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hi
I could write at great length on this subject. I'm retired now, I'm 62, finished at 54 as a uni lecturer in the uk. I disliked all of my 31 years in education, it was a means to an end, it paid ok, I could do it and I enjoyed good holidays. I got trapped in the career, I couldn't have broken free if I wanted to, the family needed feeding and the mortgage needed paying. The best time of my life has been my retirement. Every day, I choose what I do, don't have a lot of income, mind I have always enjoyed buying s/h bargains and doing things cheaply. Some sad people love their jobs and the job is their life, god help them, my philosophy was always the job got in the way of me doing the things I really wanted to do. Future generations will not be able to finish their working lives early as my wife and I did as you are paying for the excesses of my generation. I don't have any advice for you younger people, except sort it out for yourselves. |
I have not really been in the rat race for 10 years now and purely make enough money to feed the family and pay the bills, I have had all sorts of jobs and can turn my hands and brain to most things. My family is also a bit conjoined as my boys from a previous marriage live with me, my wife's disabled daughter from previous daughter lives with her and between us we have two other young daughters, one of whom has a severe heart condition.
I'm now a chimney sweep and have been for 3 years. At the time, I started it for family reasons, as the kids have regular hospital appointments, so it fitted in well, but what i didn't realise once I'd started up, how seasonal the work is, i.e. I don't get a lot of work from Feb through to August, so therefore this gives me plenty of time for biking/travelling, also customers are usually more than prepared to wait until I'm back from a trek which is great. But from now and until Christmas I'm flat out, so tend to make my money during this period and keep some back for the remainder of the year, aprt from October, when I take a 10 day break(Pyrenees in Oct 2013 :thumbup1:) Just too many wage whores about who moan about being time poor, but are usually money rich. You only get one life, so live it I say |
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I think I'm becoming one of them... But without the money rich part doh |
I'm time poor money poordoh
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you and me both matey! Regards Reggie |
Finally a place to have a good rant......:thumbup1: I retired from the police force (sorry service) in 2004 after 23 years faithful service. Glad to be out of "the job" I loved as it's changed so much now. :( I served in the Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) for 9 years and the Metropolitan Police (London) for the remaining 14 years. I rode a bike in the Special Escort Group for nearly 6 years and came out with the rank of Chief Inspector. I now refer to the modern police service simply as "Toy Town". When I joined the force in 1980, most officers were ex-squaddies with an inbuilt sense of public service. They also mostly looked the part - tall, lean, fit and appeared the kind of person you wouldn't want to mess with. In those days it wasn't possible to join the force if you had any kind of criminal conviction and apart from a few bad apples they were all decent, honest hardworking thief takers (officers that enjoyed protecting the public and lived to put the baddies behind bars). Most of those old-timers have been ethnically cleansed from the new modern service and replaced with "robots". A huge proportion of those now serving as police officers simply wouldn't have made the grade in the (good) old days. Senior police officers now exist to produce piles of inane paperwork. Political Correctness (regarding minorities etc) and Health & Safety has utterly ruined the job I gave my life to. I always refused to attend pointless Diversity Courses. I believe there is a 4 foot policeman serving in the Lincolnshire force! Last week while walking the streets of Tower Hamlets in London I saw with my own eyes a women police officer (WPC) who must have weighed 30 stone! Her waist was almost as wide as the "top of the range" car she was driving! doh Some women police officers even wear men's peaked caps instead of their own model! A peaked cap with hair poking from the sides looks utterly ridiculous. Their senior officers even encourage this kind of idiocy... Dial 999 these days and you're likely to get a couple of timid looking little girls turn up driving a top of the range executive car. Their little heads (bless them), poke just above the steering wheel. :nono: The uniform used to be a smart blue tunic and trousers with a white shirt and tie. The uniform now is a quasi-military black uniform based it would seem on Nazi Germany. Basically it's a soldiers uniform - hob nail boots with trousers tucked etc. The uniform is designed to be intimidating but this is a daft way to interact with the general public (the people who pay their wages and the people they are supposed to SERVE). When dealing with "Joe Public" they look and act hard men but when dealing with real criminals they turn into Social Workers! :( The main problem with the modern police model is this - the decent, law abiding people who are supposed to be protected (served) by these officers are now being treated as POTENTIAL CRIMINALS and law breakers. Huge surveillance databases are being amassed to criminalize the law abiding, tax paying, white, middle classes (the people who our left-leaning political masters really despise). These databases include the details of law abiding citizens who have never been convicted of a criminal offence. :( These days it's all about generating revenue for local government and above all, TEACHING US WHOSE BOSS! Things have become so bad that personally I would never phone them unless I needed a crime number for an insurance claim! doh Nothing will improve until our (failed) political masters start to make an example of wrongdoers - there needs to be proper deterrents in place to PUNISH criminals instead of rewarding wrong-doing. I could cry....doh |
there's a policeman (I use the old fashioned term deliberately!) in our town. We call him the proper copper.
He's probably in his 50s, clearly ex military. he stands over 6 feet tall, ram rod straight with a neat trimmed military moustache. He wears an old style uniform, Tunic and proper helmet, not a Tackleberry belt! He carries himself with such dignity he appears to float around the town! If I was a 14 year old scrote, he'd scare the bejeezus out of me. He commands respect without saying or doing anything except being himself. |
Translators Only
Hey Moggy 1968, my wife is also a translator. She is Spanish but has her PhD (Doctorate) from Syracuse University, New York. We live in Buenos Aires, north coast of Spain and at our ranch in Arizona, USA. Currently in Argentina. Elisa posts as rosa del desierto on the HUBB has translated various NY Times Best Sellers and many other books, journal articles and scientific papers, etc etc etc.......
Frankly, her work load is very heavy and she has many requests for native speakers of English translations into other languages. What are the languages your wife translates? Contact via PM or this tread... Gracias xfiltrate eat, drink and learn as many languages as you can. |
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She is just starting the second year of her masters, but she is a little daunted by how to get started in the business. Any tips your wife may have would be much appreciated, PM me if you like have one on mebeer |
Kentfallen
Spare a thought for the rest of us poor sods who are still in the job............with less then three years to go i thought i saw a light at the end of the tunnel but someone turned the torch off !! Still despite being medically downgraded which was a kick in the nuts , i am at least still able to work and have avoided the pension issues which most of my colleagues have fallen foul of . Most people i work with cant believe i used to have a whistle in my tunic and would dare to ram someones car to stop them fleeing the scene....................too Life on mars apparently . I meet lots of people my age - like most of the guys on this thread , you included Touring Ted ( lol ) and think it could always be worse :( On the bright side i still have two arms , two legs , most of my health , a cool missus and friends and of course :scooter: |
and your own teeth?
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Errrrrrrr , all except one :thumbup1:
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I'll love my jobs much better when i can view them in hindsight.
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I've got 2 jobs at the moment...but if I am honest I find it really hard to settle down! Ideally I'd be travelling the world and seeing as many places as possible, and discovering all kinds of different cultures! But lets be realistic, to do that you need a heck load of money, and how do you get it? It's a vicious circle :(
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I have the best job ever. I set my own schedule and do as I please. I have no boss and nothing to stop me from going at a whim. I am retired.
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