Your Second Career - Plan on it!

Many, if not Most people don't retire from the career they started in. 30 years of service and a gold watch is out. Being booted when you're 50 is in. So expect to have a second career and start planning now for this contingency!

I have discussed before how for many people, retirement is not something they plan, but something that is thrust upon them, often years sooner than they expected. My Father got the boot at age 55 and never worked again, except as a financial consultant on commission for a few years.

Lately, I have been seeing this happen to many of my friends and acquaintances. And it seems to be a popular trend. To some extent, this is a new thing, as companies cut costs by firing older employees. The old days, where you worked for 30 years in the mines and then got a gold watch are out. Today, they boot you after 15 years, and you may end up seeking employment in other sectors - making far less than before.

Unfair? Perhaps. Perhaps expecting someone else to hand you a "job" for life is a bit unfair, too. After all, no one is "entitled" to a job - you have to work for it. But regardless of the social justice issues, if you are out on the street a decade before retirement, you will have to find something to do with yourself. Whining about the unfairness of it all is not a realistic answer.

The following are some real-world examples of the "second career" phenomenon that occurs. For many, this is a painful transition, as we shall see. Even for those who made the adjustment, it was not an easy process, but one that required a re-evaluation of lifestyle values. But for most, it has ended up being a liberating experience, to some extent, as they now see life in a new light.

1. Joe worked as a Real Estate lawyer for a private, family-run company. He handled all the legal aspects of their small Real Estate empire for two decades. But the family decided to get out of the business as the market peaked. They liquidated their holdings and decided to spend the rest of their lives spending it all. Suddenly, they had no need for Joe. At age 55, he is unemployed.

Joe socked away a lot of money over the years, and is very thrifty. He moved to a less expensive city to live, and is enjoying being quasi-retired for the time being. He has enough saved to never work again. He is thinking about perhaps doing contract work or being "of counsel" to a law firm. After 20 years with one company, however, his options are limited, and with the collapse of the Real Estate business, his skills are no longer in high demand. Setting up a Real Estate practice from scratch could be risky, and he could end up losing all his life savings.

Joe did a lot of things right here. He saved money so he would be in a good position if forced into early retirement. His expectations for employment are realistic at this stage in his life - having never worked at a law firm, he knows they are not likely to hire him as an Associate or Partner. The only thing he might have done better was to foresee his inevitable downsizing and take more proactive measures.

But hey, when you have as much dough in the bank as Joe, you don't have to worry, right?

2. Sarah and Bill were independent contractors. They had a steady stream of government contracts when they were in their 30's and 40's. But as they got older, the demands for their services dried up. Newer, younger people were competing with them for business - and getting it. After a couple of years with no work, they decided it was time for "Plan B". They both got jobs at a local winery. They are making far less than they used to, but the money pays their bills, which means they can leave their considerable retirement savings alone.

Again, Sarah and Bill did a lot right here. They squirreled away a sizable chunk of money during their working years, so if they had to, they could stop working altogether (we all have to do that sometime). And they swallowed their pride and took jobs that paid a lot less than what they were used to making. But they are having fun and enjoying life, rather than sitting and moping around. And they managed to get a contract or two in the meantime.

What has been hard for them is to downsize their lifestyle. Cutting monthly expenditures is a lot harder than increasing them. When the money dries up, many people have a hard time giving up on the status things they are used to having - expensive cars, the $10 designer cup of coffee, and things like that.

3. Fred and Frank ran their own business in the big city. After many years of hard work, they decided that the stress was too much and the competition too great. Rather than "ride it all the way down" they sold their business and made a nice profit, and moved to the country. Since they were too young to retire, this meant they had to find jobs, particularly to cover health insurance.

Today, they are both working, but making far less than they used to as self-employed businessmen. But they are happier, though. Less stress and less fuss. They socked away some money and are living comfortably off their reduced incomes, so they don't have to tap into their savings. Plus, they have health insurance - a big plus for folks during those "awkward years" from age 50-65.

4. Ralph worked as an Accountant for a big national firm. He was there for 20 years and made very good money. Then the market tanked, and he found himself out on the street. He applied for jobs like the one he had - with a corner office and a six-figure salary. But with all the unemployed accountants out there, he found the pickings pretty slim.

He refused to consider any related jobs - doing temp accounting work, bookkeeping for small businesses, setting up a tax consulting business, or the like. He always worked at a big company making big money, and that was what he was entitled to. But those jobs are gone for good. And when they do appear, they are given to younger accountants who will work for less money.

