‘I’m really just dying to live like Jose’
“They say my nest egg ain’t ready to hatch yet
They keep holding my feet to the fire
They call it paying the price
So that one day in life
I’ll have what I need to retire.”
Kenny didn’t play “The Life” at the Hard Rock Hollywood last month. But he did play “Knowing You” and that was even better.
In any event, I turned on No Shoes Radio this morning, and this lyric was the first thing I heard.
Funny, I had logged into my retirement account on Friday. I wanted to see if I stay at this job another 10 (yeesh) or 20 (gah) years, what would my retirement account look like.
That answer is pretty good. As long as I don’t spend a penny ever again.
I told Momma how much money I’d have after 20 years. She learn to live cheap and get out much sooner than that.
I don’t know what I would do in a world without her advice. I hope I always have a way of hearing it.
The timing is perfect. I always get into “let me apply for All The Jobs” around review time anyway.
Like, I know 2023-’24 wasn’t my most productive year work wise. But I look back at two decades’ worth of posts and remember when life was so much worse.
Like when I had to either drive her car with no brakes or my car with a dead-ish battery — and I had to get AAA to come out to the fucking sticks to jump my car three nights in a row, 40 miles from home — because I gave that company too much and didn’t give a fig about my own safety.
So to hear that, say, I am disorganized — when my ENTIRE JOB is reprioritizing all day long based on what’s happening in the markets and what my experts want to do about it, not to mention to accommodate whatever emergency arises that, according to the Eisenhower principle, is less important than urgent — and also I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in three years for reasons best left unexplained here — well.
Maybe if two-ish people didn’t find it so enjoyable to measure us not on our ability to read minds 90% of the time, but rather on the 10% we didn’t/couldn’t do it, our review scores would be a lot less strange.
Let’s just say “a 10 with a 2” isn’t just a Kenny Chesney song. It’s how I rate on helping member care/sales vs. people whose name rhyme with feather. Which … what do THEY score?!?!
I was telling my cousin today, I love my work so much. I love what’s left of my team. But even that appears to be problematic. Which, yes maybe I am more of a friend than a supervisor.
But when you have Linda fucking Blair spewing pea soup all over the place, maybe consider it’s my strategy to let people know they are loved and supported.
In any event, I always wonder if I should hit publish or do I have to wonder when Shindy or Psycho are going to make sure people who are responsible for my economic well-being (e.g., paycheck) perceive me as problematic.
Which, honestly no outside opinions have ever swayed an employer. Not for those twits’ lack of trying.
“Somewhere over Texas
I thought of my Lexus
And all the stuff I work so hard for
And all the things that I’ve gathered
From climbing that ladder
Didn’t make much sense anymore.”
Now I do think they know I am special. I don’t let anyone or anyone fail. If they do, it wasn’t for lack of trying on my part.
But, do they know HOW special?
Like, I look at Taylor Swift, who succeeds because she wants what she has, more than anyone else. Well, I wanted to succeed here, and I did.
But … is that what I should want in the future?
I mean, my little retirement account could be nothing to sniff at in a bull market. But that relies on continued contributions.
But … once I can get out of this house and this dark little kitchen where I work, something tells me it’s going to be hard to get me back into said kitchen.
And maybe that’s a metaphor for all the rights that keep getting stripped of women right now, and maybe not. Or maybe it’s a metaphor AND a reality.
In any event, I do think I get all the rope and room I need to “do me,” personally, anyway.
Life’s been hard and it’s getting harder. And everyone’s smart enough to give me all the room I need. Would I get that anywhere else … or would I get more? Or, somehow, less?
And how willing am I to find out? Right now, not really. But in a year? Ask me again.