Do I, at 57, want to go back into competitive interviews with all the associated assessment days and psychometric tests used these days and find myself  potentially being interviewed alongside people half my age willing to work for half the salary? Would I even get interviewed? Most employers see your age and in all likelihood you're not even getting past the first CV sift. I know that because I've seen it happen first hand where I work. 

Do I take the money (hopefully a compromise amount after 25 years service) and retrain? retrain to what...what timescales are there to train for something satisfying that pays decent money? Do I use the money to set up a business? Do I look at contracting and/or consultancy? Do I buy a franchise? 

I've done a plan but it's all questions as above. What do I want to do? What can I do? What can I do that I want to do? What can I do that I don't want to do? What can't I do but would love to do? What can't I do and would never want to do? What can or can't I do that will pay me enough money? Is there anything I can't do or don't want to do that will pay loads so I have to just lump it? 

Plan A is to stay put in an enjoyable job, with a team of funny people who always make you smile and is based on being able to work from home. Make hay whilst the sun shines and keep my head down and do the best I can is the daily mantra I follow. All ambition from a work perspective is gone.  However, the modern day workplace is all about chest beating, crowing about achievements. Everybody wants to be the workplace equivalent of Lionel Mess or Ronaldo. Whereas I'm more of a midfield general....someone who just gets on with the job, unfashionably, quietly and efficiently. 

One thing is for sure, whilst I mull over a future which may not happen, I really am glad the end of working every day is in sight,  rather than being at the start of the working life in this awful age of bright young things competing for shit waged jobs with less rights and benefits than I ever had. 

Unlucky them.

Later Mugs, GJ