Depressed, he sits around the house, watching television and not bathing. It is pretty sad.

Ralph did a lot wrong here - including not saving money for the inevitable. He assumed that he would work at his job until age 65 and then retire. He assumed wrongly. And if he bothered to look at the actual careers of his fellow employees, particularly those senior to him, he would have understood that the odds of him being made Partner in the accounting firm were slim.

It is hard to give up on dreams like that, but you have to move on. Ralph needs to realize that those glory days are behind him - but that many more enjoyable days lay ahead. He needs to get off the sofa and back to work, even if it is just temp bookkeeping work at some small company using Quickbooks. Work is work, and even a few dollars an hour is better than the nothing you make sitting on the couch.


5. Sam was in the military for 20 years and then retired. Having been taken care of from sunrise to sunset for most of his adult life, it was hard to transition to "civilian life". But Sam is a hard worker and almost immediately got a job - any job, just to keep busy. He has enough socked away in retirement, plus his military pension.

But he works part time in retail to make some extra cash. Maybe he wants to buy a newer car, or perhaps take a vacation. Rather than tap into his savings, he works part time to pay for these things. And employers are happy to have someone who is mature and shows up on time. For them, Sam is a godsend, and they are more than willing to work around his schedule to keep him on board.

Sam, like the other characters above, is an composite of a number of folks I know. For people in the military, early retirement is pretty much a given, as after 20-30 years, you are out, unless you have a career path in the Pentagon (and even then, they boot you at age 65). Most folks I know who are former military have planned for the inevitable as a result, and usually start a second career after leaving the service.

6. Arnold worked for a large company that was downsizing. They offered him an "early out" if he would retire, and hand him a cash bonus for doing so. Arnold invested this money in some pretty dubious business schemes and lost a lot of it in the process. Since he was highly paid in his last job, he refused to take any other jobs he considered "beneath him." He never worked again.

While it is tempting to take an "early out" offer from your employer (and in many cases, it is a sign of the writing on the wall, so take it!) you should consider carefully how to invest any early out bonus or other money. Retirement is no time to be starting a business with your life's savings. That sort of thing is for young people, with lots of time, energy, and nothing to lose.

As we age, risk should not be part of our portfolio, and starting a business is about the riskiest thing you can do. You may succeed, but the odds are stacked against you. And if you lose it all, well, you can't just go back to work and earn it all back - you'll run out the clock first!

Invest retirement savings carefully and avoid tapping into them. Take a second job or start a small business that doesn't require a lot of capital up-front (the best and most successful businesses do not require huge investments up front anyway). Doubling down your bet with your retirement savings is probably not a good idea, however.

7. Gerald and Jane worked for many years, he in the legal business and she in retail.  They spent their money carefully, avoiding things like luxury cars, fancy houses or apartments, and expensive clothes.  They took nice vacations, however, and lived well.  After many years of hard work, they decided to take an early retirement.  Their investments had done well in the Stock market and it looked like they could live off these for the rest of their lives.

At first, it went well, but then the market took a turn for the worse.  Suddenly, it no longer looked like an early retirement was such a good idea.  Rather than whine about the unfairness of it all, Gerald found some temporary contract work that paid fairly well, while still allowing him to live a fairly unstructured life.  With a little extra income, early "retirement" - at least part-time, is possible.

They did the smart thing by socking money away and not spending money on foolish status items.  However, perhaps in retrospect, retiring early based on the euphoric market returns of the last decade was premature.  But both are hard workers and have money set aside, and thus will do well, regardless.


8. Tim had a cushy government job as a safety inspector.  It was a good fit for him, as he was virtually unemployable in the private sector.  Tim enjoyed smoking pot - a lot - and was constantly getting into trouble with bosses at work (the whole "problem with authority figures" thing).  He ended up getting shunted off to a job where he would annoy the least number of people, and it seemed like his future was fairly secure.

Then the recession hit and many State governments found themselves scrambling for money.  Laying off government employees, once considered to be unthinkable (or impossible) became a reality.  And Tim's bosses were all-too-happy to put him at the top of the layoff list.

No job is indispensable or "firing proof" - even in government, academia, or the military these days.  You may think "they can never fire me!" but they can, if you give them enough motivation.  Even in the government, if you make yourself a target, management will go to the extra effort.

Tim still hasn't come to grips with reality yet (the pot helps) and thinks the job market will "turn around" and he will find employment when that happens.  What he doesn't realize is that high-paying jobs are just not out there in the private sector, particularly for 55-year-olds who have been let go from the government.  Even lower paying jobs will be hard to find for someone with only academic skills and a pot-induced aversion to working with people.



