Age 56. Can't be arsed at work anymore.

Absolutely. It would be fantastic if we managed to combine more experienced workers’ knowledge with younger workers’ energy and enthusiasm. Which requires mutual respect and appreciation.

I absolutely agree that many older people are unfortunately dismissed and their accumulated knowledge ignored.

But I also remember how it felt to be dismissed as an energetic and enthusiastic 20-something woman. And that was absolutely dispiriting as well. And I wouldn’t be surprised if OP and many other people on this thread made similar experiences when they first entered the workforce.

Which is why I stand by my original comment. Maybe OP‘s initiatives and ideas would have worked if her 50/60-yo co-workers would have participated (back then)…

(Probably not all of them tbh. But I’m sure OP had some good ones!)

Oh dear Edith you haven’t caught up have you? Perhaps it’s you that should retire?

It’s a completely disproportionate measure that shits on women to appease a contested ideology. Given a free choice most people vote with their feet and don’t do it. It’s becoming more and more discredited as it makes more people ‘uncomfortable’. Why? Newsflash. Because most people don’t have a ‘gender identity’ - it’s all bunkum.

Grin and bear it OP, the bigger picture is your pension. You could always try and really get into a little nugget or niche part of your industry and motivate yourself that way. You’ve got to have little goals to be able to zone out the stuff you know won’t work but you have to waste time on. Or you could start a revolution to show them why it doesn’t work and the alternative is …. but you’d need way more time and energy to back that up

This, and take the piss in a mildly amused way but never so far they will catch you out, the days will just fly by.

Also, do the bare minimum.

I M 64 and I have been feeling like this for some time. However, there is something almost liberating about not feeling overly enthusiastic about work. I jump through the hoops and enjoy the good things related to work: the fantastic clients I work with, some opportunities for creativity and the feeling that I am quite settled in terms of what I do.

As we get older, I think our priorities change a little, and we evaluate our life choices. I have learnt that my family is more important than my work, and the overwhelming caring responsibilities do not stop when our children get older. This means that, in many ways, I do not really care about perhaps 30% of what I do at work.

I have also learnt that health is precarious, and very precious. I want to enjoy some work free time before bad health and old age impair my ability to enjoy anything.

I am lucky enough to have some autonomy with respect to work, and to work from home. Fortunately, or perhaps not so fortunately, I do not have enthusiastic , energetic younger people in my immediate work environment.

So true. My dad, who had me late in life, died when my mum was in her mid 50s - he was 10 years older than her. They never had any retirement together. DH and I have a similar age gap and I really did not want the same thing to happen to us.

You want to move to Sri Lanka/

Intrigued......

I agree but there's also a fair bit of dead wood. I work in an old fashioned firm and we have a couple of late fifties people on the payroll who barely perform their jobs at all. Our bosses inherited them when they took over from their fathers. It's a built in expectation that these employees will receive pay rises, bonus and pension until they retire, there's no question of letting them go. I'm 53 and can't wait to retire, I'm a sort of halfway between enthusiastic and dead wood 😂

Same age range.

Graduates are a scourge at my work and seem so desperate to steal all the oxygen in the room.

This is a depressing read. I’ve just turned 55 and need to get back to work after a number of years of ill health and previous to that I was self employed for a fair time.

Not convinced anyone is going to hire me currently but everyone keeps telling me someone would be lucky to have me working for them so let’s see if someone actually will. I have thrown myself at the mercy of the help people back to work schemes to help me blag a CV. They are very encouraging but I have chronic health conditions and the fatigue is massive just thinking about it all let alone doing it.

I'm 57, left a 30yr job and took the pension as I'd didn't like the way things were going in my role.... I have an 'as and when' job with the NHS which is WFH, I usually work about 10 hours a week... I've found a great work life balance finally.
There us only me, so no one else to have to consider. I'm careful with my money, but do have a social life and can afford to go on holiday...so I'm grateful I put the years in to build my pension, and am now in a position to enjoy it

Going to ask to go PT after Christmas, then I will apply for my pension. Work till I am 60.
Used to love my job been there for 20 years. But there has been staff that are so brown nosed and get promoted. Over time I am now feeling resentful and pissed off because of lazy colleagues getting paid more than me and do FA.
Fed up of coming home knackered, too tired to be bothered with housework, so do it all at weekends.
Life is too short!! I’ll be happy in my 70s sat with a cup of tea with my Hubby watching TV knowing that I have done the things like holidays etc.
Dad got dementia his life ended at 75 and FIL died of cancer at 74. MIL 77 in bad health can’t walk etc.
You just don’t know what round the corner….

