Early retirement disturbs cycle of a man’s journey
THE most lacerating experience for the working man must be retrenchment. Whether it is voluntary or statutory, early retirement plays havoc with a man’s psyche. His entire biorhythmic life goes out of whack and the adjustments are never enough.
Companies that apply this strategy are invariably driven by the profit motive. No one considers the havoc it generates. We are wired at birth for Jacques’ seven ages of man, from mewling baby to the old man, sans teeth, sans hair, sans everything.
To cut a man’s working life because a company is not doing as well as expected is nothing short of amputation without anaesthetic. The bosses see losses, the retrenched see a hopeless wasteland.
No matter the size of the severance package, it can never factor in realistic inflation, or unexpected misfortune that can wipe out resources.
And even institutions like banks, who are supposed to help plan a tottering future of unpredictable duration, cream off their bit from the top in the guise of “service costs”. So we pay money with our money for them to look after our money.
The truth is, retirement or retrenchment coincides with crucial stages in our children’s lives. We cannot escape the reality that grandpa or grandma is targeted for assistance with the fees and costs of easing their children’s children into adulthood.
The chronology just works that way. That is why many retirees, as a surviving strategy, sell their houses to their children. Insurance agents tout insurance policies when we are young and working, because for them the return is instant commission. None of them tout longterm investment, like unit trusts or such like, where they have to wait for their commission.
I took voluntary severance as high school principal at 53. I was not prepared to turn my school into a political hot spot. I wasn’t against change. I taught children that burning a desk as protest against racism achieved nothing.
You just ended up with no desk to sit on the next day. A matric candidate said to me: “Sir, you push us so hard to do well but we just end up in the unemployment queue.”
We had no strategies with which to equip them for the ignominy of the dole queue.
The myth of entrepreneurial ventures has effectively been exploded. Few survive against the monolithic business institutions that discourage or swallow young upstarts.
So we perpetuate the myth of freedom to be whatever you choose because the constitution says so.
And we end up with a budget for 17 million receivers of government grants. What is the answer? Some suggest the scrapping of capitalism, worker-partnership in companies, self-employment, profit sharing. I don’t know. I can only suggest that bosses see their workers as people, and not statistics on a spreadsheet reflecting corporate profit.