* * * * * *

The list goes on and on. Early out is the norm these days, not the exception. I know dozens of people who took "early out" or were forced out, long before they wanted to retire. And in many cases, it was a stressful time for them. Assuming that their last salary was what they were "entitled to", they refused to take any subsequent job that paid less. And they refused to cut back on spending and lifestyle, in many cases, until it was too late.

What can you do to plan for an inevitable second career? And if you are given the axe, how can you transition into this second career? Let's take these one at a time.

First, stop spending money like a drunken sailor. The one thing every second career person says to me is that they wished they had saved more when they were making a hundred grand a year. They assumed the big paychecks would continue ad infinitium, so they went out and bought a fancy house, fancy cars, and spend money on booze, restaurants, expensive vacations - you name it.

Then the shit hit the fan, many were alarmed to discover that they had little in the way of accessible savings, and that retirement was nearly a decade away.

So sock away money while you can, if you can, if you have a good-paying job. Don't Assume your cushy job will go on forever - because it likely won't. Conditions change in our economy very rapidly these days. What was once a viable business model is bankrupt in a matter of years, not decades. So a "steady" job with Acme Widget company is no longer a guarantee of anything. Widgets will be obsolete in 5 years, if they aren't already.

Second, keep your ear to the ground at work. Many people claim to be "blindsided" by layoffs or firings. But if you pay attention to the company's bottom line and profit and loss statement, you will know months or years in advance that things are going to go sour. I wrote on this subject before as well. You also should have a good idea about your own job performance and whether or not you are a cost-effective asset to the company. If your work seems too easy and you are highly paid, you are one recession from a layoff. If your boss hates you, or a competing boss wants to take over your department, you should think about these things and take action.

Sometimes this may mean looking for a new job before you are laid off. Other times it may mean socking away your money and thinking about the second career ahead of time.

So what happens if you get the axe and now are out on the street in the worst recession since 1979? Well, relax, it ain't as bad as you think it is. I got a job in 1979. People were hiring back then - and they are today. They just aren't paying a hundred grand for a "human resources manager". You may have to hump a little harder and make a lot less. But life goes on and is worthwhile living. In fact, you may find yourself happier and having more fun than ever before.

First, chuck foolish pride. You'd be surprised how many people get depressed or even kill themselves because they have to sell the mini-mansion and the Mercedes. They spent a decade rubbing their success in everyone else's nose (so they think, no one really notices anymore) and now they have to eat humble pie.

Big deal. So you have to live in a smaller house and drive a Corolla. Welcome to the real world. All that fancy nonsense was just crappy overpriced junk, anyway. You can live well and live on a budget. But that means pride has to go - and that means selling off a lot of crap and not drinking $10 coffees and using restaurants as a kitchen.

You may find this a healthier lifestyle as well. Eating less and working more is a good antidote for the sedentary office lifestyle.

Second, realistically evaluate your options. The big-ticket job might come back - or it might not. But it doesn't hurt to find another job in the interim just to keep busy and put a little money in the bank. Why wait until you are dead broke and tapping into your 401(k) to break down and do what you should have done all along.

Figure out where your skill sets apply and then find jobs in related fields where you could fit in. You might not make nearly as much as before - but it beats sitting around doing nothing.

If this means a temp job, so be it. These can lead to permanent employment. But don't think of any work as "beneath you". Foolish pride, remember? There is honor and dignity in all work, but no honor or dignity in being unemployed out of spite.

I've worked all sorts of menial jobs in my life, from washing dishes, to cleaning restrooms. I was a Teamster once. I delivered pizzas. I tutored calculus. I was even a sex educator. And if the situation should arise where I have to, I'll go back to jobs like that - or others - if it means putting food on the table until I can retire.

The second career is something that you are more than likely to encounter in our new economy. Plan for it, prepare for it. Maybe you'll be one of the lucky few who works at the same job for your whole life, crowing your career achievement by rising to VP of sales and retiring with a fat pension. But today, this rarely happens anymore. Companies are finding it far cheaper to lay someone like that off and hire two younger people in their place. Fresher ideas, more work, and lower price make the choice pretty inevitable.

And the choice is yours. You can sit around and mope all day and whine about how unfair it all is, or you can swallow foolish pride and move on. And from the examples I have given above (which are composites of dozens of people I know), those who move on often find themselves enjoying life even more than when they were chasing false dreams at the "dream job".