I'm 53 and feel this way too. I'm not alone in the staff room. Quite a few of us have seen new ideas come and go. I just try to do the best I can, but recognise how much bullshit there is in the job these days.

Totally agree @PumpkinsAndCoconuts but the new (not the same as in my original comment) initiatives need to be in the right direction otherwise it’s pointless. Older workers don’t necessarily lack drive and energy, however they can be frustrated and bored to death!

@Sooverwork quiet quitting can getting you pushed out when it comes to the company making cuts.

I am a manager having to launch all these new initiatives. I am 50 so have been there, done that…I just make the right noises and get on with it. I need the money and the money is great so just taking it really….

The new life needs funds, energy, resilience.

The things you mention are outside of your control, other than at a general election!

Making money for other people? They're paying you too.

Work till you drop? Why is that happening?
Aren't you making this sound a tad dramatic?

Life expectancy of women is close to 85.
25 years of not earning is a long time.

People used to live for an average of 5 years after retiring at 65.

You can stop work any time you want to as long as you've enough savings or a private pension. But the state can't afford to provide for people for 30 years after they stop work. There aren't enough younger people working to make those ends meet.

Believe me when I tell you the 50-60 olds were once bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, fully on board, determined to make initiatives work.

Precisely. And what did their 50-60 year old co-workers do back then? Were they enthusiastic about the initiatives OP and her peers used to propose?

Mutual respect is needed.

Respect and appreciation for older people‘s knowledge and experience. But also respect and appreciation for younger people’s drive and energy.

Plenty of us have had satisfying careers, thank you. It's the requirement that we now work until we drop, making money for other people, or meeting exorbitant housing costs, whilst wage share has fallen over the last 30 years, that's the problem. People would like some time to slow down and enjoy life before they die or become infirm, after a lifetime of hard work.

@Parky04 interested to hear what kind of work you do.

I've just been pushed out of my job at the age of 55, after many years of service. I can get by for a bit but will need to pick up some work at some point. Was previously in financial services.

I genuinely used to love my job. For the past 18 months or so, I’ve been struggling a LOT for motivation, due to menopause and related issues. But I’ve been clinging on to the hope that will pass. This thread slightly terrifies me! Is there anyone who has gone through this stage and come out the other side?

There are an awful lot of posters here in their 30s though saying they want to retire. That IS a tragic waste of their career.

I'm 59 and work in the NHS. I'm very disillusioned and tired. at 60 I will move to part time. I would 100% quit if I could but finances do not allow. Very tired, very sad about the sate of the NHS, and fed up with being abused and taken for granted but ignorant rude people

55, used to have a very good, stressful high earning job. Every woman there except me was single, 40+ with no DC, that’s how all consuming it was. It left no space for anything else. I left when I had DC.

I now work p/t and I loved it for a long time. We are going through a major restructuring and it’s awful. I feel stressed out and overworked. The pay is poor too, but that didn’t matter. One manager told me that in a meeting it was said that they don’t care who leaves so long as they get the company
changes through. That’s nice! These are peoples lives we are talking about. A couple of my colleagues actually collapsed due to not getting a break and eating.

My point is, most companies do not give a shit about us. They’d throw you under a bus in an instant. I used to work in HR and the things I’ve heard companies say they are going to
do has made me into a complete cynic.

I want to keep my job till I’m 62, then retire. By then I can afford it. I’ll try and smile and wave, whilst quiet quitting. I am also looking for another job to top up my money a bit and give myself another interesting thing to do whilst my DC get older and fly the nest.

The corporate world has changed. Make sure you TAKE as much from them as you can because they take their pound of flesh from us.