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.