And that's what life should be about - enjoyment, not status-seeking.

Emotional Baggage

People, who need people..... are the most annoying people in the world!
Avoid dealing with people with a lot of excess emotional baggage.

The phone rings this morning at 5:00 AM, far too early for a lawyer to be getting up (we get up when the sun is warm, thank you). My partner's co-worker is having car trouble. The car has been towed and someone is sick. It is unclear, as he sounds a little incoherent on the phone. Or maybe it is because it is FIVE AM IN THE MORNING AND WE'RE STILL ASLEEP!

For some reason, he calls us, because he thinks he won't be able to make it to work at 10:00, which is five hours from now..... Five hours? I could walk to work in that amount of time.

So, my partner tells him, in no uncertain terms, never to call at such an ungodly hour again, and what's more, he ain't his boss, so why the fuck is he calling us anyway, and to get a life, for God's sake!

No, actually, that last part didn't happen. Because at 5:00 AM you can't think that clearly, having been rousted from bed. So you say "Oh, well, OK, whatever" and only wish later on you'd read him the riot act.

People can be trouble, that's plain and simple. Particularly people who want to foist off onto you, their emotional problems, financial problems, and other issues. Why do they do this? How does it affect you? And more importantly, how can you avoid it?

The first part is simple. Foisting your problems off onto other people is like "borrowing" money from someone else and never paying it back. You come out ahead, no matter what. So, if you can get your co-workers to "cover" for you all the time, or you can get someone to listen to your long-winded boring problems for an hour, you can transfer some of the stress in your life onto them. And then you get to live stress-free.

Suddenly, your problems and concerns are paramount to everyone else, and if you play it right, you can get them to scurry around trying to "help you." So pretty soon, you've assembled a small army of friends who will cater to your every whim, whether it is giving you a ride to work, helping you move after you're evicted, or just being a shoulder to cry on (on a daily basis). Their emotional, physical, and financial needs of others are just not important!

Now granted, friends should help out friends from time to time.  But in a lot of cases, how this ends up working out is that the emotional baggage people end up taking - and taking and taking - and not giving. Friendship cannot and should not be a quid pro quo, of course.  But neither should it be abusive, either.

How this affects you is also clear, particularly when you are lying in bed at 5:05 in the morning, can't get back to sleep and are more than a little grumpy.  And when such calls end up causing stress in your relationship, you have to wonder at the unfairness of it all.

I mean, think about it.  The caller faces no negative consequences from his acts.   Maybe he gets his shift covered at the widget factory, or a free ride to work.  But the person on the receiving end of such a call gets an argument with their spouse, a lost night's sleep, and extra hours to work.  It is a pretty one-sided deal.

Clingy and abusive people can be stressful to your primary relationship, and because of this, you need to sever ties with such folks early on.  Many a marriage has gone down in flames because one partner has a needy friend who insinuates themselves into the relationship and has needs at all hours of the day and night.  It can be the crazy girlfriend who calls your wife at 3:00 AM with a "crises" of imagined proportions, or the husband's drinking buddy who is always calling from the hoosegow looking for bail money.

In either case, the phone call results in an argument between spouses - if they are not careful and understand these schemes from the get-go.  The one defends their irrational friend's action to his spouse, while the other spouse in turn, feels that the relationship has become abusive.  It can literally drive a wedge between spouses.

And you have to choose which is more important in your life, your husband or wife, or your college drinking buddies or your psychotic unmarried girlfriends? (or, I should add, to your childhood family members, such as brothers, sisters, cousins, and parents)

For most people, the choice should be crystal clear.  Your primary relationship is now to your spouse, and you need to distance yourself from the old crowd once you are married.  Moreover, once you are married, your best friend is now your spouse.  If you find yourself hanging out more often with a buddy or friend, chances are, the marriage won't last long - or it won't be a happy one.

Fortunately, when you get older, you get wiser to the ways of abusive people.  And while we had a good discussion this morning about the 5:00 AM call, we didn't let it get between us.

And that is the best way to deal with such people.   If you feel you are being drawn into an emotional trap by a clingy person, walk away from the relationship.  No one deserves early morning or late-night phone calls, or to be burdened with someone else's problems all the time.

True friendship should be an easygoing and enjoyable experience, most of the time.   If all you are getting is pain and discomfort, then chances are, what you have is not a friendship, but just an abusive relationship. And as they say, it takes two to tango, so ask yourself why you are letting yourself be sucked into such deals.

And as I noted in my That's What Friends Are For posting, there are some folks so obsessed with the need to have "Friends" that they will endure abusive relationships just to fill some inner need to be accepted.

