You Know You Are Old When

[WinterDeere]

Words are more powerful now then ever except when they are not…

I see what you did there, Winston.

...NC which is a right to work state... Very easy to get terminated without cause down south than it is up north from what I've seen.

PA is also a RtW state, and we're north of the Mason-Dixon. Employers expect and try to extort 2-3 weeks notice, but usually show employees the door with no warning or severance, when they're no longer deemed necessary.

Despite the opportunity for abuse, I actually thing the system has more pros than cons, and I'd hate to live and work in any place where useless or troublesome employees are retained for the simple reason that it's less costly than getting rid of them. We see too much of that in Europe, and to a lesser degree, even some of the more liberal US states.

 

[ultrarunner]

My brother worked for UPS and had another job lined up…

Standard practice is when you give 2 week notice they send you home and pay your 2 weeks so my brother thought a nice 2 week paid vacation.

His supervisor said we are short so making exception where you have to work your last 2 weeks… :-(

 

[MossRoad]

No one in the family had the build of my grandfather who was amateur gymnast in his youth.

In his 70’s still spry and wiry able to do handstands and hop fences with the grandkids…

I see fewer men with this build today… grandfather was born 1896 and I remember every day he would have 1 small glass of beer with supper… never 2.

Breakfast 2 poached eggs and I have not heard of poached eggs in 30 years…

In the family home growing up I would run up and down the stairs skipping steps… don’t know when that exactly stopped but I hold onto the banister now!

Even with my spine fusion a few months ago I still take the stairs two at a time, just slower. It's a habit I picked up in my youth. We had about 150 steps down to a lake in our back yard. If you took them one at a time, it was way more tiring than two at a time, and a heck of a lot faster.

I won many a race against much older/bigger kids that would visit our house. Down and back was the race. Most had to stop before they made it back up.

Then I'd grab two oars, an anchor, a life jacket, a tackle box and a fishing pole and run down and back again. For a tiny kid, I was in pretty good shape!

 

[MossRoad]

I actually don't have a problem with this type of bottle.

Me neither, but plenty of folks do. Especially with arthritis.

 

[MossRoad]

That was what Moss posted, which I replyed to.

There's a pill for that.

 

[MossRoad]

That’s a term of my parent’s generation (born 1940), I remember hearing it as a kid. But having looked it up at some point as an adult, I never really understood the point of the word, as it literally means “any spirit with any soda in a tall glass”.

Maybe there are regional assumptions, such that it’s always a Scotch and soda in one part of the country, bourbon and ginger ale in another, and even a gin and tonic somewhere else? They’re all highballs, and I’d hate to order a highball, wondering which I’m going to get.

I do enjoy gin and tonic, but you might lose a finger if you pour soda into my Scotch, or ginger ale into my bourbon.


A former boss of mine was into body building when he was young, and still in good shape at age 60-something, when he wiped out running up a spiral staircase one day. Showed up at work on crutches, and we all took our turns jabbing at him about getting old.

I was probably only in my late 30’s at that time, and I still remember when he looked at me and said, “someday you’re going to look in the mirror and wonder who the eff that old guy looking back at you is.” He went on to explain he still felt and thought of himself as 18 or 20 inside, and seeing the wrinkles and gray hair in the mirror made him feel like he was looking at a stranger.


Eggs Benedict! You know, the slightly less healthy sibling, served with ham and Hollandaise sauce.

Wine highball at our house meant wine with some seven up to make it fizzy.

 

[MossRoad]

My brother worked for UPS and had another job lined up…

Standard practice is when you give 2 week notice they send you home and pay your 2 weeks so my brother thought a nice 2 week paid vacation.

His supervisor said we are short so making exception where you have to work your last 2 weeks… :-(

No money, no work. No work, no money.

It's a business transaction. That's how I ended up not being bitter when we all got let go at my last job when they outsourced production. They paid me. I worked. The end.

 

[Sigarms]

PA is also a RtW state, and we're north of the Mason-Dixon.

Having started working in Pa after I graduated from college, and years later when I found the career I was looking for and moving back to Pennsylvania you made me look. I think you are incorrect that Pa is a right to work state as I looked.

Pennsylvania is a "non right to work state".

I won't lie, I always get confused by the definitions but having worked for years up north and then coming south, and the biggest difference I can tell you as a layman is that down south, you don't really need a reason to terminate someone, where as up north, there seem to a lot of rules what a company can and can't do if they want to let someone go.

That said, luckily never been fired or terminated, so I can't speak from first hand knowledge.

 

[MossRoad]

I always note that whenever I have to take a online sexual harassment class, EVERY woman they show is smoking hot. The men look like models as well LOL

Generally women in a trade industry can throw it around just as well as the men.

I once said "SH**" in front of a female worker. I looked at her and apologized for my language. She asked me what the F*** was my problem?

Glad I don't work in a hospital.

My mother in-law had a job on the assembly line at AM General making army trucks. All the guys had centerfolds in the lids of their toolboxes. So my mother in-law brought in her centerfold of Burt Reynolds and put it up in her tool box. Only a couple guys gave her crap about it. Everyone else had a good laugh and said fair is fair.

 

[Sigarms]

My brother worked for UPS and had another job lined up…

Standard practice is when you give 2 week notice they send you home and pay your 2 weeks so my brother thought a nice 2 week paid vacation.

His supervisor said we are short so making exception where you have to work your last 2 weeks… :-(

I never knew a company to send you home and pay you two weeks if you gave a 2 week notice and you didn't have 2 weeks of vacation accrued to cash out.

You give two weeks and expect to be let go, but...

I didn't give two weeks notice, but one boss I had was very good to me. I wanted to leave, and I just told him he should be looking at someone to replace me (I had another job lined up but didn't say anything). He looked at me and asked if I had anything lined up, and I just told him that he needed someone capable to fill the position and I knew it would take time on his end and he should find someone.

I worked there for another 3 months to help my boss out. I loved him, but I absolutely hated all the rules and regulations from corporate (located halfway across the US) and couldn't wait to leave that company, but I did stay for HIM and not the company.

I was blessed that the company hiring me could wait and they understood the position of what I was doing.