> "I try to be right with people," Vollmer explains, saying he has always kept a lesson he received from his father: "If anybody does anything for you, helps you in any way, be sure and say thank you."
> "And I remembered that when I grew up," he adds. "Maybe I might go overboard sometime in saying thank you, but I assure you, that's very important. And my dad's the one that put me straight on that."
That's similar advice to what my mother always told me. For me the unspoken part of this advice is that it leads to you not expecting much from people. Not in a bad way, in the way that everyone has their own life and problems. They wake up in the morning to tackle their own life and problems and when they do take the time to do something for you be grateful because the do it by choice. Thanking people was a big part of African life accompanied by gestures such as clapping hands in a particular way and using poetic language to thank person. Seems to be a dying practice. People seem to complain more about things people haven't done for them.
I am from Zimbabwe, the area around the Victoria Falls. I have lived in South Africa for the last 15 years though.
By way of example say my brother in law gives my mother a present or does something for her. Typically my mother will accept the gift and then after supper when the whole family is seated she will thank my brother in law in front of everyone in our family. It is not uncommon to have the present if is is a present shown to everyone. The point here is to ensure that the whole family is aware of this good deed my brother in law has done. She will thank him then ask the rest of us to help her thank him. The rest of us will also thank him. The point being here we all acknowledge and see what you have done for our mother. The thanking itself can get poetic.
Last year I delivered some money sent to some rural aunts of mine by cousin working in the US (about US$ 20 each) . I made a video of each one of them saying thank you. One of the videos ended up being close to five minutes and I had to ask my aunt to stop because the file was going to be too big to send. Hope that gives idea of the old culture of thanking.
...after nearly six decades at Indiana's Department of Natural Resources.
I was trying to estimate how big his pension checks will be but the online Indiana Retirement Benefit calculator only let's you put in birth dates back 100 years. =)
Even if it's not capped, his total pensions will likely be much lower than those of someone who retires at 70 and lives to 90.
What we don't know is where on the range between being irreplaceably productive and being an overpaid team mascot who uses the office as an elder daycare his last year's fell, I'd be surprised if it wasn't a bit of both. (not pointing fingers, there are days when I feel like I'm guilty of that myself, and I'm more than sixty years younger)
Former land surveyor here. I "retired" young from surveying in 2008 when the recession happened in the commercial property market and became a web developer.
This guy is remarkable. I wonder what kind of land surveying he's been doing. I'm guessing geodetic or GPS/GIS, which is not as physically demanding. Property staking, engineering, forestry, and traffic surveying requires a lot of upper body strength, line cutting/bushwhacking, driving, and walking.
I once met a 93 (maybe 96) old woman working in a lab. I don’t know under which status she is employed, but her dedication to the project is amazing and her contribution unmatched by any other members (nor the total sum of every other contributors).
Don't worry, I wrote the story like I never saw her again, but I actually did once. Also have her email and I'm in semi-regular contact with the project leader she works daily with.
"60 Minutes" once interviewed a 102 year old research chemist tottering about his lab. They asked him why he didn't retire. He replied why should I retire, I love doing research!
My grandfather died last year at 102; but unlike Mr. Vollmer, he retired young.
I'm always impressed when I see people that age up-and-about. My grandfather drove until his late 90's, and was still relatively active until a few months before his 100th birthday.
He gave me the best advice about raising children: "Remember, they're people too!"
Edit: it unfortunately looks like you've been breaking the guidelines quite a bit, and we've already had to ask you multiple times not to. You've also posted good comments, so I don't want to ban you, but would you please review them and use the site as intended? We want thoughtful, curious conversation here.
No one has spoken to me about guideline violations. Not one single time. Why would you lie about something like that? As far as my comment goes, it was a joke. Purely in jest.
Hmm. I don't remember why I said that and just looked again and didn't see it. It's possible that I confused you with another account—in which case, sorry! We try not to make such mistakes but we do. There is so much information to juggle that wires get crossed sometimes.
Which would make "multiple times" and "not one single time" both wrong. I'd presume neither is a lie, though. More likely, Dan miscounted, and Cougher never saw Dan's request.
It’s a global trend, with North and South American, Europe and most of Asia, below replacement rate. That likely makes immigration a short term solution.
That means we as a country have to out compete other countries. With the imbalance of population to land mass to wealth favoring the US for the foreseeable future, short term is relative. Could immigration be a solution for the next century?
I wouldn’t go that far. I would say that we need to have a progressive immigration policy. Not politically progressive - mathematically to try to keep the working age/retired population ratio in sync.
Immigration should be about bringing people in to fill in a true gap between demand and supply of workers. Having people rush to America thinking it’s the land of milk and honey whether are not you bring required skills wouldn’t do us or them any good.
Which implies that we're not there now. Right now, there are a lot of young people who could use a solid job like a mailman, some of whom have a lot of student debt to pay for careers that are not panning out.
Why are the bad financial decisions of young people and their parents the mailman's fault? I lost my money in the casino, I demand you retire so I can occupy your job.
Studying is not playing casino. Most people don't want to be rich but just enjoy life and having a meaningful activity.
You are comparing a non mandatory risky gaming activity with something that we have to do because the society is working like this right now.
If you want to speak about bad choices studies, we need to speak about the society structure to understand that kind of paths.
To understand casino, we just need to learn what is an addiction.
