Is this a new development?
Walmart has been employing the elderly as door greeters for decades. When I worked there (oh god) 20 years ago, I’d always hang out and bullshit with them. Some were cool AF, some were batshit crazy. Either way, it was entertaining.
Before that, I worked at a restaurant where the staff was an even split between teenage stoners and grandma-aged old ladies. Like, you couldn’t write a better odd-couple workplace comedy.
All that is to say that for my entire working life, I’ve worked with (and continue to work with) people that should have retired already.
The number of people unable to retire is a new development. It used to be much lower.
Not to deny any of the very real economic reasons for this (everything from low wages, pensions being replaced by 401Ks, etc) but it’s also important to remember that the babyboomer generation was the largest ever generation until millennials claimed that record, so any statistic that looks primarily at raw numbers as opposed to percentages is going to be higher simply because there are more people.
Worked also at Walmart over 20 years ago. Most of those old people were retired and only worked at Walmart part time out boredom. Same probably at that restaurant.
We are talking about people who are working at old age because if they didn’t they be homeless.
Lucky for me, my retirement plan is to die at my desk.
I guess the best I’ll be able to do is take a half day off work on the day of my funeral.
We should make dying on the clock a trend. Especially in service jobs. If society isn’t going to take care of itself, it should at least have to witness it’s own failings. If I truly end up unable to retire I want to drop dead in the middle of of a chain store on black friday. My final protest of this profit chasing hell hole. Like I’m a damn mad max charcter ‘Witness me!’
At my last job we actually had a guy die of a heart attack right on his forklift. Not a public spectacle, but it made me realize how bad that company actually was. His position was filled by Friday…none wanted to tell the guy his predecessor just died right there on the forklift he’s sitting in a few days ago.
