What to do, retired?

[keith with the teef]

I’m sure some of you chaps have retired from the world of work.

I retired 3 weeks ago aged 56.

I’m fed up of running out of milk. I now have this in check and now get an extra bottle.

So for a bloke who some times worked 15 hours a day and drove a lorry for a living. I have to say I dont know what to do now that I have put down that steering wheel.

I’ve bee around with the hoover and fixed the hoover, washed up, gardened, tidied up the garage.

I dont know how the washing machine works. Nor do i want to.

I got 2 bicycles. One for the dragon and one for me. Done some cycling.

Eating out, the pub, the cinema do not interest me like they used to.

Is that how it is now?

What do you retired guys do for purpose?

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

You need a new hobby, how about learning a computer programming language ?

You can start small with something like Python, but if you set your target as writing a small Windows app in C++ using only the win32 and DirectX API’s and then packaging it up for upload to the Windows store I recon it could keep you busy for about 10 years 🤣

[RSB]

Fishing 🎣

Brewing 🍻

Miniature steam engines🚂

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[JayCeeDee]

Relax………….. you’re not ill, you’re not going mad, life has just changed.

Think back to all the conversations that you’ve had with people over the years and you’ve said to them “Yeah, that sounds great, but I just don’t have the time.”

You really need something to keep your mind busy, structure your time and be fun. Depending on the sort of person you are that could range from visiting all the family that you never had time to ( Covid situation permitting ) to taking up golf, getting a dog, joining a club or group, or even volunteering – that could be at  an animal Rescue Centre or a Charity or ferrying the elderly to Doctors appointments or hospitals – unless you’re fed up with driving now??

It’s basic time management, because if let yourself get bored or lonely ( Dragon permitting ) you’ll be no good to yourself or anyone. If you’re into things like architecture or gardening or history there are days out now the countryside is re-opening.

Do more things for and with your wife as that will take some adjustments too. I was fortunate in that when I ‘retired’ from BT in ’93 ( voluntary Redundancy ) I then spent 15 years working together, so we already had been 24/7, and despite loving her to bits, that took quite an adjustment!! When we actually stopped working, it wasn’t such a huge change.

Depending on how you both feel, you could still work, if that is what you’re missing, we did Home Dog Boarding, but that was more a necessity to see us through to our Pensions. Also check with her to see what suits her, is she happy to have you around, or are you just getting under her feet. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but it’s real!!

Best of luck and welcome to the new life you should be looking forward to, you’ve earned it.

Edit – just remembered the best piece of advice someone gave me, which was to get yourself a decent, top of the range 10 year car, because now you’ve stopped earning, finance will be more difficult as you get older.

[Richard]

Contact Tesco, they are offering a £1,000 bonus for lorry driving at the moment, not sure about the rest  of the package. Why did you go in the first place. Some of us had the business go sideways from them, that is when the family medical issues can start to come onboard and overwhelm you. That is one I do not recommend to anyone.

[keith with the teef]

Thanks for the replies so far. All good.

I just left Tesco actually. I was planing on retiring anyway. I play my cards close to my chest. So no one knew I was going to retire. But the nail in the coffin was when a manager deliberately misinterpreted my endeavors and then tried to use them against me.

Needless to say with the pandemic and me doing my bit for Queen and country and keeping us fed and conscientious like a NHS workers. It hit me pretty hard what this A hole did. I did not get over it and wanted to put him in a hole. Lol. Thankfully that aspiration has now evaporated.

I will be renewing our passports and hopefully do some shoe string traveling over the coming years. I may look to do a little work nearer Xmases over the years but not for A hole Tesco.

 

[Ed P]

If you need pin-money, virtually every Industrial Site outlet around here is looking for drivers as Prime, DPD etc have scooped up most casual drivers. As you know the ropes it should be pretty easy for you to join the opposition, e.g. Ocado, Waitrose etc.

If you do not need the cash then as John said, volunteering can help you fill your time in a very productive way. The only downside to volunteering is that it is very easy to join, but you soon become essential to their operation and leaving becomes hard.

[Dave Rice]

If you’re like every other commercial driver I know you’ll be chomping at the bit to get back behind the wheel before long.