And the emotional baggage people are counting on just that.....

Woot! Revisited

These USB rotating beacons might be useful for something. I am just not sure what, at the moment.....

NOTE: Shortly after I wrote this, Woot! was sold to Amazon.  Figures.  A decade later, I have yet to buy anything on Woot!  I suppose those beacons would have been good for my golf cart, or if I decided to start a snow-plow business.  Other than that, nothing.

* * * 

I have been stalking Woot! for a month or so now, and while I have yet to see anything I would want to buy, it is has been a fascinating look at the way retailing works on the Internet and in "real life".

So far, the only item they have sold that even might interest me was a Cuisinart paninni maker which was interesting in that I had bought one retail many years ago, and they were selling "refurbished" units for half-price. If they worked properly, it was not a bad deal. If, that is, you needed a panninni maker. I already have one.

And that's where it gets interesting. People buy from the site regularly and call themselves "Wooters". The log in every day and comment on the items for sale and/or buy them. It is a culture of consumerism, frankly.

And the website caters to this hard-core group, of course. Recently, they auctioned off a pair of Woot! rotating beacons, which run off a USB port. Why you would need these, I do not know, unless you are cubicle-bound and felt they would impress the guy in the next cubicle. They sold them cheap enough - enough to make me believe it was a loss-leader. But if something has no real function or use, is it really a "bargain"?

Coupled with this purchase was a bag of unknown stuff, given only to certain people, whose order number matched the Dow Jones average or some such nonsense. In other words, it was a grab-bag kind of deal.

Grab-bags have been around for ages, along with punch-boards, and other forms of primitive gambling. You give someone money, they give you a "mystery bag" or box or whatever. Maybe it is a gold ring inside, or a child's toy, or just some candy. You never know. And of course, as with most of these forms of primitive gambling, it is sort of a cheap rip-off. You never lose very much money on these deals, but you usually lose. And even if you "win", if the stuff you won is not something you needed or wanted, you actually lose.

So you just lose, actually.

Buying a grab-bag is not making a purchase. It is mere shopping - buying for the sake of buying things - buying stuff in the hope that it will make you happy or complete. Shopping is characterized by your purchasing an item based on it being presented to you, not your searching out an item you need and then negotiating a price.

And in that regard, Woot! is pure shopping. They present to you, an item at a price. Usually, the price is merely "OK" and the item is returned, refurbished, or otherwise surplus. Unless the incredible coincidence occurs that they present to you, an item that you have been looking for at that very moment, at a competitive price (and you don't mind having a refurbished item), then you are merely shopping, and chances are, buying something you don't really need or want.

You are buying for the experience of buying, not to make a strategic purchase.

And it is a brilliant marketing strategy, frankly.

Folding in traditional mall shopping with the online experience of a chat room, message board, facebook, or twitter, they create a virtual online community to reinforce the buying behavior. People are herd animals and will do what the herd says to do. And as a result, people visiting the site, who get drawn into the artificially created "community" will end up buying.

Yes, shilling on Woot! Does it happen? Well, ask yourself this, why wouldn't you shill the site? By this, I mean putting up postings from "users" who are actually employees or associates, saying nice things about the products offered.

But even if they don't shill their own site, there are people in this world who will unwittingly shill for you. On every discussion board, there are people who will parrot advertising pitches for products. Think about it - how many people walk around with product names emblazoned on their clothing or even tatoo'ed on their bodies? I'd be willing to bet there is some jerk out there with Woot! tatooe'd on his forehead by now.

So even without shilling, social network sites like this (and that is what it is, Facebook and home-shopping, together on one site!) will tend to produce a Greek chorus of normative cues, praising the products and the site.

And I am not picking on Woot! either. eBay has a similar effect, as people become addicted to surfing the site, looking for things they think they want, but really don't. They "shop" and buy stuff, for the thrill of purchasing. Even Craigslist is this way, and if you've tried to sell things on Craigslist, you know what I am talking about.

On both eBay and Craigslist, you get the chronic shoppers, who pepper you with questions about your item, but rarely, if ever, buy it. Or they say they want the item, but never pay or pick it up, which is frustrating. On Craigslist, these are the "dibs" people - they want to put down "dibs" on your item, but they never follow-up with the purchase.

Separating the culture of buying from actual purchasing is important, if you are going to take control of your spending habits. For many people, the process of purchasing is the whole deal - looking at items, having them carefully wrapped, handing over the credit card, signing the slip, and then coming home with boxes and bags of "purchases". You know what I am talking about, and women in particular are vulnerable to this habit (and are the target of most retailers).

