Retirement — what’s that?
SAURABH KATIYAR
Still remember the Civil Engineer who with once glance of map designs would do the correction and estimation or valuations.. No calculator or computer .. He can see the flaws and with deft pencil do the correction which no AutoCad with the most powerful workstation will match his speed in Structural correction .. Thanks this old generation does NOT know the cut paste technology and are always original in delivering performance .
There are so many we know around who are post retirement working , earning and indeed happy.. They understand in dignity in any work they do with pride. This old man is a finance genius totally blind hears the radio and TV to guide others ..
Feel inspired as we read beneath . See in your neighborhood a bright old man more active and having the contagious energy than the youngsters in your family . Only the present day constipated HR experts who have such a mental atrophy would never understand such values that these wise talented people can bring better profits ..
That is a different debate altogether , not at all for the sales rep selling retirement policies !
Saurabh Katiyar
Working in retirement is not an oxymoron for these seniors
By Ana Veciana-Suarez
avec...@MiamiHerald.com
Teitler has been making money since he was 12. Now he’s 89, working three days a week at Bellak Color, a printing facility in Doral. If you’re doing the math, that’s 77 years of “up and at ’em.”
“I love working,” says Teitler, who lives in an upscale adult living facility in Kendall called The Palace. “I love to help people. And I love to earn money.”
Retirement — what’s that?
Teitler may be the elder statesman of his office, but experts predict that the workforce of the future will feature more employees working long past retirement. As life expectancies increase and traditional retirement benefits disappear, more men and women will either stay on the job or retire from one and find another. Experts say that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
“Work has many benefits for people,” says Jacquelyn James, director of research at the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College. “Work gives you purpose. It gives you structure and social connections. It’s not just about the money.”
The Japanese, she adds, have a word for it: ikigai Translation: the reason to get up in the morning.
Interim Florida Marlins manager may be one of the most public examples of the trend. At 80, he took over a baseball team in a slump . “I’ve managed since I was 14 years old,” he joked with reporters. “I’ll probably manage until I’m 95.’’
Demographers say more seniors 75 and older are employed, and the rise began well before the recession, even as their 50s-something children struggled to keep or land jobs. In 2000, 5.5 percent of people 75 and older were employed in some capacity. By 2007, that figure had inched to 6.8 percent. By 2010, it was 7.4 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And the number of workers 75 years and older is expected to soar by as much as 80 percent in this decade, according to BLS.
Experts predict an accompanying shift in attitudes and expectations. Forget trading a keyboard for a bingo card when you turn 65. The 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce found that 75 percent of workers 50 or older who have never retired say they expect to continue working in some form in retirement.
Researchers say most employees in their 80s and 90s work because they can, not because they have to.
“As a society, how we age has really changed,” says Victoria Funes, AARP’s associate state director in charge of older workers. “Working longer or returning to work is part of that change. People are discovering it’s a way of staying connected, of feeling part of society, of feeling useful.”
Economics, of course, still plays a part in the decision. Ola Chapman, 80, of Miami Gardens, is a retired beautician. Twelve years ago, she became a certified nurse’s assistant and was working at a nursing home when an accident, followed by surgery, sidelined her for two years. She recently returned to work for a second time at a senior day-care center because she needs to supplement her Social Security benefits and meager savings.
“I need the money, but I also do it because it makes me happy,” she says. “I enjoy it. I would do it anyway. I’d even work more hours if I could.” Chapman clocks in 15 hours a week.
At 88, Bishop Walter H. Richardson is still tending to the faithful at the Church of God Tabernacle (True Holiness) on Northwest 67th Street in Liberty City. He seldom officiates at services — “Arthritis in both knees,” he says — but he keeps a full schedule of administrative duties. He oversees four churches, conducts a Tuesday night question-and-answer Bible meeting and provides counseling.
“I plan to retire when they roll me into church in a box,” he quips. “Do you see where any disciples or apostles retired? When God placed me in this position, it was on his timetable, not mine.”
Richardson’s sentiments aren’t unique. Far from crossing off the days on their desk calendar, many workers in their 80s plan to continue in their current gig as long as they remain healthy. A 2010 Sloan Center study found that only half of working retirees plan to leave their current employment situation in five years and about 10 percent plan to work until they die.
Teitler is one of them. He sold a printing company he had owned with his brothers for more than 50 years because his younger and only surviving sibling insisted on it. That didn’t push him into retirement in his late 70s, however. He stayed on with the new owners for a while, then switched employers. He never considered quitting. “I would love to work for the rest of my life, but my health will be the determining factor,” Teitler says.
While he still feels the adrenaline of reaching a sales goal, he admits technology sometimes throws him for a loop. When that happens, he says younger workers are happy to help.
Not all workplaces are so accommodating.
James, of the Sloan Center, says too many employers cling to the stereotype of the senior worker as slower, less flexible and less tech-savvy. Yet, “there’s a great variation and those kinds of judgments are simply not suggestive of their capabilities,” she notes.
Robert Garcia, corporate director in human resources at Baptist Health South Florida , says older employees who have stayed in the workforce are likely to have already embraced technology. Plus, he says, they tend to be “very passionate, very committed. They’re dedicated, loyal, punctual, excellent role models.”
Esperanza B. de Varona, director of the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami Libraries who “admits” to being in her early 80s, takes a visitor on a tour of her domain one weekday morning, pointing out special artifacts and documents donated by some of Cuba’s most illustrious families in exile. Coiffed, manicured and elegantly dressed in an electric blue suit, she recounts anecdotes that date back several decades, not once faltering in her recollection.
De Varona began working at UM in 1967, earned her master’s degree in library science as she was raising three children, and now is a renowned archivist and Cuba document expert. She says she has “an immense gratitude” for the opportunity to work with what she loves best — books.
Retirement? She pauses in her tour to consider the question. “As long as I can, I plan to continue in some capacity, as an advisor or consultant,” she says. “Sitting in a chair waiting for death is horrible.”