There is a method to all my time in the office these days. I have been “unemployed” for three years now. That was intentional, and I’d like to restate my reasons, for clarity. My original plan was two years, for I needed to see if, when I reached retirement age, I had what it takes to be self-employed. You hear such horror stories about Social Security. I did well enough to make it three years.One thing I did not want was to be caught, like so many people, turning 65 without any experience at self-employment. This is important because I regularly meet dumb bunnies who assumed they knew all about running their own business and wind up on the skids. There are other financial woes connected with holding a job after normal retirement age, but not with running a business. One new thing about unemployment is that I no longer fear it.
So it is with amusement that I read over the job listings for seniors and it is appalling. (See for yourself at the AARP site.) It is all too obvious that spending a lifetime as a driver, secretary or repairman qualifies you for zilch in the end. You may tell yourself you put in a productive forty years but if you work at all, it will be stocking shelves at Winn/Dixie. If you are over 45, there are only entry level positions available.
I attended the required Workforce meetings back in ’04. I was in a room full of recently-fired middle and lower management types who were being rudely awakened. Let’s see, twenty-two years a recruitment office at the electric company? We can get you in at Home Depot starting at $6.15 per hour. (The minimum required to live in Florida is twice that. Nobody “earns” $40 per hour in this town, despite what you may have heard.)
However, after rejecting returning to school at my own expense (I decided against Barry due to the hidden costs involved), I may still return with government grants. After seeing the pitiful offerings out there, my focus is now more toward seeing if they’ll pay me to go to school. As a reminder, I still need 9 quarters of employment to get my full Social Security, so I am looking for anything, even part time.
Then at 7:08 a.m. my security camera picks up a truck with Kentucky plates. Sure enough, it is Enriquez. We’ve been meaning to talk to him about the transfer of title to this trailer. He gave us a wrong copy at the time of sale. That means all the time the trailer in this blog has not officially belonged to anyone. Keep tuned for news on this major development, which could end in my moving back to the other coast.
I shot an arrow unto the air. Upon sending out a contact probe for every addy I’ve ever collected, who do I get a response from? The lovely Anita from somewhere in the Atlantic Northeast. Years ago I embraced the WebTV concept and hoped it would fly. [Alas, MS kept altering the system until it finally required equipment as large and expensive as a computer.] There I met Anita, one sharp lady if only because she knows how to tell one man from another, a lost art in the tattoo era.
After hours, I went to the library and read material concerning “mature citizens re-entering the workforce”. Judging by averages since 2002, one of the [projected] better paying jobs through 2025 was masonry, at $16.02 per hour. (The missing $20 per hour must be for hiring a laborer to hand him the bricks?) Do forgive my reservations over retirees getting into construction, but I keep getting this visual of some65 year-old executive asking the catering truck driver for “Worcestershire Sauce”. Hay arriba, tu estupido dobo que como caca tanto grande!
One thing is certain, lots of Americans will soon be getting a wake-up call. But instead of Enron, it is going to be their government. All rulers in history who used paper money went south when it came time to pay the real bills. The dollar is worth 4 cents of the value it had back when it was based on gold. Now nobody knows if there is even any gold left in Fort Knox. The government won’t let anybody in for a look.