But men, too, can be snagged by the shopping bug. I knew a fellow who went bankrupt this way - going to the mall and trying to find happiness in a Nordstrom's bag. When he finally declared bankruptcy, his closet was stuffed with shopping bags of purchases that were never worn, used, or even removed from the shopping bags. To him, the act of purchasing was the whole deal.

Get off the shopping bandwagon. It only clutters your life. The "must have" Woot! rotating beacons might seem like a neat thing now, but you will eventually toss them in the trash, and wonder why you clicked "I want one" when you did.....

High School

Americans obsess about High School, which is a huge source of material for books, television, and movies. Some folks either have fond memories of a Happy-Days bobby-soxer sort of high school experience. Many other have nightmarish memories of a Lord of the Flies kind of treatment.

While reading an article about new dystopian literature for youth the other day in the New Yorker, the following quote just jumped off the page at me:

Adults dump teen-agers into the viper pit of high school, spouting a lot of sentimental drivel about what a wonderful stage of life it’s supposed to be. The rules are arbitrary, unfathomable, and subject to sudden change. A brutal social hierarchy prevails, with the rich, the good-looking, and the athletic lording their advantages over everyone else. To survive you have to be totally fake. Adults don’t seem to understand how high the stakes are; your whole life could be over, and they act like it’s just some “phase”! Everyone’s always watching you, scrutinizing your clothes or your friends and obsessing over whether you’re having sex or taking drugs or getting good enough grades, but no one cares who you really are or how you really feel about anything.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/06/14/100614crat_atlarge_miller?currentPage=2#ixzz0tNGjb5Il

Wow, so it isn't just me! What I thought about this quote was not only that is clearly characterized the author's experience (negative, in case you didn't get it) but also something more. It really captured, in a few short sentences, how cruel the experience can be.  How parents "dump" their kids into the "viper pit" that is the adolescent social norms of high school.  nd how Adults smear platitudes such as "these are the best years of your life!" It is a wonder the teen suicide rate isn't higher. If high school truly was "the best years of my life" I would have ended it all long ago.

(Note to teens: No need to fret, life gets waaaay better as you get older. Not only do you get to have all the nice things you wanted as a kid, you get to meet real, honest, and decent people who are not superficial teenage jerks.  And a life-long love is something a teenager cannot feel or understand, and far better than a high school crush.    Oh, and the sex gets way better.  Way better.  Way, way better.  People like to think that teens are having all this hot sex, but in reality, most have less than many adults.  And usually it is awkward and inhibited.)

What made me stop and think (and re-read that paragraph several times) was that for some reason, we allow this sort of upbringing to go on, for decades, unchecked.  It is as if we think we have no choice in the matter.  High School sucks, except for a few popular people, and that's all there is to it.  Worse yet, many people feel this needs to be a metaphor for life - that life sucks and you'll have to deal with jerks all your life.  This is, of course, hardly the case.

Life is great.  And the great thing about being an adult is the ability to tell some jerk off - right to his face - if you want to.  You don't have to tolerate half the bullshit you do in high school.  High school is not a metaphor for life, unless perhaps you are serving a life sentence.

In real life, if someone is a jerk, you don't have to hang out with them.  You have a lot of choices in life and you should make use of them.  You can change careers, change jobs, change your life.  Unlike High School, which assigns you to 3rd period gym class, and that's that, you can choose how to live your life - and if some asshole wants to zing you in dodge ball, you can simply refuse to play.

And in real life, if someone punches you in the face, you call the Police and they go to jail. (As opposed to High School, where if some jock beats you, you get detention for "causing a commotion").  What's more, you get to sue them for damages in real life.  For some reason, we, as adults, who would never tolerate random assaults at work, expect it as the "norm" for adolescents, who are quite strong enough to do serious injury to one another - or even kill each other.

So why do we do this to our kids?  It is an interesting question and perhaps one that is being answered today.   After a number of school bullying incidents (which should not be confused with school shootings, most of which are related more to mental illness than to school bullying) many schools are taking a more proactive approach to bullying and poor treatment.  The school bully should not be the role model anymore.

And many folks are also using home-schooling as an alternative.  Granted, for many this is based on religious objections.  But the home-schooling movement is also based on the idea that you can give your child a better education at home and also instill better social values as well.

