work because I like to, not because I have to

In June, I spent a week at my Dad’s place in Illinois. I was there to help take care of him after surgery. Unfortunately, he had a tough time afterwards. The poor man was in the hospital the day I returned home, and ended up being there for 5 days.

Before he went “under the knife”, Dad took me on a tour of his workplace. (He is a retired police officer, and still works there part time, handling registered sex offenders.) He told me something very important while we saw the place. It was “When I’m here, I feel great because I’m doing something useful. I dread it when my shift ends, because I know that I’ll feel like crap again as soon as I get home.”

Coming from a 73-year-old man, this is pretty powerful! In our society, we believe that old people should retire and get the hell out of the workplace for their own good as well as that of the employer. I’m sure that my father is not the only older man who benefits from meaningful work. As us “baby boomers” move towards retirement age, we need to challenge society’s attitudes and demand more employment options for those over 60. And better ones as well. I’m sorry, but being a greeter at Wal-Mart isn’t going to cut it for every older person, nor should it be expected to.

then we had better be doing something we like with people we get along with. Especially since we are always hearing about how we are going to have to work longer before we can retire. (Thanks to medical costs and insurance being out of sight and the fact the people are living longer.) And even if retirement isn’t that far off, do we really want to be counting our days until it happens? I sure as hell don’t (unless it’s so close that I can count the days on my fingers). Life is way too short to put off fun!