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Don't get me started on that. You know who should be fired? Whoever it was who thought health care should be profitable and subject to capitalism, followed by whoever invented health insurance in the first place, followed by whoever it was who decided that it would be great to link health insurance to jobs. They're all probably dead by now, but if so, I hope they are fired anyway--over a spit in hell.
It didn't all happen at once. Employer-sponsored health insurance was seen as a great benefit once upon a time when people held jobs for 20, 30 years and retired on a pension. Today you have an average job tenure of less than 3 years, but you're asking me to connect my family's physical health and well being to my employer, who realistically won't even exist in 20 years.
The left knows that if insurance was decoupled from jobs, people would quit and become self employed - they don't want that. They want you employed and in a union. Another outdated idea.
The right knows it too - and if everyone becomes self-employed, the power of large corporations wanes. The current MAGA type of right wing seems to favor economic anarchy and hates large corporations almost as much as the Left. They don't even care about a policy solution, they just want to gain power and burn it all down.
My point being I am not sure either party, which has become so fascinated with the extremes, really has any sort of solution for the regular joes who show up and work for a living. Obamacare, which was ill-timed and unpopular, was at least an attempt at resolving this, and centrist right fought it tooth and nail - you reap what you sow, I guess.
My opinion - business ownership should be incentivized and rewarded with tax breaks and access to health insurance markets. Instead the state of CA wants $800 a year for an LLC that produces no revenues. If you hire an employee and provide insurance you should pay less taxes, not more. The whole system is set up to screw the regular people and reward those at the very top and the very bottom
I no longer have any passion or drive in my career. When I look for jobs, the thought has started to creep into my mind, "would it be easy to fly below the radar at this place?" It's not as if my career is a mismatch, but every job gets old and I think that time has come for me.
I'm also beginning to wonder if keeping up with the state of the art is worth it for me. That's a lot of work in my career, software, and I have a pretty good career niche carved out already specializing in cloud platforms. There's no way that niche is going away for a couple decades. When I was younger I would have looked down on my current attitudes as settling or coasting. But honestly I'd be happy to coast for ten or fifteen more years because I've already accrued some assets, don't feel financially under the gun, and have a family and different priorities now.
When it comes to my priorities, career is way down the list. I just care about different things now. Of course the problem is that financially I'm not ready for retirement. In ten years? Maybe. But that's a solid decade of just feeling blah when I go to work.
I realize some people hate working all the time, and having to work is like torture for them. That's wasn't me, I was ambitious and somewhat successful when I was younger. I'm very lucky in that respect, that I had the talent and inclination to treat my career like a game and enjoy it. But now I'm starting to get where the work-haters are coming from. It just happened a little earlier than I would have hoped.
Now I have a family to support. If I didn't have them I'd move somewhere cheap, live off investments, and call it a wrap. It's not so bad, I knew what I was getting into when we had kids. But man is it a grind.
I still have a few more years to retirement. I don't care above moving up because I don't want to babysit big whining babies, toddlers or teenagers at work. I do care about my job. The workload is pretty up to or above my neck. It's always so busy, so I can't never coast; and I never want to do that. I used to care too much for people I work with (residents and co-workers in a long term care). I think I was too nice, soft, caring, good at my job, and everybody wanted to take advantage of me. Anything people did not know or did not want to do, they just said to one another "ask AOC". It's always AOC this, AOC that. AOC is too good at her job, just let her to do it. Whatever others don't know how or don't want to do, just shove it on AOC. Many workers called in sick too much, and some of the management wanted to add more work on me and some others, of course. And a few of those who called in sick a lot wanted lots of attention and compassion. They complained that when they were sick, nobody called them to ask how they were doing/feeling. I was thinking "WTH, you are sick, you stay home, people at work have to take more work from you, and you want someone to call you to ask how you are doing? We are here working our butts off, we are so tired and getting burnt out. It's ridiculous. You're not the centre of the world or this workplace."
I got burnt out, I got fed up. I have no more compassion for people who call in sick too much and want too much attention, when they don't care about others and/or me. I still do care about what I'm doing. I always want to do a good job. But I'm changing now. I'm not easy, too nice and soft anymore. I set boundaries. I have to take care of myself.
I'm not afraid of people who may say be careful about karma. If or when I'm sick, I'm responsible to call in and be off for a couple days or whatever, but I will never think people should call me to ask how I'm doing. I'm not an attention seecker. I take good care of myself, eat right, exercise everyday, and learn to think positive to keep myself healthy. Lots of times, "sickness" is in people's head. They just want to take advantage of the company and call in sick as much as they want, and they want lots of attention from others. Not me.
I'm also beginning to wonder if keeping up with the state of the art is worth it for me. ...
When it comes to my priorities, career is way down the list. I just care about different things now. ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by modest
I'm in the same boat as you, but without kids and probably at least 30 more years to go. ...
So much depends on one's age. In one's mid-30s - which appears to be the age range of the persons quoted above - the overwhelming burden, is that most of one's officially-sanctioned working years, still remain in the future. One's biggest asset is generally one's remaining labor potential. This is daunting, and much cause for depression.
Now advance by another 15 or 20 years. Given today's lifespans and career-spans, such a person is still relatively "young"... but is old enough to hypothetically be the parent of the fresh college grads entering the workforce. THEN perhaps it's less risky and more justified to coast-along....
The question of having family responsibilities, is a curious one. In my admittedly limited experience, the parents of large broods, and the child-free, tend to retire at about the same age... the only difference being, that the latter have more money. Indeed, it isn't financial readiness that governs when we finally conclude formal remunerative employment, but a psychological readiness, which is orthogonal to the health of our portfolios.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GuyInSD
A few decades from now, what do you want your memories to be - diligently toiling away at a job, or time spent enjoying your pastimes and with your family?
That depends entirely on one's profession. For engineers or scientists, there may very well be regret at having retired "too early". For generic office-workers, probably not.
... I'm also beginning to wonder if keeping up with the state of the art is worth it for me. That's a lot of work in my career, software, and I have a pretty good career niche carved out already specializing in cloud platforms.
I would think being a cloud specialist is just asking to be in training of some sort the rest of your working life.
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