The Chatty Pointless Thread

[Damien]

Random thought of the morning: I used to think I'd never want to retire, I'm a writer, I want to die at my desk blah blah blah. But I find as I'm nearing 50 I long to retire early not because I'm tired of working, I've still got limitless energy for that, but because I didn't factor in that you also need limitless PATIENCE more than energy to deal with the other people work forces you to interact with.

I've really only got about a year of patience in me with any time I work with before I've encountered all the human flaws in their system and start burning out. If the healthcare situation in the US wasn't going to get so much worse I'd be considering going back to freelancing full time again.

I've been in my industry for 15 years and I wanted out maybe 3 years in. I'd argue most people don't want to just do the same thing over and over again until they die, and that MOST people have to push past the desire to quit doing something when it's annoying because you've gotta pay the bills.
I really do think the allure of retirement isn't so much that you can stop working... it's that you can choose the work and not care if it does not end up financially benefiting you. I've lost count of how many 'retired' guys I've run into that are like 'I took up carpentry but I don't do anything that sounds dumb or too difficult or not fun because I'm not doing it for money.' Or 'I carve animal statues now and sell them, but if I fuck one up I just throw it away and start over and I don't really care because I'm doing it for me and the money is just a bonus.'

Imagine what we would all be doing for a living if healthcare wasn't tied to employment.

I live in Canada where healthcare isn't tied to employment and let me tell you that not much changes because your ability to pay any of your bills is still tied to employment.

 

[docsilence]

I live in Canada where healthcare isn't tied to employment and let me tell you that not much changes because your ability to pay any of your bills is still tied to employment.

What kills me is I've freelanced for large swaths of my working life and when Massachusetts had an exchange, even paying "full price" so to speak, I was within $50/month of what I was paying through a full-time employer and that made untethering myself from employer insurance easy. I have an option right now to go do some lucrative freelancing that would require me to quit the job I get insurance from, and four years ago I wouldn't have even balked. Given that they're removing the ACA's balls with a hacksaw right now, I'm holding off on making that jump.

I freelanced in my 20s and COBRA bled me dry in three months. It's wild how good Romneycare was at the time it came out compared to hwat we had before. The ACA had some of the teeth in MA's own plan removed, but was still decent if you were not traditionally employed. We're backsliding hard.

There really is something to be said about an economy that lets you do the whole "I do a thing you give me money" versus "we want to own your every waking moment and demand you engage in our vapid fake culture until we decide to lay you off when private equity swoops in" thing. It's not even the repetition that gets me, it's the human bullshit.

 

[Damien]

What kills me is I've freelanced for large swaths of my working life and when Massachusetts had an exchange, even paying "full price" so to speak, I was within $50/month of what I was paying through a full-time employer and that made untethering myself from employer insurance easy. I have an option right now to go do some lucrative freelancing that would require me to quit the job I get insurance from, and four years ago I wouldn't have even balked. Given that they're removing the ACA's balls with a hacksaw right now, I'm holding off on making that jump.

I should add that it also really does depend on how much you do or expect to engage with healthcare at all. Someone that KNOWS they're going to need it all the time is in a different spot than someone that is more theoretically aware that healthcare is a thing they may need one day.

But critically, as someone with access to free healthcare, it's not like I live in some utopia where I can just job hop whenever I want without a care because at least I don't lose my healthcare. I think healthcare's impact on job mobility is overstated to obfuscate that we are all enslaved to a system that hates us.

 

[docsilence]

I should add that it also really does depend on how much you do or expect to engage with healthcare at all. Someone that KNOWS they're going to need it all the time is in a different spot than someone that is more theoretically aware that healthcare is a thing they may need one day.

But critically, as someone with access to free healthcare, it's not like I live in some utopia where I can just job hop whenever I want without a care because at least I don't lose my healthcare. I think healthcare's impact on job mobility is overstated to obfuscate that we are all enslaved to a system that hates us.

