The responses to my retirement post are a real eye opener. [View all]

[fightforfreedom]

They verified what I have believed for a very long time. Our work place culture is deranged, toxic, sick.

I was happy to read some people found careers they loved and they do not want to retire. Some doctors love helping people and continue to work. That's a good thing.

Many people lived the same nightmare I lived during my work career. It looks like teachers are dealing with a deranged work place. That is not a good thing.

I was a blue collar worker. I worked many different types of jobs. I noticed a big change in the work place culture between the 70s and 80s. Things have gotten worse since then. Jobs attempted to claim ownership of their employees. They wanted to control, monitor you down to the last minute of the day. Some times jobs wanted to control you when you were not at work .Doing a good job was never good enough which drove me crazy.

During my work career I used to argue with management and the union. I told both of them what you are doing is counter productive. Driving, harassing, the workers hurts productivity. The goal should be to make your workers happy, not miserable. Management and the union were in a constant state of war. What a waste of time and money. Many of the good workers would leave, retire early, quit, get new jobs. How is that good for anybody?

I will not bore with all the details of what happened to me during my work career. I am lucky I am still sane. Here are some examples. Management attempting to steal our pay. Bosses spying on you at work and at home. Setting up workers to fail because the boss didn't like you. The boss didn't like you not because you were a bad worker. The boss didn't like you because you wouldn't kiss their ass.

Forced overtime. Forced to work your days off with no warning. Moving your job to a different city. You can either move or quit. The list goes on and on.

The work place culture over the years became something I could not comprehend. I always saw the workplace, a job, as a partnership. The employer and employee working together to get the job done. My job was to show up on time everyday, do my job correctly and on time. That's it. That became something that was not good enough for the work place in America.

This is why retirement is such a great relief for many people.