It is casino if one thinks that he should be hired purely on the basis of him having a diploma. When you join uni, college or any other educational institution,the first thing is to sit down on your own and have a very long think on whether the knowledge you are about to get will help to improve your employment situation. Also, some part of all this 'student time' needs to focus on networking,so after 4 or so years you won't be a guy with a degree in gender studies+ $200K student debt and nobody in town knows you.
Spending 200k to get an art degree IS a bad decision. Watch the interviews of people with massive debt. I have yet to see a doctor or dentist or computer programmer.
Free public education seems like a fine solution for this. I have no problems with art degrees. I may go back and get one when I am ready to retire. But society doesn’t need to pay or be blamed for a choice for a 200k private degree that won’t pay itself back.
At least a casino has a chance of paying out. Taking on $100k of debt to study something with no job prospects is even dumber than gambling it away (from a purely financial perspective).
Show me these students that obtained a degree are not employed, and I will show you a student that got a non-marketable degree (aka basket weaving, or social studies), and their poor choice in getting that type of degree instead of a STEM degree is not societies problem nor the old guy still delivering mail
There aren’t a fixed number of jobs. Everyone who has a job and produces things generally also creates jobs by consuming things (or by putting the money in the bank and having someone else borrow and invest it). It scales with the working population, otherwise we would have run out of jobs a long time ago. There are other reasons for problems with unemployment/underemployment.
In the case of my mailman, there is. If he retires, another person is hired to take his route. This is the case with many jobs. Clearly I'm not speaking about ALL jobs, just as when I posted the comment about the students who didn't get a job after college that I wasn't talkin about students who got a degree in basket weaving as another posted suggested. I shouldn't have to explain that my comments are not meant to cover ALL situations.
But he also creates jobs by spending the money he earns (or giving it to his family to spend, or putting it in the bank for someone else to borrow, etc).
In the great depression there were lots of people who weren't working, but that didn't somehow create more jobs for everyone else. People not having a job creates less demand, which in turn creates fewer jobs.
Sure for any one job at one company only one person will fill the position. But it's one of those things that's true at an individual level but works differently at a country level. Like if you got a million dollars it would be great, but if everybody got a million dollars it would just cause inflation. How easy it is to get a good job is determined by big things like fiscal policy, interest rates, technology, regulations, etc and not who is taking any single individual one.
Having people who want to work not working (even old people) generally isn't a good thing, it doesn't create more jobs available overall (since demand is reduced) and the remaining working people have to pay to support the unemployed people with taxes etc.
The existence of old people is not the cause of unemployment. On the other hand, enforcing the work week maximum of 48 hours, from the ILO convention in 1930(!), would actually help and doesn't need age discrimination.
"The existence of old people is not the cause of unemployment."
Perhaps you meant to post this under someone else's comment, because I didn't claim that the "existence" of old people was "the cause" of unemployment. However, if a 75 year old man retires, it opens up a job for anyone who is younger, be it a 20 year old person or a 55 year old person.
That is not true at all, I know many companies that offer retirement enticements (aka buyouts) as a way to simply downsize the workforce with out having to lay people off, it also helps that generally the retiree's are on the higher end of the pay scale.
In my career I have seen retirement most often used as a way to downsize not to hire young people
I have a hard time understanding that. If I could afford it, I'd quit work tomorrow and I don't think I would ever get bored. I have a so many hobbies I don't have time for and about a million more I'd like to dive into. I have countless movies and TV shows on lists that I'll probably never get to. Books are an even bigger problem for me. If I lived near a a university I'd audit everything. I'd volunteer for causes I believe in.
My dad is a little bit like that.He retired last year. Spent maybe half a year at home and then got himself a job again. He has no hobbies, can't sit at home for more than an hour and etc.For him, the job is the goal. He talks about it, he happily complains and yet he does want to go there. His decision to go back to work was influenced by the financial gains,as my parents do need that income, however I very much doubt it'd be very different outcome if money wasn't part of thr equation.
It bothers me that you are being downvoted. One of the reasons retirement benefits were created was so people could retire and open up their jobs to the next generation.
It's nice that someone held onto a job til 102, but it also means that at least two generations of young people lost out on a job that they could use to buy a home, start a family, etc.
I'm not for forced retirement but someone holding onto a position to 102 is really ridiculous. Especially for a taxpayer funded government job with terrific retirement benefits/pension.
At some point, shouldn't a person acknowledge they've taken more than their fair share and step aside so another gets a chance? Isn't it part of the social contract that you retire, collect benefits and let others have a job?
If this employee had to work to survive ( pay rent/mortgage, bills, etc ), then more power to him. But otherwise, he really did a disservice to the younger generations by staying on as long as he did.
> "And I remembered that when I grew up," he adds. "Maybe I might go overboard sometime in saying thank you, but I assure you, that's very important. And my dad's the one that put me straight on that."
That's similar advice to what my mother always told me. For me the unspoken part of this advice is that it leads to you not expecting much from people. Not in a bad way, in the way that everyone has their own life and problems. They wake up in the morning to tackle their own life and problems and when they do take the time to do something for you be grateful because the do it by choice. Thanking people was a big part of African life accompanied by gestures such as clapping hands in a particular way and using poetic language to thank person. Seems to be a dying practice. People seem to complain more about things people haven't done for them.