Yep. Steph and I are on different health insurance plans because I would fuck up her out of pocket max - I barely get sick and am so done with this world I've got it in my advance directives that I do not want my family going into debt to keep me alive if I'm incapacitated, but she's at the doctor three times a week for her various EDS-related issues and hits her max in like, March every year. We literally can't afford to be on the same plan because our usage is so different.

(She stumbled while we were walking the dog the other night and went to get her ankle checked today and literally just walked into my office in one of those fucking boots five minutes ago...)

 

[Damien]

I definitely get that. Raven leaves the house like once every two weeks due to her health issues. And while we were trying to figure out what was wrong with her over the last couple of years, there were quite a few emergency room visits, a few ambulance calls (ironically.. those are not free in Canada), and quite a few regular doctor visits and such. I imagine, without any insurance if we lived in the US, we'd be in about 80-120 grand in medical debt. And that's just from her - forget anything with the kids.

 

[docsilence]

Steph's in PT for her loose joints (EDS shit of course) cardiac monitoring stuff, migraine stuff... she got billed for $1,500 for a standard test for an infection a few months back and spent eight weeks fighting it. Actually on Friday she got rejected for a new medication saying she's not allowed to use it until she's tried two other medications first, and one of the two others she was denied all year for.

And now I'm getting into Luigi did nothing wrong territory, but yeah, even if the freelancing gig I'm looking at would more than double my salary, I have to consider how fast being uninsured in America could wipe that out.

 

[Damien]

We have similar nonsense here, it's just not usually costing us as much money. Like, we have the medication issues, and we do have to pay for medication. So it gets really fucking irritating to be paying full price for a 30 day prescription that we ALL know she's allergic to and will take three pills from before returning it with no refund. I've easily spent a grand on prescriptions we did not want but HAD to accept either because it was the first step to getting the thing we wanted, or because doctors wouldn't treat her at all without being medicated because accepting a medication that doesn't work and isn't for what she has 'proves' she's trying to get help and not wasting their time.

It's fucking wild, man. Even in a single-payer system, the entire medical system is wildly broken and at the -best- of times borders on willfully malevolent.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

I've been in my industry for 15 years and I wanted out maybe 3 years in. I'd argue most people don't want to just do the same thing over and over again until they die, and that MOST people have to push past the desire to quit doing something when it's annoying because you've gotta pay the bills.

100%. I had a full-blown crisis about it around five years ago. I hated my career and had 30+ years to go. I strongly considered moving across the country and changing industries. Ultimately, I wasn't far enough removed from trying to live in a big city on a $35,000 salary to go back. I couldn't overcome the mental barrier of starting at the bottom again. I decided I'd rather grit my teeth for three decades.

Two days ago, I had a nightmare that I was fired from my job. It was one of those dreams that shook me so deeply that I was up for the rest of the night. Once you've been poor, it's damn near impossible to give up even the smallest amount of security. It's the one-two punch of healthcare and cost of living.

I live in the richest country in the history of the world.

The ACA had some of the teeth in MA's own plan removed, but was still decent if you were not traditionally employed. We're backsliding hard.

Something's gotta give.

 

[docsilence]

Once you've been poor, it's damn near impossible to give up even the smallest amount of security. It's the one-two punch of healthcare and cost of living.

This. My partner always asks when I'll stop working three jobs and actually turn down freelance work any time it's offered and I'm like: when I have enough money in the bank if I get laid off and can never work again we'll be okay.

I took a paycut to get out of tech because I was so fucking disgusted with the industry but I see how badly citizens treat their municipal workers, like absolute dogshit, zero respect, and I've started thinking well I could make twice as much working for evil people and have the same level of feeling betrayed, hated, and worried all the time, might as well take the money. The last... well shit, every job I've had since the start of the pandemic has hit a point where I was having regular stress nightmares.

Meanwhile the MAGA chucklefuck who lives behind me worked for venture capital til he was 45, bought five properties, and retired to manage a bunch of overpriced rentals. There are days I wish I was born with no ethics.