Hacker News Reader

Comment by monk_e_boy | Hacker News Reader

They keep raising the age for retirement in the UK. One of the politicians said something along the lines of "Well what else would you do all day if you didn't have a job?"

It scares me that people like that are in charge. Don't these people do things for enjoyment? Have hobbies? Have a social life?

Most people on HN have aspirations, drive and ambition. Most people I know don't really care about working other than they wished they could work fewer hours. Most of us have lots of other interesting things to do in life...

View on HN

They were talking about raising the retirement age in the US during the election debates also.

Whenever I hear this I think "fine, I like working, but it's hard enough getting hired after 50 never mind 60". What are they expecting all these 66 year old people are going to be doing?

Yeah, the only people who think that a 66 year old can work full time has only ever worked behind a desk.

Try swinging a hammer 8 hours a day when you're 60. Good luck.

The people I know with jobs that provide autonomy, respect, satisfaction of intellectual curiosity, socialization and decent compensation don't seem to want to retire at any age, and are usually forced out due to physical limitations. On the other hand the cubicle-dwelling worker bees start to lust after retirement in their 30s and 40s. I think this heavily depends on the job and is more of a reaction to specific employment environments rather than the concept of any professional work period.

Completely agree with this. It really depends on what kind of job you work in. Most software engineers in the US are probably very satisfied with what they work on. But I've seen many friends in other countries who hate programming, since they work for outsourcing firms that don't allow for much creativity/freedom.

Every coding job I've had is beset with the owner saying "Well we're running out of money - anyone got any ideas on what to do about it?"

It's very very hard where I live to find a job that pays well, it's almost unheard of to get a silicon valley type job with 20% time and to be working on something amazing and cutting edge.

A lot of people on HN seem to want to start or join a start up, work hard, sell it for lots of money and then use that money to enable freedom of choice (work/life balance.)

We just don't get those sorts of jobs here, so hobbies and time in the pub is important.

Retirement is unnatural.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com