And oddly enough, some of the people who had the worst experiences in High School are the first to decry home schooling as somehow evil.  Initially, I was sucked in by this belief, thinking that home schoolers were crackpots.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that an alternative to "The Government School" is not a bad idea.  In fact, it is a great idea.

Sending your kids off to learn low-self-esteem, drug use, and teen sex is not necessarily a good thing. But that is what local schools teach, by placing kids in largely unsupervised social situations and then allowing them to sort it out for themselves.  Kids egg each other on, and usually this results in lowest common denominator behavior becoming the norm.

Schools like to blame parents for the failures of the children they teach. "If only the parents took time to read to their kids!" the say, or "As a school, it is not our job to instill social values - that is the parent's job!"  Both are lame excuses, however.

Schools occupy a large space in a child's life.  In terms of waking hours, school occupies more time than parenting (and is second perhaps only to television).  And schools - intentionally or not - teach poor social skills in their little "Lord of the Flies" experiment that has been running for several decades now.  By refusing to get involved in the socialization of students, they are, in effect, creating social cues.  Deciding not to decide is still making a decision.

Why do schools do this?  Why don't we change it?  To some extent, it is the nature and structure of schools.  Many, if not most, of the teachers are uninspired government workers with little incentive to do anything other than teach to the lesson plan and get through the day.  Order and discipline are hard to maintain, particularly in an era where parents appeal every action and get lawyers involved when Johnny can't read.  The self-enforcement of the adolescent social structure is used by school administrators much as the system of snitches and trustys is used by Prison Wardens to maintain order there.  Why enforce order when you can get the inmates to do it for you?

To those who say that the way High Schools work can't be changed, or argue that somehow this is part of the inherent nature of High School, I say, bunk.  College is an interesting contrast to High School and illustrates how changing the social rules and their enforcement affects how people behave.  In college, students are given more work and more responsibility - and more freedom.  And for the most part, they work harder and spend less time on socializing.  And the key thing is, they don't have to be there - they can fail and in fact are quite likely to do so.

Granted, many colleges are turning into extended high schools, and the bad adolescent behavior of high schoolers is finding its way more and more into college.  But in a college, you are less likely to be forced to socialize with those you don't care for - particularly after the freshman year.  Since you specialize in certain courses as time progresses, you are not forced into social situations not of your own making.   And the cost and difficulty of college make it a much more serious business - at least in most cases.  Again, the creeping effect High School (and our extension of childhood well into the 30's) is probably having a negative effect here.

But college, at least for me, was an entirely different experience than high school.  There was no "social structure" of popular girls and jocks, for example.  At Syracuse University, you never saw the football players, except on the field.  You didn't share the same space or even knew they were there, frankly.  In a school of 20,000 students, it is hard for any one group to be a dominate social force.

So could the lessons of college be applied to High School?  Perhaps.   Perhaps the first thing we learn from this is that High School is too easy.  We send kids off there for four years to basically get maybe 2 years of education.   Students spend only hours a day there (from 8 until 2 these days) and most of those hours are spent in "gym", "study hall", and "lunch".  There is a lot of fluff in the schedule - a lot of free time. And when you mix teenagers and free time, well, bad things happen.

UPDATE:  Many high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools are making up for limited classroom hours by assigning staggering amounts of homework.  To me, this seems like the ultimate abdication of the responsibility of teachers to teach - they are instead sending kids home with a "learn it yourself kit".   A good teacher should be able to teach the subject matter in class, and no rely on homework for the learning experience.

Rather than extend childhood further and further, as we are doing today in our society (most people in this country do not "grow up" until they are 30, if ever) perhaps we need to condense it - or at least offer this as an option.

When I was in high school, I met a friend who told me he was graduating nearly two years earlier than normal.  What a racket!  Intrigued, I asked my guidance counselor (a complete loser, by the way, how do you get to be a high school guidance counselor when you've failed at everything else?  Or perhaps that is the credential) about this, he said, "uh, well, no, that's not for you."

By taking summer courses and increasing his regular course-load, he was able to knock a year and a half off his high school experience and skip graduation altogether . Sounds like a plan to me!  Perhaps they don't want to offer this option to too many people, as they would be afraid too many would take it - and expose how little is actually taught in high school.

And that is the ultimate joke.  If you drop out of high school, you can get a "GED" diploma, simply by taking a few weeks of a study course and then a test.   The GED is not a joke on the people who take it, but a joke on the rest of use who wasted four years getting the regular diploma.

This is not to say the High School experience was not without some merit.  There were a few good courses here and there.   But since the content is stretched out over weeks and weeks, with nearly a 3-month break in the summer) it really dilutes the impact of it all.

