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      03-27-2019, 07:44 AM   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CTinline-six View Post
I don't want to change this into a generation war, but I think corporate America changing has a lot to do with why people are unhappy at their jobs. I talked about this with my grandfather who retired in 2008 from a state job which he worked at for over 38 years.

Gone are the days where you could start at a company, and progress there over a long career until you retired. Now companies just want a body to do the work for as cheap as possible. Very few invest in their employees, and part of that is employees know that if they don't like their job, it is often easier to jump ship for a better position.
My company, and in general my industry (utilities), is still the old way - although younger employees are not patient and will jump for faster progression. We have several employees with 30+ years of service, and a few with 40+. I’m coming up on 9, after working for many other companies in a variety of industries.

A big part of what changed is the retirement plans and health benefits. Once upon a time there was real value in these and they “held” employees (which allowed for managers to treat people badly). Once the DB plans were ended and replaced by portable and less valuable 401(k) and other plans, the value and hold disappeared. Employees became even more mobile, which requires us to treat them better, but that is insufficient if they are ambitious and we don’t have an opening.

The other big change is longevity, which means if you retire at age 55-65 you will likely take on some other work if only to stay busy because you’re likely to live another 25-35 years - in other words you retire having only lived 2/3 of your life.

I have good days more than bad, but it is work, so every day isn’t going to be super fun. Stress can be intense, but part of surviving to this age and career stage (executive officer) is learning to manage stress. I count the months until I can retire (meet my minimum retirement savings goal- I don’t have a DB plan), but I likely will continue to work in the same job for several more years, or do something related.
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