Do you like or want to - work?

Hi Iain, thanks for your input.

Me and my husband each worked 39 years before retiring, so we have also paid a lot of our income into the public coffers. Like you, we were expected to work and had little choice, but we managed. However not everyone is able to do that, and as you say, some.of those funds are to support those who cannot work and I wholeheartedly support that. I do worry that people who have real issues are told by government employees that they should be working when they really cannot cope.

You say you are retired, and I'm glad to hear of your success gaining a comfortable life in a cheaper place, and admire your energy and commitment to charity work and helping others. It hardly sounds like "retirement" to me though! Probably it's different to work in that you choose what you do & when you do it though, rather than being told.

I'm around 10 years older than you I believe, and most people find they need to slow down after they get into their sixties. I was working part time in my last job and even that had started to exhaust me in the last 9 months. I do need to set up a structure, but I don't want to mix with people much. I like reading and playing games, which keeps the mind active, and I'm thinking of doing some online learning. Hope you continue to enjoy your retirement.

I’m unable to work and I am very worried that Labour will force people who can’t work work do you think they will force everyone to work even if they can’t?

I really shouldn't grumble,as comparatively speaking my mental health has been better - since  moving to be near my daughter and coming under a much better mental  health team. My physical health on the other hand...

I agree Mellow Jan - I was not intending for anyone to feel bad if they cannot work - it's a measure of society how well they look after their disabled citizens. I do not judge anyone.

Hope it goes well Pegg, I have walked away from quite a few jobs because I couldn't cope with them any longer. Part time has always been better for me, but there was a long period when I had to work full time for financial reasons. 

Sorry to hear about your issues Fire monkey - hope things improve.

Hi Cat Woman, I understand what you mean about people trying to pigeon hole you - I think they need to work out what your identity is, which to them includes occupation, so they can assess whether you are "their kind of person", whether they want you in their circle, and whether you are above or below them in status. We of course couldn't care less what someone does for a job - we just might be interested in what it involves or whether they enjoy it.

I also agree with you about structure. Now I'm retired I'm trying to get that in place. I'm thinking of doing some open learn free online study with the open university - have you tried that?

I'm glad that you have been supported, Uhane.

I totally agree, Irish.

I've been working in my current job for a year. I've had others, but can't sustain them indefinitely, about 2 years, so far. 

I like and believe in my current job, but at the same time, know 5 days a week is too much. 

As I have been since I started, I'm ready to walk away if I feel I must, I've made the mistake of overstaying my capacity before, with disastrous consequences.

I'm doing my best.

I never had a paid job, and only did a very little amount of voluntary work. It was more so the severe social anxiety and the paranoia stemming from bullying related trauma  that affected me, than the schizoaffective/schizophrenia. I've always been far more brain than brawn, but don't do well under pressure,  My manual skills were nowhere good enough to do a job requiring those kind of skills. Then there are the moderately severe EF difficulties. I never had any help and support for it.  Instead for most of my time as a psych patient I've been regarded as a  problem patient. Not so in the last,coming up for, 7 years though.

Work is great when it's the "right" work and absolutely horrible if it's the wrong work!

The super-rich (who should not even be allowed to have such eye-watering amounts of wealth in the first place) have never and will never pay their fair share of tax, leaving it down to the rest of us and we will continue to suffer ever more draconian penalties even more so now for doing so - what the super-rich are in effect doing is theft and will not suffer any consequences for same, so when I hear stories of people finding a way of “gaming the system” or of “cheating the benefits or taxman” in contrast to what I once naively believed, my attitude now is “fair play if you can get away with it” because they are only getting back what they have been denied in terms of the kind of life and future that they would have had “above board” if the system had been fairer and this is very much the reality as we have now learned - being idealistic and saying that we “should not steal or cheat” is all very well, even if “two wrongs don’t make a right” this is about survival as our world heads towards collapse because of the greed of the super rich - when a 4 day working week was proposed recently, no one seemed to realise that this would mean 12 hours shifts in each working day, which measures will not stimulate employment or growth in the economy but will actually accelerate the collapse of the economy and of civilisation 

It was me who said about being a human being not a human doing.

I think theres a lot of pressure not only to work, but to do the "right" work, its often dependent on class and the social expectations that go with it, education plays its role in this too. How much education is encouraged or not, there's still a lot of people who discourage education and others who over value it, especially when they can't except that they're chid isn't that accademic.

I would love to go back to hairdressing, I love being in a salon, the smells of the chemicals, all the equipment and the feeling of making people happy, I mis the creative and artistic side of it too.

I would love to go back to university, I miss the discipline of study and the access to resourses that I just can't get anywhere else.

I do structure my days, with dog walking, shopping, cooking, reading, tv watching done at certain times and not others, I think it's important to dave structure when you're not working, as otherwise I find people sort of drift into aimlessness and  depression.