Perhaps the naysayers are right - you can't change High School anymore than you can change adolescence.  Both will be awkward and difficult periods in life.

But maybe as adults, we can change our behavior.  We can stop saying stupid things like "These are the best years of your life" - because in most cases, they aren't.

Life does begin at 40.....

The Kitchen Garden

If you like to garden, it makes sense to raise vegetables, rather than flowers or shrubs. A small vegetable garden can be fairly easy to raise, cost little, and put food on your table.

Gardening is a popular hobby in America - one that people spend, collectively, billions of dollars a year on. All the big-box stores have huge garden sections, selling all sorts of accessories to make your home the perfectly landscaped suburban nightmare. People spend hundreds of dollars, if not thousands, on non-native plants that are difficult to grow, and then more on chemicals to kill weeds and bugs or to artificially fertilize the soil.

And the payback for all of this is often only a few sickly-looking rose plants. What's the point in that?

These same folks would decry a vegetable garden as "too much work" or "too much weeding". But that really is not true. And unlike some specimen plant, most vegetables are hardy plants and - here is the big kicker - give you something tangible back in the form of edible food.

Should you plant a vegetable garden? Maybe. A lot of people make big mistakes in planting a garden, and end up frustrated as a result. If you plan a garden carefully, it can be an inexpensive supplement to your weekly groceries, that takes little or no effort to maintain. Poorly planned, it is a maintenance nightmare, produces little in the way of food, and is also an eyesore in your back yard.

START SMALL is the first key. Many folks get overly ambitious and plow up a 20' x 20' plot (or larger) to plant a huge vegetable garden. Such a plot requires a lot of work, from weeding and tending, to watering, and as such, is a bad idea for the novice gardener.

Many folks plant such gardens away from their house, so they are difficult to tend. So-called "community gardens" particularly suffer from this problem, in that you have to get into your car and drive, to tend them. This is not a practical solution for daily living.

Locate your garden near your house. Yes, a vegetable garden can look a bit unruly at times, but the convenience factor is a big plus. Animals are generally afraid to come too near your house, so it helps deter veggie-thieves. Plus, being with watering hose distance makes life a lot easier, as regular watering is the key to a healthy garden.

Fencing is important, too, as deer and rabbits will strip a garden bare in short order. Gardens away from your house, un-fenced, will be eaten alive in no time. Most amateur gardeners go through this experience and then give up on the process, convinced it is not worthwhile.

We decided to replant a raised planter with vegetables this year. It is 20 feet long and about 2.5 feet wide. As a raised planter, it is easy to tend, and since it is right next to the house, and a hose spigot, it is a simple matter to tend to it for about 10 minutes every morning after breakfast. Pull a few weeds, give it some water, and maybe pick a handful of lettuce and a tomato.

We planted seeds for some plants. Seeds are cheap, and these were actually given to us by a friend, for free. You can jump-start the process by buying pre-started plants, like tomatoes, peppers, and the like.

I would suggest avoiding some plants, like corn. Corn takes up a lot of space, depletes the soil, and let's face it, looks like hell. And the farmer down the street can sell you a dozen ears for far, far less than what it would cost you to plant your own.

Concentrate on a few simple things that can compliment your diet. Arugula will grow in concrete and it will produce edible lettuce within a few weeks (more than you want!). Herbs are another winner, as nothing adds flavor to a meal like fresh herbs. Tomato plants are great, as fresh tomatoes off the vine are far better to the engineered kind from the grocery.

Picking the vegetables on a regular basis is also key. There is no pre-set "harvest time" for your kitchen garden. Need a salad? Go pick one. Tomatoes are ripe? Eat them now.

If the gardening bug catches on, you might want to think about expanding your garden the next year. But beware, it can take over your life. Before you know it, you are setting up a greenhouse to start your plants early, and plowing up more and more of your land. If you want to make a career of this, fine - many people do.

But for me, I will be content with my little kitchen garden!

UPDATE:  We enjoyed our kitchen garden - we had to fence it in and put a net across the top to keep out raccoons and birds.  A small garden is a lot easier to fence in, to be sure.  You can end up spending more on a garden than you get back in produce, so be careful!  Also, if you travel a lot, it is a non-starter.  A garden of any sort ties you to your home.  If you are a homebody or work all the time (and thus come home every night or work from home) it may work.

But as out neighbor illustrated, you can't just put out a couple of tomato plants and go away for three weeks and expect tomatoes when you come back.  The raccoons really appreciated them, though!