Kelly At Large #122 The two-cents edition
In which I recount the compelling story of the fly and my own failed attempt to unravel my thoughts on retirement.
Hello from Paris!
Thanks for being patient. I had a draft of the newsletter almost done but got delayed by an unofficial scavenger hunt and obstacle course trying to find some pharmacies with the drugs I needed while navigating through a demonstrating and striking Paris. At least my step-counting application was pleased.
Too bad I wasn’t carrying my phone over the weekend when I spent three days chasing an enthusiastic fly around the apartment. I was going to call it stupid, because I’d manage to trap it in our tiny bathroom where it would beat against the window, though when I opened aforesaid aperture, it would then refuse to leave.
But… I’m hardly intelligent by comparison with the fly if I wasted so much time chasing it from room to room when zipping around at top speeds Musca domestica have very limited lifespans, and I could have just waited for it to die in some neglected corner without straining myself. But no, there I was spinning around like a top and trying to herd it out of the window like a tiny recalcitrant cat.
The trial for us both persisted until— when it was probably already at death’s door — I finally found it lurking in the shower and hit it with my flipflop, then scraped it off the tile and sent it for a final swim in the john.
I felt like joining it there after a couple friends encouraged me to think more deeply about the French retirement fight where the most contentious element is how the retirement age was raised from 62 to 64. And it’s true that I’ve mostly been writing about my frustration with those stymying the democratic process, not the policy itself.
So, if I ignore the screamers in the National Assembly, and the ultra violent far left rioters (casseurs) on the street, and the pundits on TV and what this politician says or that, all of them probably telling half-truths and accusing each other of lying, what do I, Kelly Cogswell, think?
I actually don’t know. It’s really hard to untangle because I immediately start having abstract thoughts about retirement and work and life. Even the fluidity of time itself.
For instance, a 2-year shift from 62 to 64 sounds like a lot when you’re twenty, not so much when you’re in your fifties, when two years pass in the blink of an eye. But suddenly it’s a lot again when you’re actually approaching the finish line and counting every unbearable minute. That means most people would have a similar experience emotionally whether retirement was 62 or 64 especially if you take into account that the health of French people remains quite good through their later years thanks to free or affordable medical care. If, however, you detest your job at thirty, even working until 35 might seem as impossible as 100. So you either have to muster up the courage to leave yours, or start praying to get hit by some real or imaged bus at thirty-one and not have to deal with any of it.
So that’s one thought.
Then there’s the idea of retirement itself. What does it mean? What’s it for? Could we use other systems besides age to determine benefits? I know a couple of people who had civil service jobs where the starting date of pensions was based on the time you put in on the job. They actually “retired” at 52 or so, with full benefits, at which point they picked up another job because frankly, retirement will bore you stiff if it comes too soon, and the extra money was nice and they even qualify for a second pension.
Searching to see if a similar plan existed somewhere on the national level (doesn’t seem to be) I found this interesting 2003 article on cross-cultural perspectives of retirement.
Then, I thought, if retirement were based on time worked, then maybe you could award additional credits for certain onerous or physically difficult jobs—a big theme at the demos—assuming people could agree on criteria. We could also give work credits to people performing unpaid labor like childcare or eldercare or community service type things, so we wouldn’t have to worry (as much) about women being impoverished at retirement or having to retire later because of gaps in their careers, because we would already be acknowledging their work. In fact, we should find a way to do this even for an age-based retirement.
One thing about the whole debate in France that makes me feel very obstinately foreign and American are the slogans declaring that life begins after retirement, so retirement should begin as early as possible, or no one should have to work at all.
Seriously? That’s coming from the French? Those people who have at least a month of paid vacation a year, and a ton of holidays, let’s not mention weekends, and how the whole country comes to a halt so even relatively modest people can go skiing. And many, at least in the cities, head out after work for an apéro, and still take reasonably long lunches and don’t eat at their desk. There’s a construction site in front of my window and for three years I’ve watched activity come to a complete halt at noon. As it should.
Surely some of that is life? Even if you dislike your job?
All that while Americans, even privileged ones, usually start off jobs with a week or two of vacation a year and have to stay in the same job often for years and years before they get anything near four weeks. They also have a lot fewer holidays, and even white collar workers eat at their desk, and hourly workers take off barely a half an hour or fifteen minutes. Or none. Because they have to finish up and get to their next job. So by comparison, well…
We’ve also heard a lot about French workers who should be able to retire early because they do physically tough jobs like nurses—who yes, should all get a raise, and credit for time served—and plumbers and electricians who fuck up their backs crawling around in weird positions. I’m not as sorry for the latter because they have guilds and unions and collective power and a fair amount of support when it comes to negotiating benefits because they actually go on strike —together.
Not everybody who has tough jobs have collective power. Farmers, even if they do hold demos together sometimes, are still in their own unique category. They have the same wear and tear on their bodies (not to mention the occasional missing limb from tractor incidents), but also face the stress of things like climate change and freak hailstorms which can wipe out a whole season’s income in thirty seconds. And of course if they have animals, they almost never get weekends or vacations or even sick days because goats have to eat every day and be milked every day, and don’t care if you want Thursday off to go to the dentist.
Even lower on the ladder and those who really need radical job and retirement reform but have no collective bargaining power are people (mostly women) who work on the clock and aren’t salaried, and are ignored by unions (no matter what crocodile tears they shed during demos). Like, for instance, cashiers who are badly paid but also famously abused by everybody from the managers to the clients. No matter, as we learned during Covid lockdowns, that they are essential workers, and society falls apart without them. Maybe you know what those jobs are like. It kills your knees and back and feet to stand in one place all day, and your kidneys get messed up because you have to hold your pee because it’s not time for your break yet, all while some neanderthal is yelling abuse, sometimes of the racist, “You people…” kind.
So, yeah, if I were the all-powerful ruler of the country, after I got done raising the minimum wage, I’d give cashiers double or triple retirement credits. I’d also shower credits on small farmers, and those doing unpaid labor. And for that matter, I’d create a system where everybody would rotate through the most painful or boring jobs.
That’s my two-cents— which won’t even buy you a piece of gum.
That’s it for this time.
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Disgruntledly yours,
xoxo K
P.s. Oh, and since this was so late, you’ll get your next bit of my book on Friday rather than Thursday.