My best man decided on a change of course, joined the PO Counter with me, moved to the back office then after a few years wormed his way into driving the cash vans, then the parcel trunking. Made an offer he couldn’t refuse to “retire”, now driving the sh1t tankers for Wessex Water and loving every minute of it.

I would never go back to being full time employed, I can’t think of anything worse. However there are plenty of agencies out there and I’d imagine some short term or casual work would be easy to get. Work when you want, don’t when you don’t want to. The good thing now is you can say no and nobody can make you.

[keith with the teef]

All good advice lads and thanks. I will definitely keep away from volunteering.

 

[Ed P]

Keith you will be interested in this week’s Private Eye as they do an exposé on Tesco’s empty shelves. Tesco Management claim it is all caused by BoJo’s Brexit and the resulting shortage of HGV drivers. Not so says the Eye, much of the driver shortage is also caused by Tesco’s outsourcing to companies such as Eddie Stobart, and predatory wage cutting actions on the drivers who remained with them.  The result has been  that many drivers, like you, have upped-sticks. Just to add to Tesco’s worries, Unite are now calling strikes in protest at Tesco’s predatory behaviours.

BoJo (The Grinch)  can expect even more empty shelves at Christmas time. BoJo’s early election plans may need to be put on hold!

For our part, we are using the lessons we learned in the Middle East and Africa. Goods would come in on containers about once every two months, if you did not grab stuff when it was available you did without for another eight weeks. We are now starting to fill the freezer, and buy grandchildren Xmas toys two months earlier than normal!

 

[keith with the teef]

@ EDP. Yes, right on the money from: Private eye.  Its like I wrote it. 🙂

Quote: For our part, we are using the lessons we learned in the Middle East and Africa.

Sounds like you have spend some time in Gaza. That place is a future shock movie right now. Well has been for years.

I guess the next big question is now that china has clocked how good the rest of the world are at developing vaccines. When and what else are they going to release on us. Will they be targeting the old and infirm again or fertility next time. Oh, my bollocks have gone black and fell off.

 

 

[keith with the teef]

Well. Ive decided to go back to work.

The planned idea in retirement was to go to Australia until Xmas and see most of my village of my age who emigrated there.

That obvs no go, Auz gov, corona.

And others we looked at until Xmas, maybe: India, Barley, and so on and all a no go.

Ive been getting under the misses feet and so I’m off back to the grind on Monday.

Its funny when I look around at the world now and see peeps lives why in there 50,s/60.s they live in a 3up, 3down with 2 new cars on the front is because they have now where to go except to be a bigger consumer.

Looks like I will be getting gold teeth, a bigger monitor and whopping hifi speakers. Hey ho.

Eye on the prize maybe Australia next year.

[Ed P]

Hope that you managed to get a large pay increase. Poor pay and poor working conditions (especially for long haul drivers) seems to be the nub of all the problems. Fuel tanker drivers typically have the best pay and conditions. If there is a shortage of these people then shortages of everything can soon be expected – stock up for Christmas now!

Of course Brexit plays a huge role in this mess. It was as usual cretinous of this incompetent Government to think that the country could immediately replace all the low-paid displaced foreign drivers, just as it is naively stupid to expect any to come back and be fired on Christmas Eve!

I now know the collective word for a group of clowns.  A BoJo!

[keith with the teef]

When I first became a lorry driver when I was in my 20’s, I was treated like an engineer.

When Labour opened the boarders to immigration and the foreign lorry drivers started to poor in it did not take long until UK lorry drivers where treated like door mats.

Here is what happened to me.

At the time I worked for Brake Brothers with guaranteed overtime even if I did not do it and more often that not, did not.

Final salary pension.

Free shares often @£1000

Free fancy food stuffs.

Then that all went by the by.

Foreign lorry drivers where provided with housing and so in being paid, also paid the company back for accommodation.

pay rises stopped.

In addition managers saw what companies where doing (nation wide monkey see) and so jumped on the band wagon by providing accommodation for foreign lorry drivers cheaper than the company and in the process systematically looking for any and every opportunity to dismiss a UK lorry driver from there jobs. This happened to me whist boxing clever managers profiteered from the foreign drivers.

leaving the only place to go for UK lorry drivers to go self employed, to try and maintain standard of living.

