I had previously announced that I was going to retire after 2025-2026. That statement is no longer operational. We looked at our finances, and we looked at the orange clown who is going to be running the country, and decided that we could not afford to retire yet. Or in the foreseeable future. Or ever.
It’s not all bad news. My lab is right across the hall from the anatomy lab, so when I drop dead at the bench, they can just wheel me across the way to the cadaver storage room, and we’ll also save the university one yearly expense.
Oof. Well, best of luck, PZ. Take good care of yourself.
That’s a shame. My retirement is about 8 years away, so hopefully something good will happen between now and then.
Perhaps consider less load?
There must be options between retirement and ongoing full-time work.
I’m wrestling with the same dilemma, and I’m close to deciding to postpone retirement for another year or ten. I’m a lot older than you, PZ, so dropping dead is even more likely. With the cheap life insurance I get through work, dropping dead isn’t such a bad deal for my heirs. At least the job gives me a distraction from the awful mess things are in. I also have the advantage of an “accommodation”…i.e. I’m allowed to work from home. I haven’t been in the office since the COVID lockdown started.
I’m 50 and I know I’ve never going to retire. I’ll be working for a pittance for the rest of my miserable life.
motherfucking intolerable. what miserable fucking society we have.
death to any and all billionairesuhm, something something, anyway. nobody your age should have to work, while there are teenagers with chic nightclubs in their mansion’s guest room. reverse the streamswith guillotinesrassle fracking kidding I guess … unless..? not. syke. jk. i deny i said these things in earnest. yesss. hm. right. ok…I’ve been semi-retired for the last four years, and I could only do that because I stopped spending on 90% of non-essentials 20 years ago and started saving, to pay off my mortgage and to put some money aside in case I was made redundant in my 50s. I’ll finally take my pension in two months’ time; the primary reason I can do that is because I was a union member for 30 years and every time our pay and conditions were attacked we fought for them.
When people tell me I’m lucky to be in my current situation, where so many people my age aren’t and few younger people never expect to be, I tell them they have to stand up for themselves now else they’ll get shat on every time and they’ll be lucky for their old age not to be a misery. Also I tell them not to vote for right-wing arseholes, but I’m not so sure they listen to that bit.
Let’s start a pool and throw in 5 dollars a week to play the lottery.
I have never played the lottery and never will. Lotteries are for suckers.
Agreed.
Well, PZ, whenever you set out to retire, something will come up to chase you away.
As Roseanne Roseannadanna said “it’s always something — if it ain’t one thing, it’s another”.
Let’s hope that the US dollar is still worth something after 4 years of this asshat, that half the country isn’t dead because the orange dipshidiot’s roadkill aficionado plans on outlawing vaccines and antibiotics and curing everything (or not) with raw milk and vibes. Four years of this asshole might mean that the US dollar might have the same value as a post WWI Deutschemark. Four years of the ambulatory tire fire might mean that the most popular smuggled drugs are mifepristone and antibiotics instead of fentanyl.
I’d certainly like to retire one day too (still contributing to the TSP like it means something) but first I have to live long enough to actually reach retirement.
I have hope, but some days I wonder if it’s worth trying to get healthy and save if retirement is a dream. Presently, my best bet is inheritance.
Basically, the US is a failed project of the Enlightenment, and is now returning to its European monarchic roots: farm someone else’s land until you die and drop in the field. The only thing is that the bosses no longer claim to be anointed by god, they simply claim that they anointed themselves by dint of their merit and hard work (lies, all lies)
At this point, I would not criticize anyone who makes less than $100,000 annually and chooses to cheat on their taxes, mug apparently wealthy people, steal wheels off lamborghinis, deal coke, and become a hitman. Seriously, US society has apparently given up completely on self-regulation, so Robin Hooding seems like a calling not a crime.
Is there a way to make Ebola attack only people who eat caviar or drink Dom Perignon? (asking for a friend).
PZ has expressed that he finds teaching at least somewhat satisfying. I hope PZ can find ways to reduce the stress of having to continue teaching. I agree with @3 John Morales, reduce the class load.
All the comments here, along with our personal experiences, tell us that this is a FAILED SOCIETY. A decade ago, people could rely on relative stability in the economic system so they could responsibly plan for retirement. Now, our economy is an absurd off-the-rails roller-coaster. WTF!
PZ wrote: Lotteries are for suckers
I reply: Of course they are! However, we’ve all been dragged, unwillingly, into a con game by the crapitallist billionaires and the game is sooo rigged that only they win.
Martha and the Vandellas were right: Nowhere to Run to baby, nowhere to hide!
Working is for suckers. Musk Xhits and plays video games all day and he’s a multi-billionaire.
Marcus Ranum 14
If by “European monarchic roots” you mean some kind of exploitative labor (e.g. feudalism, indentured servitude, etc), then the US has never once left its roots in its entire history. After it outlawed slavery, it still had a form of modern day feudalism called share-cropping in the former slave states and industrial wage slavery, such as factories and mines, in other places.
There was an all-too-brief period where organized labor seemed to have won and made everything mostly better — there was still racism involved — but that is behind us now and the US has reverted to form.
Under feudalism man exploits man, under corporatism it’s the other way around (old Soviet joke)
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are bad stand-ins for the Duc de Pôt de-Chambre, and Lord Haw Haw. And look, we just elected Père Ubu, who is staffing his government with characters so ridiculous that Jarry would blush.
If I had a spare billion I’d have a broadway marquee endowed with a top-notch troop putting on Ubu Roy free shows one night a week, in which all the characters performed in costume of popular media personalities and leaders, featuring Tucker Carlson as himself.
And a free open bar.
You misspelled “ruining”. HTH.