Funny thing, Dear Reader: I held off starting this blog in no small part cuz I couldn’t fathom how I’d come up with post topics with any reasonable regularity. What with my flea-addled brain running at a level just above dormant.
As it’s turned out, that concern hasn’t been much of one. How about that?! Fast-forward to today, and I now have a document in which I’ve scribbled a few dozen blog post subjects. My current challenges are choosing among them and determining whether they’re completely stupid or just mostly stupid I can write a full post on the selected topic.
Which brings me to this post. I think several of the possible writing subjects are decent but don’t warrant a full-length post. However, they share an overarching theme of me wondering about this or that. So, I figgered I’d write a post covering a few of these subjects.
UnemployAble
I’ve talked ad nauseum a lot about my funemployment part-time job and gig work. Ditto my post-FIREing conclusion that I’m likely done doing the legal industry work I did during my full-time career.
What I’ve not written about is that I now wonder whether I’m basically unemployable for any demanding and/or full-time work at all even if I ever felt an inkling to get back in the/a game. Sure, Internet Retirement Police Dear Reader, you might say, “work” is a four-letter word for someone who’s FIREd. Well, technically, “work” is a four-letter word, period. Just sayin’. Anyhoo . . . I hear you. But indulge me anyway as I ponderate (it is too a word!).
In the year or three after FIREing, my answer would have been that I could have worked in such a job. Today tho, I doubt it. In part because I’m even more assured that: (1) our finances don’t necessitate me working in such a job, and (2) FIRE life is really great and I’d hate to give it up. But also because I now see modern work/working conditions’ madness with different, greater, and, I think, more accurate clarity.
Here’s what I mean. I long recognized that employees and self-employed persons working for clients too often suffer unnecessary indignities, bite their tongues, and self-sabotage by sacrificing their own well-being or needs. Including by foregoing time off to which they’re entitled. Sometimes a lot of that time. Occasionally (and sadly), sometimes all of it. When you have to work, some of this likely is necessary.
But I now believe that that “some” too often becomes “way too much.” I think employers/clients today think—heck, assume—that in the employer/client – worker relationship the balance of power lies squarely in their favor. That they’re magnanimously doing the worker a favor by using his or her services. And even more, by paying for those services.
I’ve now concluded, however, that as to good workers (if you’re a bad worker, you’re on your own) not only is that dynamic not accurate, it’s often the reverse. Were employers/clients actually confronted with a good worker demanding something reasonable and/or threatening to stop working for the employer/client, I think the employer/client would more often than conventionally thought buckle and accommodate (at least in part) the demand(s).
But I also think that because employers/clients are so used to presuming that they hold the balance of control, getting them to that buckling would take more effort than it ought to, and maybe even engender unwarranted enmity on the employers’/clients’ part. That’s where the rubber hits the road for me. I’ve no tolerance whatsoever for that.
So, stripping out my not wanting to do demanding work or work a full-time schedule (which, uuummm, ain’t exactly nothing), I think I’m unemployable not because I don’t think I can get answers/accommodations I want from an employer/client but because I don’t think I could tolerate the motions required to get to them. Call it a full embrace of “flute you” money and a low bar for saying “flute you.”
Talk to me
Since FIREing, I’ve wondered why so many non-FIRE people who know I’m FIREd have never brought up the subject of me nominally retiring or, sometimes, no longer really talk to me at all. To illustrate, I’ll use the example of a trip The Family and I took last year to see a bunch of the Missus’ family, including her siblings and their spouses and kids.
My relationship with these siblings/spouses/kids isn’t close, but we get on well. The event was the first time I’d seen them in person in several years, so I was anxious to catch up. Based on all past experience, I anticipated bonhomie and chatting.
Instead, several of the siblings made no effort to talk to me at all. Heck, they barely made an effort to talk to The Missus. I occasionally tried to strike up a conversation but each time ran into a ditch. Usually quickly. I wondered if I was imagining or overblowing things. But The Missus shared my sentiments, so I knew that I wasn’t wholly off base.
The Missus agreed with my assessment of the situation: that they thought that I (and, by extension, The Missus) am crazy. Crazy for nominally retiring (I don’t think they know of my post-FIREing “work”). And so decided not to talk to someone who’s clearly off his rocker. Or at least who they can’t make sense of.
Then there’s some people to whom I talk regularly, but who rarely if ever ask about my post-FIREing life. They don’t think I’m crazy. But I sense that they think it’s only a matter of time before I’m financially forced back to work.
Thing is, when the subject (or an adjacent subject, such as the concept of “happiness” or “enough”) comes up and we have a discussion, the conversation inevitably is engaged and they usually learn from me. I know because they say as much. I think they also might even ask themselves whether they could FIRE themselves (but ultimately conclude that the question is madness). And I’ve certainly never given them any reason to think our finances are shaky, much less a mess, since FIREing.
I’d have thought there’d have been more curiosity. Maybe even them taking steps they’d not otherwise have thought of taking but for my example. But, nope.
Other people’s money
My nephew lives in a different state. It’s been a minute since we’ve seen him, so we decided to fly him out to us for a 5ish-day visit. We clearly don’t have to do this. Rather, we want to.
My sister-in-law (SiL) gave us a two-week timeframe within which we could plug the trip. She did mention that during that time period there was an event (The Event) that my nephew wanted to go to back home but that it wouldn’t be a dealbreaker if he missed it.
Seeking to travel hack the flight, I found that the best option pointwise was Itinerary A. We also discovered that because of my nephew’s young age, there’s an unaccompanied minor fee of a few hundred dollars to fly him out. Annoying, in addition to expensive.
Itinerary A would mean that my nephew would miss The Event. But as my SiL had specifically said that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if my nephew missed it, we settled on and presented it to her. To our surprise, my SiL replied that the itinerary wouldn’t work because she didn’t want my nephew to miss The Event. The Missus and I were frustrated but bit our tongues. We then found Itinerary B, which was inferior to Itinerary A in every way, including points required.
My SiL ultimately blessed Itinerary B but never apologized for or otherwise mentioned reneging on the viability of Itinerary A or causing us to have to book something “cost”-wise less-desirable for us. Why?, I wondered? She clearly knew the adverse consequences (being a bit passive-aggressive, I was clear about them with her).
I wondered if that was because she, and, I’ve found, people generally give all the flutes when they’re paying for something. Which leaves no flutes available for caring when other people’s money is at issue.
Lemme be clear. I’m not really upset that Itinerary B is costlier than Itinerary A. Sure, it’s annoying. But we’re still paying for the flights (aside from the unaccompanied minor fee) with points, and not a ton more than required for Itinerary A.
No, what really bothers me is concluding what I have about people’s concern about spending other peoples’ money (I discuss my SiL here, but have experienced the same with oodles of other people).
Probly Maybe I’m wrong in my assessment. But I wonder.
And in the end . . .
Welp, that was not fun, wasn’t it, Dear Reader? Three blog posts for the price of one! What a deal . . . or no deal!
