Falling apart - Going to work is now hellish.

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Interesting thread. We've been on a journey on this over the last few years. Now in our mid 50s, youngest child just headed off to uni, Mrs PXW has just retired from her 65 hours/week teaching job, and I'm about to join her in retirement at the end of this year. Original plans were to work until I was about 65, at which point retirement would have been more than comfortable. However, health issues cropped up; I was diagnosed with lymphoma at the age of 52, which at that point gave me a median life expectancy of 70. Therefore working to 65 (with the prospect of repeated chemotherapy cycles in the meantime) didn't seem like smart planning. So, in with the IFA and on with the retirement planning - essentially working out our individual answer to the question "how much is enough?". As it happens, a highly successful intervention with immunotherapy has knocked the cancer back to zero, so life expectancy etc is not an issue any longer - but we have already got our heads in the retirement space, so we are going ahead. There will be some consultancy work (at least with my current employer, and possibly some others) and the scope to pursue a range of things we have wanted to do but professional careers, long commutes etc have prevented. We are fortunate - I have had some decent paying roles in the past, and we did downsize a few years back so we have no mortgage or other debts. The interesting thing is that I have yet to come across anyone who has chosen this course but now regrets it; I'm sure there are some out there (and there may well be on this forum too) but everyone I have spoken to has had no regrets at all.
 
By way of an example, on my wife's side, her Grandad retired in 1977 at the age of 50 years, and her Dad retired in 2002 at the age of 58 years. My wife doesn't work and so won't retire in that respect, so let's consider her brother, he's now 41 years old and unless he makes separate (significant) additional provision for his retirement over and above his pension, then I suspect he'll be older than 66 when he retires.

All three work/ed hard, were reasonably successful, all pay/id into their pension, and all enjoy/ed their pre-retirement life. The biggest differentiator between Grandad/Dad and brother is not having a final salary pension scheme and an employer who choose to deliberately retire people early for their convenience.

The other big differentiator is the ever-growing disconnection between earnings and property prices - the days when an average salary (currently about £27k a year) plus a 5% deposit would buy you an average house are long gone. Instead, people don't get a foot onto the property ladder until later in life and have to work longer to keep paying a hefty mortgage:

The rise of the 35-year mortgage | This is Money
 
I feel lucky in that I moved to London in 88 and bought my first place in 97 just before the prices went bananas. From where I live now in Zone 2 it's pretty easy to get anywhere work-wise in London (ie visiting clients' offices). If they have offices in other towns/cities I normally jump on a (fairly empty) train.

A few years ago my wife was very keen on moving out of town for the "quality of life" but thankfully that all fell through. It's not for everyone but London suits me as I've always liked living in cities. I like the density of people and the fact that there are always tons of things to do on your doorstep. Plus minimal travelling time.
 
I have been commuting into the City from darkest Surrey for a very long time. Train service is not bad but prone to falling over and simply overcrowded at the best of times.

My main problem though is far more basic: people, to be more precise the mass and individual stupidity and selfishness increasingly seen in the commuter. I think it is a stress artifact.

Happily I can, and do, work from home on a regular basis. Happier still is that on those days I do travel, fully flexible working means I can get a train which departs after 09.00. Vast majority of commuters have gone but it is before the rabble on cheap day tickets can travel.

This means I arrive at work at a civilsed hour untroubled by the conditions often found on South West Railways that would disgrace a slave ship. This means staying later in the office, normally not departing until after 19.00 or so but by then the heaving press of homeward misery has subsided, the post work drinkies and theatre mob have not yet pitched out and I can travel in something approaching tolerable comfort.

For those unable to benefit from this (which was me for far too long) commuting has indeed become Hellish. Sufferers of the London Underground (especially those wretches forced on to the Jubilee line out to Canary Wharf plus Central and Northern lines in general) are, as far as I can tell, all hideously stressed and all going mad
 
It's not Einstein, or maybe it is.

I've always been a fan of Einstein's Eighth Wonder of The World.

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But an auction this week produced a $1.56 million for this line of thought:

"A calm and humble life will bring more happiness than the pursuit of success and the constant restlessness that comes with it."

Now, that's a rubbish idea for a young parent with babies to support, but in the Last Quarter, maybe it's worth consideration.

Anyway, my invoice for $1.56 million for that bit advice is in the post.

Here's the link to that story: Einstein happiness note sold for $1.6m

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Over the years I have been involved with many large corporates both in the UK and abroad, whose head offices are regarded as a symbol of their success over the years.

The reality is that with very few exceptions, they are completely unnecessary, and usually, hopelessly lacking in productivity.

In most cases, the people who work there never leave their desks for work purposes. If they do try and attend meetings, the delay imposed by the lack of suitable meeting rooms usually ends up with the delegates conferencing via Skype or similar from their desk. In some of the larger buildings, even eating is causing a problem (trying to feed 8000 people is always going to take 3-4 hrs minimum). Most of their work is transactional; involving the movement of money or information, and could easily be done from any location in the world. Cash (perhaps the most valuable company asset) is transferred electronically – data is stored in some remote data centre (or cloud as it has become known).

The cost of travel, both from a monetary cost as well as time, impact on the environment, wear and tear on the individual is insanely high, and again, unnecessary.

The technology has been available for years for people to work at home, or at small regional business hubs near to where they live. The cost is a fraction of the equivalent cost of providing a desk in London (currently running in the region of £19-21k per seat per annum). The buildings themselves could easily be converted to other uses (lower cost housing close to the greatest demand), or if not, for planners to insist on future buildings including housing of this type and not highly expensive penthouses etc.

It really is time for senior management in these larger organisations to rethink their working practices. It’s probably one of the easiest ways of reducing our environmental impact as well as creating an easier work/life balance for everyone.

And it would keep people like me in a V8 gas guzzler, off the road …….. ;)
 
On the London Overground this morning around the Willesden Junction area,
the woman opposite me pulled out a Tupperware box and a spoon and began to eat what looked like dry Wheetabix and sugar then a chap standing up swigging from his can of Tyskie lager.
All at 7.28am!!!
 

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