Foreign lorry driver saw the benefits of this to get money home and jumped on it.

Again pay spiraled down.

I am so glad we left Europe and I blame Labour for all the shit we are currently in from the past 15 years..

Starma makes me want to piss. He is clueless.

 

 

 

 

[Dave Rice]

A lot of that happened to me in IT, we have had competition from the rest of the world since well before Labour got into power or freedom of movement took off. You don’t even have to move to do a lot of IT support. Just open an office somewhere and start employing the locals whilst paying off the Europeans.

Once the Post Office outsourced us the pension scheme stopped, so did the pay grades and the pay rises with it. My wages at the end were two thirds of what my peers were earning in the PO (and their final salary pension was long gone too).

I’m afraid it’s called globalisation and is a race to the bottom, the argument that poorer countries are raised to our level is pure fantasy. Yes, we have treated the truckers badly with regards things like amenities and working conditions, but the change in working practices are the same in any industry, except possibly the Civil Service (I don’t know enough to comment on them). Hospitality and retail are pretty shocking too.

Labour’s opening of the door to Eastern Europe hastened things for you by a couple of years, but that was always coming down the line no matter who was in power. The same as Brexit has speeded things up in the opposite direction, it’s just hastened the breakdown of our crap infrastructure model. Drivers were leaving faster than the could be replaced and that was going to hit the stops at sometime even if we stayed in, because it’s exactly what is happening over Europe now. The difference is we only have a small pool of potential drivers to call on, The Germans and French have a whole continent.

Pay may go up, I hope it does (and the consumer will ultimately pay) but I’ll bet not a single truck stop gets upgraded because the Brits don’t care unless they are affected personally.

[keith with the teef]

Would you believe it. I received a letter today from the DVLA asking me to go back to truck driving.

One more thing about opening the boarders to Europe. Our minimum wage is massive and the foreigners took all the jobs off the kids. Now every one thinks they have to go to university and stop in halls of residence and get into massive debt and become over qualified and then cannot get a job and so a degree becomes worth what?

He he. 🙂

Talk about the butterfly effect.

[Les.]

Well, I see Dave got it right back in July, and you are back behind the wheel.

I agree with a lot of what you said. Why is Boris not going crazy trying to get hundreds of thousands of foreign drivers. Unless nobody heard, he wants UK PLC to do it itself. Pay the drivers more money he says. Most un-tory like, but it is the only way.

The consumers will have to pay more1 And why not? Everybody wants stuff cheaper (me included) but there is still a price to pay. For the last two years, we have bought all our meat from a local butcher. All Manx meat, he makes his own bacon and sausages. I won’t but any “fresh” food unless it is local, or at the worst, from the UK. Sorry, Bulgarians and all the other eastern Europeans, I really have no idea what you put in stuff, nor want to find out. Manx milk, Manx flour for our bread, Manx ice cream made to a high standard (legislation demands it, but cheap crap UK sourced stuff is allowed in. Why?

Most people have far too much money! The ones on low pay and needing assistance will not need assistance it the wages rise to a fair level. At the risk of sounding like one of Corbyn’s or Starmer’s lot, there is far to much money at the top of both industry and civil service. I get around £1,000 per month pension, Tamara gets nothing, but we go without nothing. I even bought another bike recently, a Gilera. Just need to get it on the road asap. Tamara’s grand daughter has got a job in Gov.. Already, she earns 2.5 X’s what I get, with more to come all the time. Her Fellah earns more, so between the two of them, they don’t know what to spend it on.

Funny world. Good luck with the job.

Les.

[keith with the teef]

Quote: I even bought another bike recently, a Gilera.

A Gilera. Thats impossible. Let me guess, Its yellow. 🙂

[Dave Rice]

The only Gilera’s I remember are the red moped and the 150 Strada.

[Les.]

Gilera Nordwest 600, 1993 manufacture. Blue, not yellow. A BIG single. You should find plenty of photos online.

Les

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