Attitude problem
My sister retired today. She is two years and three months younger than me; I've still got 49½ working days to go ...not that I'm counting or anything. And they say it's a man's world. Fwuh!
I can't bloody-well wait. Since leaving the buses in June 1990 I've done stupid, blue collar, low-paid jobs like this, surrounded during the last ten years by immigrants from eastern Europe (with a smattering from Portugal and Brazil) because our native dossers are unwilling to do such work. The unwillingness I completely understand. I do it most unwillingly myself: but then, the same applies to every job I've ever done. I've loathed every single minute of working life, but I've done it, and I feel there has been a kind of resigned, beetle-like heroism in the relentless getting up and going in every day. I've never been unemployed. I've worked because I've had to, the alternative being to live under a railway bridge and eat scraps from litter bins. We are all "free" to do that.
Come to think of it, I hated school too. School and work have been the total of my life so far. Of retirement I cannot yet give an opinion, but I've looked forward to it as a far-off, blessed deliverance from suffering since about the third day of my working life, that is since February 1966.
Perhaps I will return to this subject during the mercifully decreasing number of days that stand between me and a pension. This was actually taken back in my "lost" digital years, in November 2007. Note the food industry hairnet. They were white in those days. Apparently the colour is important, and has been changed twice since. We now use blue; I've no idea why. Those wifty little "bump guard" jockey cap things were replaced by proper hard hats, latterly with ear defenders. They make me look ever so butch. All I need now is a pair of rigger boots. This was "my" reach truck, then nearing the end of its "rental aggreement". It was replaced by another not long afterwards. I preferred the older one. About six months ago one of my colleagues, told to clean the newer truck (we must have been trying to pull the wool over the eyes of some auditors, or a deputation of big knobs from Head Office), thought that the easiest way to accomplish this would be to take it outside and hose it down. In this he was doubtlessly correct; unfortunately it blew all the truck's electrical circuits. The estimate for repair was £3,000. We parked the truck in a corner and managed to keep the matter from our boss until about a fortnight ago when ...blimey! ...he actually descended from "upstairs" and made an appearance on the shop floor. By this time the person responsible had been sacked for a series of unrelated misdemeanors, mostly involving collisions between his truck and various parts of the building.
Attitude problem
My sister retired today. She is two years and three months younger than me; I've still got 49½ working days to go ...not that I'm counting or anything. And they say it's a man's world. Fwuh!
I can't bloody-well wait. Since leaving the buses in June 1990 I've done stupid, blue collar, low-paid jobs like this, surrounded during the last ten years by immigrants from eastern Europe (with a smattering from Portugal and Brazil) because our native dossers are unwilling to do such work. The unwillingness I completely understand. I do it most unwillingly myself: but then, the same applies to every job I've ever done. I've loathed every single minute of working life, but I've done it, and I feel there has been a kind of resigned, beetle-like heroism in the relentless getting up and going in every day. I've never been unemployed. I've worked because I've had to, the alternative being to live under a railway bridge and eat scraps from litter bins. We are all "free" to do that.
Come to think of it, I hated school too. School and work have been the total of my life so far. Of retirement I cannot yet give an opinion, but I've looked forward to it as a far-off, blessed deliverance from suffering since about the third day of my working life, that is since February 1966.
Perhaps I will return to this subject during the mercifully decreasing number of days that stand between me and a pension. This was actually taken back in my "lost" digital years, in November 2007. Note the food industry hairnet. They were white in those days. Apparently the colour is important, and has been changed twice since. We now use blue; I've no idea why. Those wifty little "bump guard" jockey cap things were replaced by proper hard hats, latterly with ear defenders. They make me look ever so butch. All I need now is a pair of rigger boots. This was "my" reach truck, then nearing the end of its "rental aggreement". It was replaced by another not long afterwards. I preferred the older one. About six months ago one of my colleagues, told to clean the newer truck (we must have been trying to pull the wool over the eyes of some auditors, or a deputation of big knobs from Head Office), thought that the easiest way to accomplish this would be to take it outside and hose it down. In this he was doubtlessly correct; unfortunately it blew all the truck's electrical circuits. The estimate for repair was £3,000. We parked the truck in a corner and managed to keep the matter from our boss until about a fortnight ago when ...blimey! ...he actually descended from "upstairs" and made an appearance on the shop floor. By this time the person responsible had been sacked for a series of unrelated misdemeanors, mostly involving collisions between his truck and various parts of the building.