Pension Blues...

The other day, the guy from the company that handles my PRSA came to meet me. He's very personable and agreeable. He's a brilliant salesman - and not in a shark in a sharp suit kind of way. More the old-fashioned way of telling you what he does, what the benefits are - and he's believable... boy, is he believable.

I checked on a savings-cum-life assurance policy that I've been putting about €60 a month into since about 1988 the same day. About €20 of it was 'savings' and the balance was life cover. It was some quare scheme of a thing whereby the savings allowed you to claim tax-relief I think. I never have claimed the tax relief though. I remembered that it was meant to 'mature' when my daughter went to college, so I asked what the value was. I am now the proud owner of €85 savings. Imagine that - after 20+ years of saving! We wouldn't want to be breeding doctors, now would we...?

So, I don't believe in PRSA's. I still have one, mind you. It's a Pascal's Wager sort of thang. (And no, I don't believe in that Catholic God that I was born and bred on either, but...) I reckon that I'll have about tuppence-ha'penny when it comes to that PRSA, but the company pays € for € what I put in, so I keep putting it in.

I'm probably fairly representative of about 95% or more of this 'society' we live in. I love my family. I work hard. I care for my neighbours. I contribute as much as I can. I will NOT retire at 55 - not if I have a choice. I do NOT break the law in any significant way (said she, as she remembered that the tax is up on the car since the beginning of April...) I will NOT have Directorships and Memberships of Boards etc. being offered to me. I'm not important enough.

I don't want to sound self-righteous, self-congratulatory, or smug. But here's the thing. I LOVE my job. I KNOW that I do it well - well parts of it anyway. I KNOW that I've earned my salary when it comes through - my record is 36 hours straight through without a meal-break to get my stuff done for a deadline. I KNOW that I contribute to my community by doing this job. I KNOW that there are 45+ people who are working, who more than likely would not be in that position but for the work I put in. I KNOW that there are 250+ people who benefit directly from the work that we do, day-in, day-out, even if most of them don't know about the background work that has to be done.

I often wonder what my life would be like now if I had taken another path. If I'd put in this much effort at a business of my own, or another 'big-business' of some kind, would I have developed the skillsets, ruthlessness and instinct for the carotid necessary to get to an equivalent position. I doubt it, but who knows. I've known a few of them, and they are utterly alien to me.

I will probably regret not having spent more time with my children - the old adage of people never regretting that they didn't spend more time in the office. It might sound resentful and jealous, but it's the truth - I KNOW that I can sleep at night. When I wake in the morning, I might dread looking in the mirror, but that's an age thang. It's not the little imps of conscience knawing at the synapses behind furtive eyes.

But there are pensions and then there are Pensions. Some Pensions are worth multiples of an ordinary joe's salary. Some might have to be stalked and pestered into giving - sorry that should be 'Gifting'them back.

Well, my life may not be that luxurious, but I can still only wear one set of clothes at a time, or eat one meal at a time, or sleep in one bed at a time. And that sleep - short and all as it is usually - is precious to me. That might not be good enough for the buiceanna móra making "gifts" of their pensions back today.
No, not good enough for them - but 'tis good enough for me.

Post NAMA Depression - the Remedy!

I realised on the 4th of April - Easter Sunday - that NAMA-paralysis had taken control of my brain. I woke up with the word Anglo seared onto my brain, honestly. I had spent the previous three days following every post, tweet, radio and TV interview on the subject.

I had dragged myself out of bed each morning, since I was off work (not by choice I might add). I dragged myself from my PC at 2 am, 3 am, even later... I had calculated and recalculated how much I would end up paying for Anglo, for NAMA in general. I had day-dreamed about what tortures I would inflict on Seanie (Fitzpatrick), Patrick (Neary), Fingleton, Drumm, Cowen, Ahern, Linehan, the list goes on and on and on and on... I was burned the hell OUT.

To make matters worse, I had promised my little boy that I would take him, and his two best friends, out for the day on that particular day - Easter Sunday. Well, the state of the economy, the world, the political landscape, are inconsequential trivia to a nine-year old boy. And so they should be. So off we went to Cool Wood in Killarney.

The drive was fine - not too long. The children didn't know where they were going so I kept the conspiracy up til we arrived. The lads ran after geese, who ran back at them hissing like mad. They searched for eggs and got tons of treats. The emus looked at me in that vacant supercillious way they have. The lama patrolled his patch with the watchfulness of a presidential bodyguard. The sun shone briefly. People nodded to each other and smiled to themselves while they watched the childrens' delight in finding a little plastic egg... and eggs means T R E A T S !!

When the rain started it was just a sprinkle, not a downpour. We were ready to leave in any case, so we made our way home and I fed the lads before taking them home. By then the rain really was bucketing down, but we'd had a good day, they were happy, and my brownie credit points were at Anglo levels.

Arriving at one of the boy's houses, I missed the turn and had to reverse... BAD MOVE. Distracted by the fog from the hot little lungs that had been screaming in the back of the car, the drivers side of the car went off into a shallow ditch on the roadside. It wouldn't have been a problem except for the rain.

I was stuck in mud as slick as an estate agent. Now this should have been when my depression, which had lightened during the time with the boys, should have kicked back in. Normally, if something goes wrong with the car, I'll sit in the driver's seat and bang on the wheel in frustration. But somewhere during the manoevering myself out of the car and knee deep in cold mucky water, gathering stones to shove under the wheel with cold mucky fingers, I started to giggle.

I called my husband when it didn't work and I dug myself deeper. My daughter sent me a text saying "What's up, what's wrong, r u OK? /" I sent a message back - "I'm fine, car stuck in the mud and me covered in it!" with a picture attached of me complete with mudpack. The giggling got worse, and I thought it was hysteria, and tried to hold it in. But when I slipped and got my bottom thoroughly soaked as well, with the concerned Mom of Boy 1 looking on, I just started to laugh properly.
What else was there to do...!

D'you know, that belly-laugh did me the world of good. The depression lifted. I'd still love to engage in a little light torture, but I'd do it through ridicule rather than red-hot pokers - and that's progress in my eyes.