How Long Do You Plan On Working?

Kind of banking on that massive heart attack at age 35 to take me out.

In reality I will end up working myself into the grave, even if it is not in this industry. Retirement is mandatory right now at my shop at 65, Don't think I will make it that far here, will be happy to make it past February. Even if I do make it that far I will probably still have to work somewhere barring winning the lottery.

 

With new health care plan I am able to pursue my dream of making pottery.

 

If I could do it all over again, I'd take some easy government job that they were handing out to anyone who wanted one in the mid 1990s, do that for 30 years and retire at 55. Hell, I'd be almost halfway home.

 

Yeah, I feel the same way. Government jobs turned out to be the Goldman Sachs for Joe Six Pack.

Those sweet-ass retirement packages are fantastic, as long as the whole pyramid scheme holds out.

 

Last I heard, they were still hiring:

 

Exactly. I'm 24 and I will never be able to retire.

 

I can see a point in about 20-25 years where the government will say you've got until x-date to apply for Social Security, and after that you're SOL. There will be a rush for the exits at that point.

I'm afraid there won't be any SS left by that time. Better get your 401K's in shape, because that may be all you have.

 

Yeah, I have nightmares about that regularly. In 1993 when I got out of the Navy that would have been the way to go. I, on the other hand, thought it would be a good idea to go to college and get a journalism degree so I could make less than a janitor in the county school system.

Oddly enough, my cousin has one of those plush government jobs that pays him about 2.5 times what I make with benefits and days off that make me cry, but I'll retire before him because he is as fiscally sound as a Chinese peso.

 

Up until about 2 years ago it looked like I could decently retire at 65, possibly 62.

Now, I'm gonna have to work at some peon shit-shoveling job until I physically can't, then it will be time to apply for the Tylenol Permanent Retirement Plan.

I will never be able to retire in my life. Oh well, nobody held a gun at my head and forced me to go into journalism.

 

If I had to do it all over again, I would've gone back to graduate school for a masters in public administratoin. Shit. I really shouldn't be posting while in the middle of a bottle of red.

 

My ideal would be to retire from my current paper at age 62. We started it fall of '08 when I was 31, so if I put in 31 years I can retire at 62 and say I devoted half my life to the paper. I mean, what could go wrong with that plan? ;D

 

It's sad how almost every journalist lives with regrets these days.

My wife's career is going extremely well. I'm lucky. My hope is to still transition into a government job with the help of my dad and retire as soon as I can. I'm not doomed to working in journalism forever, and neither are any of you guys. Remember that.

Best advice I ever got came from the falling-over drunk father of one of my best friends.

"You guys can do whatever you want. It's really up to you."