This post was written in 2012, but I never published it. I don’t know why. It’s just as true today.
I’ve decided after several years of retirement that I need to get a job.
I’m not sure what kind of a job I need or want.
Let’s put it this way, I don’t want a career. Nor am I looking for anything too challenging. Actually, collecting carts at a supermarket seems nice, if it pays enough to make it worth getting out of bed for.
That’s the rub.
Certain jobs are fairly easy to find. Easy to get and easy to get rid of. But they’re nothing to write home about and don’t pay much.
I thought I could get by living cheaply and simply. It worked for a while, but the cost of things went up and up. My kids grew up and I don’t get their income tax exemptions anymore. That’s $200 a month I had to add to what I was withholding for taxes. You would think retirement would be tax-free, wouldn’t you?
I just filled my gas tank and hit a new record for the most I ever spent and I stopped before it was full. $70. It’s gone up $0.10 a gallon this week.
I’m not greedy. I don’t expect a lot, but minimum wage seems like a slap in the face. I don’t want benefits. I don’t need a pension, I’m collecting mine already. I don’t care if there is profit-sharing and as for a 401K, I’m still waiting for the investments I already have to take off and do something, anything, please… I mean, they’re not gone, but they’re not growing at the rate I need to live off of in luxury, no thanks to you Mr. Wall Street Fat Cats…
So, I can’t decide what kind of job to pursue. I can’t see myself as a greeter at WalMart. Most retail would probably be a mistake that would end up with me fired after expressing myself saracastically towards a customer. I don’t think customer service at Geico would fare much better.
I have a trade. I could probably find work as an electrician. But I retired from that. The trouble with that is that most of the work out there is in construction, either residential or light industrial. That’s not what I did. You probably don’t know the difference, unless you worked in the field. But it’s like asking a heart surgeon to do proctology. Sorry to any proctologists reading this. It’s not that I don’t know how, but electrical construction is hard, rough work, best suited for young people. I’m too old to go back into that. The kind of work I did as an electrician was 90% done with a laptop computer and the rest with tools that I could have carried in a briefcase. Those jobs are just not out there today.
I could work in some part of the computer industry. Repair. I.T. Small Office systems. But those require a lot of dedication. A lot of responsibility. You need to be available at all hours to fix things. Sorry, I want to stay semi-retired. I don’t want a lot of responsibility.
So, let’s see. What do I want and what do I have to offer? I want to be paid well. Cash is king. No bennies, no retirement, no health plan. If you have those things, I’ll take cash in lieu. I’d like part-time. Flexible hours. Set my own hours preferably.
What could I do? Low physical demand. No heavy lifting, exertion, etc. Leave that for the young guys. Travel is nice. I like driving. Within reason. I can deal with people up to a point. I need to have some authority, not this customer is always right stuff, I need to be able to reason, to negotiate with them.
I’m intelligent, learn fast, like a bit of a challenge, am willing to try something new. Actually, a change would be good.
It occurs to me, after reading this there is only one ideal job for me. I should have realized it sooner. It’s as plain as the nose on my face. My perfect job is hit man for the mob!
But seriously, I’d hate to take a job that some young person needs, but it just seems like no matter what I’d do, that’s what would be happening. But I shouldn’t suffer either. It’s survival. I mean, regardless what Mitt Romney thinks, I’m not a freeloader – the Social Security and Medicare I will receive in a few years, if they don’t take it away, is something I earned and paid into for 40 years. But it’s just not enough as it is.
