My mom is 53 and has worked retail her whole life. She had been at this one company for over a decade, most of that time as store manager, when earlier this year the company decided to fuck around with the sale bonuses the employees got. My mom got pissed, talked to a lawyer and figured out what they were trying to do was illegal, so she told the company she was not having it. Long story short they negotiated and my mom got 2 years of unemployment pay and a nice chunk of money on the condition she did not take them to court.
This, which seemed the best for my mom, ended up being the best for all the family.
She obviously doesn’t have to work stupid retail hours, holidays and sales while destroying her health in the process.
My dad doesn’t have to take care of the house when he gets home from work. They actually get to spend time together and look so happy for the first time in forever. They are even going places! Like the movies, or to the beach, or just for a walk! Never in my life I’ve seen them do that before. They are eating healthier, losing weight, sleeping better…
My grandma is getting old and now my mom can take her to doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, for a walk… you know, just being with her. We feel like most of grandma’s problems are due to solitude and this is helping her so much. Just visiting twice a week for a couple hours has made a huge difference.
Then there’s me, and mom has been helping me too with my new puppy so much during the summer. She’s really been a life saver. I also get to spend more time with her, like te other day we went shopping and spent some quality time together, it was great and something we couldn’t have done had she been working.
All of this to say that working (all day, every day, for 40+ years or our lives, to make someone else rich) is robbing us of our families and loved ones. I see how much happier everyone is now and I’m baffled I never saw my parents being happy together for over 20 years because work was consuming them. I’m baffled that we, as a society, are expected to leave our grandparents just slowly rot away because our schedules don’t allow us to even think of them. That we have to rely on external caregivers for our children and normalize only seeing them for bedtime because we’re never home.
What the fuck, man.