I hate being asked 'what do you do?' Having been someone who's had a career tangent rather than a path, people don't know how t pigeon hole me, even when I worked in a shop it wasn't a "normal" shop, it was a wholefood co-operative and I'd spend my evenings explaining the business model of a co-operative or talking about peoples food issues. As a hairdresser I had people either tell me about who bad all hairdressers were or asking me questions and for advice. When I was a counsellor, people would tell me all sorts of things I didn't want to know. When I was working at a B&B abd Retreat house, running retreats and looking after those taking them, people would either give me a funny look and go away, or they'd start asking me questions of the sort they thought they could bully me over, they didn't because I didn't give them the answers they needed to do so. Some people were really interested, especially busy Mums who liked the idea of spending a week in silence, not having to listen to the constant chatter of small children and having the space to listen to one of their own thoughts from one end to another without interuption.

After my redundancy after 17 years of constant prejudice, discrimination and bullying in 2019 (I was diagnosed with autism in 2021 - I’m 53 now) I was terrified of falling into another bullying situation as bullies always “network” with each other, given past experience of bullying as an older Irish gay man from a Catholic background who at one point ended up homeless for 6 months when I first came to the U.K. 23 years ago, it’s probably the very reason why I was very “awake” to what was really going on with Covid, even when all around me could not see it - my attitudes towards working and the workplace have considerably altered since my teens in the 80’s and yet I very clearly see the bullying mindsets that are at play, having lived in a socially deprived area for 23 years - it’s why I passionately believe that post-diagnosis assessments are vital in assessing level of autism and appropriate autism supports that are required going forward and must become a basic legal entitlement and requirement, especially for those of us diagnosed later in life - soon after my diagnosis, I was “pushed” into a job and it turned out to be a disaster as they had almost no knowlege of autism or disability issues, the management had no experience and there was no access to appropriate supports, as I had no idea of my support needs, which had I had a post-diagnosis assessment, I would have had a better idea of same - pushing people into unsuitable jobs, even with appropriate support, is bad for everyone, bad for jobcentres, bad for the employee, bad for the employer and their business - we see the same thing happening with employment agencies where people are sent there from jobcentres and where employers sometimes hire agency staff to fill gaps in their rosters, as the agency staff are not able to do the jobs as well as they should and this creates resentment among existing staff - I’d worked previously (not by choice) in supermarket retailing for 30 years in low-grade positions (not by choice) and especially since Covid, I’ve never seen things so bad - having no pensions when I reach retirement age, I already face a very bleak future, so how much worse is it going to be for the younger generations 

Well for me I moved to my current location to have a lifestyle change that went well!

I would love to work but when i apply for jobs get told I am overqualified and would get bored.The point is I want a boring job now but when ready will want more responsibility.Then what happens I join unfairly the criminal justice system so now I feel too ill mentally to work.

So am I fed up you bet

This is a very touchy subject.

All I will say is that the social safety net exists for a reason.  And no one should be ashamed to claim what they are  legally entitled to claim.

I have enjoyed the freedom of public assistance as a "disabled person" for a long time. I do like to have a way to be of service and I can find ways to do that easily enough. Holding down and maintaining the hours needed at a job has always been a challenge. 

Pixiefox said:

I feel that society may over value work in some ways, and that maybe it programmes us to think that not working is lazy or unproductive?

There is a degree of you being expected to work - everyone contributing to the tax pool in order for things like the NHS, pensions and PIP to exist. Those that need ot use these services are a net drain on the pool so it probably needs the majority to work to cover those who cannot.

That is a huge simplification of course.

I worked for 32 years, paid a huge amount of tax along the way from income and capital gains, stamp duty, fuel tax etc so I feel I've more than done my share.

The work was mostly for big corporates where I was a small cog in a small part of the machine, making sure everything else had the IT systems working they needed for their jobs - far from satisfying.

For my generation (Gen X), work was pretty much considered something to be endured to pay for your quality of life so you were expected to suck it up and deal with it - everyone was much the same. Not working was never really an option unless you got rich, got ill or found some loophole in the matrix to get out.

Now I retired in my mid 50s after making some very successful renovation projects and can persue a comfortable life in a cheaper place (Brazil in my case) while doing the things I want to do.

I'm renovating properties, hiring some people who really need the work and teaching myself to master some skills I need to improve (plumbing and plastering mostly) and am doing some charity work by saving derelict property and making it into affordable housing.

I also do some project work for a few people in need, train skills for some looking for a way out of poverty and even labour for others who cannot aford it themselves on occasion - cheaper than the gym.

At other times in the year I teach school leaving age autistic kids about how to navigate the life changes coming their way - this is the most rewarding thing at the moment although it is only a few dozen hours a year.

I always looked at retirement (as in not working while you are able to) as giving up. I would always want to be active doing something, helping others or having some side hussle or other on the go.

Part of the reason for this is I have seen so many of my parents age go through the retirement thing, just sitting about, pottering in the gardern etc and seen their cognetive abilities decline rapidly compared to those who kept active mentally and/or physically.

Sorry for the ramble but I had a few thoughts to get out there.

Pixiefox said:

I have got some sense of satisfaction from doing a job well during certain periods of my working life

I identify with this description. 

I prefer to work when I am able and the opportunity becomes available. 

Although, I do wish there were more Managers of calibre (the good ones are relaxing to work with and in that environment a Team can be a force to be reckoned with and I can find my place within such a Team ...just a shame that good Managers are so few and far between).